from geekandpoke

I’m just in the midst of reading this ITHAKA S+R report on the sustainability of digital “projects.” It’s one of those reports where the basic ideas are so simple, but you didn’t realize that you knew them until you read it. Among the things that they suggest are vital to sustainability of projects:

• Dedicated and entrepreneurial leadership (this could also be ongoing leadership: how many digitization projects do you know of that fell apart or became static after the project manager left)?
• A clear value proposition (as in clear evidence of the value of the project)
• Minimizing direct costs (hello appropriate outsourcing!)
• Developing diverse revenue sources (of course that’s a dirty word in some parts of the academy)
• Clear accountability and metrics for success

The question I am increasingly coming to grips with is: In an era of “Do More with Less” what priority does digitization take in the grand scheme of library work? Especially since a lot of us are still out there at the grass roots level trying to raise support. We know that there is a future for this material, but in some cases our faculty don’t yet fully realize what they can do with it (Digital Humanists aside). They may be pleased to be able to replicate as much of their traditional research paradigm online as they can, but it’s hard to argue that we need twice as many resources so we can provide redundant online and in-house services. The small but growing field of Digital Humanities can be effective partners, but they are just one group. Even our own fellow librarians may not be able to grasp how it is more than “putting pictures online”.

In the face of possibly taking another 10% budget cut here that will reduce the staff even further, is digitization the priority? If we do have to cut back, what do we deem the essential activities:

• Digitization, but less robust metadata
• Digitization and metadata but little to no preservation activity
• Very limited further development of repository tools (this includes both public and administrative tools)

Obviously, a lot of work done by the digital curation communities (DigCCurr, DCC, and ICPSR being among the most prominent) can be a guide, but studies of sustainability seem to reinforce the idea that we can’t cut back, that the only way to ensure that these materials meet their potential is to continue to invest resources into maintaining them, and even to increase those resources into the future. So instead of cutting back as above, should I as project manager begin looking into more diverse and creative ways to find funding outside of my organization’s budget? Is it time to create the “digital swear jar” that Ann and I used to joke about (in which we would put an online donation link in the repository and ask people to donate a dollar every time they swore)?

On the one hand, this is good. We’ve completed a number of larger projects this year and our student workers can really focus on projects involving similar formats and workflows, increasing efficiency. However, now the tide has turned and several members of the Special Collections department are asking to have the pdfs “attached” to the finding aid (which, to us means, deposit it in the repository, create metadata, store for the long-term with the best methods possible…because the whole point is to organize all this digital ephemera not just have it “attached” to the finding aid).

So now I have the proverbial Angel on one shoulder and Devil on the other:

Angel: Access to something is better than nothing!
Devil: But pdfs of photographs and manuscripts? Ew.
A: They are perfectly readable online, i.e. access ready
D: But we don’t have a built in pdf viewer…yet…
A: We have asked, and gotten, identifiers, titles, and descriptions which is all we ask for to begin a digitization request anyway
D: But should we spend so much time on improving the metadata (which we will eventually do, if we follow the current workflow) of pdfs?
A: They are already just sitting around on servers, why not use them?
D: But if we deposit them, think of all the overhead involved? Would we be committing to digital preservation?
A: Aren’t you just being a snob?
D: No, I’m being a good steward of resources!

So I leave it to you, collaborators, what would you do?

a) The vast majority of graduate-level library school students begin my class equating digitization with digital preservation. While digitization can be a component of digital preservation (e.g., film-to-video transfer), I think the vast majority of us would agree that this is not the case. I think many of us in the “digital field” assume that our colleagues in other areas of the library profession understand this, but I assert that this may not be the case. If the new crop of librarians coming through our programs don’t (and students at San Jose are as smart and savvy as students in on-site programs), it is fair to think that at least a few of our colleagues who have been working in reference, circulation, administrative, or other “non-digital” library roles for a few years may need a refresher.

Even WordPress knows it is wrong.

b) Many (OK, maybe it is only several, but it feels like many) of my students begin the course using the term “digitalization.” I suggest that if they are Canadian or British that I can understand why they might use it, but that they should stop. Immediately. Because those of us working in the field will (1) quit reading their resumes when we come to that word in their cover letter assuming that they don’t really know what they are talking about, or (2) snicker behind their backs when we hear them say it, and don’t take what they have to say seriously. Now, I realize that isn’t very nice to tell a newcomer to the field, but I look at it as tough love. If I’m honest with them now, I am sparing them the pain (and cost!) of rejection later.

c) They are amazed at how challenging digital preservation really is. Can’t I just save my files to a DVD/jump drive/hard drive/pick your media, and forget about it? Nope. I equate it to caring for a toddler. You *think* you can leave them alone for a few minutes while you wash the dishes and fold some laundry, but when you locate them again, they are typically covered in Playdoh(tm), finger paints, mud, soapy water, or all of the above. It’s the same with digital files. You think you can burn them to a CD or save them to your hard drive, graduate from school, get a new job, get married, and those files will be happily living on that media. And then. Disaster strikes. Files on the CD don’t open; your computer’s hard drive dies. Just like kids, you’ve got an ongoing responsibility and a lot of work ahead of you to ensure that they don’t just survive, but that they live long, safe, and “happy” lives.

While I may not be providing any dramatic or new insight into these issues, it is a good reminder to us all to remember how we talk about these issues and how patrons and librarians who are not as active in this aspect of our field think about them. It isn’t just about ensuring the longevity of our digital “stuff,” but it is also about making sure that people understand the hard work you do to make sure that their “stuff” is safe.

My two cents on this hot June day in North Carolina.

