LIS-S 651 Digital Collections
3 credits
- Prerequisite(s): LIS-S 500, LIS-S 507. Also, either S584 or S634 is required as a prerequisite.
- Delivery: Online
- Semesters offered: Spring (Check the schedule to confirm.)
Description
This course engages advanced students in designing and developing digital collections in real-world library and information settings. Students create digital objects and use industry-standard digital content management systems to build and test their collections for usability, findability, and accessibility. Library and information science professionals design and develop digital collections to meet the varied needs of their stakeholders and users. Along the way, collection managers must collaborate with individuals, communities, government agencies, corporations and other entities to ensure these collections meet the needs of users by being easy to access and use. This course explores both the theory and practice of digital collections in academic/research, government, public, and community settings. The course will include both born digital and digitized objects and topics will include planning and funding, the digitization process, digital archiving, digital preservation, curation, and sustainability. It will also cover different types of content management systems and demonstrate the basic use of CONTENTdm and Omeka. Other important themes will be: preservation and access, user behavior, quality control and assessment.
Program Learning Goals Supported
Instructors map their courses to specific LIS Program Goals. Mapped program goals drive the design of each course and what students can expect to generally learn.
- Curate Collections for Designated Communities
- Innovate Professional Practice with Information Services and Technology
Learning Outcomes
Instructors develop learning outcomes for their courses. Students can expect to be able to achieve the learning outcomes for a given course after successfully completing the course.
- Appraise the concepts of metadata theory and metadata standards
- Compare and contrast various digital collections and how they support information-seeking behavior
- Create a plan for funding, implementing and assessing a digital collection
- Map metadata schemes
- Use a DAM (Digital Asset Manager) for uploading a digital collection
- Create and apply guidelines associated with digitization and digital collections (e.g., best practices, file formats, digital objects, protocols, metadata standards, controlled vocabulary).
Course Overview
Instruction is in Canvas. Lessons are organized into Modules whose length may vary.
Module 1: Digital Objects
- Key concepts and approaches
- Place within libraries, archives and special collections
- Aggregation: DPLA, Internet Archive, and beyond
- Overview of digital objects
- Material types
- Key terms and definitions
- Technical specifications
Module 2: Project planning and Selection
- Why digitize?
- Preservation and access
- Collection policy
- Audiences, stakeholders, partners
- Funding
- Assessment
- Copyright
Module 3: The User
- Definitions: usability versus accessibility and searchability
- Information-seeking behavior
- UX and information architecture
Module 4: Digital Content Management Systems
- Difference between this and institutional repository
- Open source versus subscription
- Other considerations: file hosting, sustainability
Module 5: Building a collection+ Metadata
- Preparation
- Documenting the process
- MAPS and other collection guides
- Time management/Building a workflow
- Metadata
- Standards and best practices
- Managing partner-generated/crowdsourced metadata
- Metadata cleanup
- Quality control
Module 6: Scanning
- In-house scanning
- Outsourced scanning
- Quality control
Module 7: Processing
- File types
- File conversion
- OCR
- Digital preservation
Module 8: Application of knowledge with an out-of-the-box CMS
- CONTENTdm
Policies and Procedures
Please be aware of the following linked policies and procedures. Note that in individual courses instructors will have stipulations specific to their course.