1. their architecture (physical)
2. their librarians (departments)
3. their collections (special -> digital)

The most flexible and adaptable of these differentiating factors, then, will most likely be our websites and digitized items (eventually, perhaps, our “linked data”). Certainly the physical architecture of the libraries will change most slowly, but with an average website “face-lift” occurring — let’s say — every three years, presently it may actually be the case that the average time frame of personnel shift amongst libraries/departments is approximately equal to any major attention lavished on the website and/or the addition/migration of major digitized collections. But soon, surely, it will be indisputable that it’s our digital collections alone that will be our most adaptable differentiating factor.

As such, it will equally be the most powerful method to level the variances between our libraries (think “open source software”) and, paradoxically, also the most powerful method to differentiate our libraries (think local developments on top of “open source software”). Furthermore, though our digitized surrogates will certainly retain the provenance of their real-world counterparts by means of metadata, my contention is that in the eventual wake of the mass digitization of special collections, major research libraries will only be distinguishable by — not three — but just two things:

1. their architecture
2. their librarians

And so, as our most unique resources become de-referenceable, these acts will slowly but eventually erase all differences in our collections (barring, of course, or perhaps only being slowed by, forced authentication and registration of online “researchers”) and return libraries to a pre-website state.

Rather than being feared, however, this should be our ultimate goal. Though universities will certainly retain their differences and specialties, the special collections of the libraries (those available online) will become the collections of all (of course, libraries will still need to maintain these collections, but it’s likely that they’ll perform this as a shared and proportionally balanced duty).

I should clarify, though: being returned to a “pre-website state” will not mean that a library will suddenly cease to exist online. Rather, the library’s online existence will no longer be controlled and contained, at least not in the same manner (and the site, as we know it now, might simply not need to exist).   And this, finally, brings me back to Flickr, a small but timely example of the changes ahead.

But first, I should say, I had little to no experience with Flickr when setting out to include a sample of ECU’s digital collections  (http://www.flickr.com/photos/ecu_digital_collections). I mention this at the onset to highlight Flickr’s ease of use and, also, the potential reasoning behind my false steps along the way, especially since I ended up working through the necessary steps in, literally, a backward fashion.

What follows is a bullet-list summary of my experience in the process so far (and please feel free to ask me about any particulars).

Basic steps:

• Requested a free, non-commericial API from Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/services/api/)
• Selected public domain/copyright free items to share
• Batched and resized images to save space (wanted to be under the free account’s 100 MB/month cap)
• Wrote an XSLT stylsheet to remove just a few pieces of data from our METS record
  1. Title
  2. Description
  3. Date
  4. Persistent URL
• Added just one or two tags to each image based on “format” and “virtual collection” (opted not to add our subjects as tags or to display them at all)
• Used a text editor to take the output and put into a Python file, generally making sure that I wrapped strings in triple quotes
• Finally, I used “Beej’s Python Flickr API kit” for the mass upload and user authentication

Next steps:

• Update my old images with “machine tags“, as I neglected this in my first round
• Add a new set (the free account lets you have up to three)
• Get the Pro account
• Use the API to funnel the comments and tags from Flickr to our site, thereby linking user-supplied data from this Flickr image to that same image in our digital repository, which doesn’t yet have that comment or tag.
• Join The Commons on Flickr if approved

And things to consider if you set up a Flickr account:

• Don’t select a birthday that would make you under 18, or else you’ll need to use a credit card to verify parental consent (as if that alone won’t make everyone underage grow up quite quickly)
• If you’re using a free account, remember that though you’re able to upload 100MB a month, only your 200 most recent images will be displayed

Some interesting Library/Flickr articles to read:

• Historical Photos in Web Archives Gain Vivid New Lives by Noam Cohen
• Developing an Academic Image Collection with Flickr by Jeremy McWilliams

And finally:

As our collections continue to disperse in the digital age, and as our collections begin to arrive in a predominately digital format, it’s my hope that we’ll be able to receive donations that can be shared online without restrictions.

At the same time, SAA and archivists in general will need to vigilantly campaign against the potential misappropriation of our collections. Though commercial partners and vendors might not offer to digitize our special collections for free, they will certainly come knocking on the doors soon enough, explaining that they can host our vast collections; but in this respect I hope that we do not yield. If we do, we’ll surely trap not only our libraries, but also our users; and, being a trap, the situation won’t come equipped with something as user-friendly as the Flicrk API to permit the free passport of our collections and users. Certainly, then, there’s no reason that we shouldn’t already be imagining the equivalent of the Hathi Trust for our special collection materials.

This work is relevant for several reasons. Someday, these contemporary documents will be historical documents. That is, if they exist at all. If they are not saved, our history goes with them. That’s just a simple fact. But the value of this work goes far deeper. I mean, we preserve the physical (read: paper) copy of the Declaration of Independence to ensure that we do not forget our ideals of democratic government; we preserve Abraham Lincoln’s letters not only as a testament to his strength, influence, and unconquerable spirit, but also for the historical importance of their content in documenting the activities of a sitting president. It is no less important to preserve the intellectual output of our public servants today because they create it with computers and not quill pens. In 2008, we elected the first female governor in North Carolina’s history. Shouldn’t her tenure be documented and saved?

On another level, this work is important for those who cannot (or can no longer) afford to travel to pursue their research. Because of budget cuts, many of us cannot travel right now, no matter how important it is to the work we do. This will continue to worsen before it gets better. For researchers, limiting funds for travel can be devastating. Content offered through digital repositories can play a huge part in aiding these patrons. And, as more researchers opt for online over in-person visits, many of us have begun tracking their needs and digitizing in response to them.

The problem is that many libraries around the country are facing significant budget and staffing cuts. Our own Library is, as well. The funny thing is that many indicators* point to library usage increasing during economic downturns. In this era of online everything, will our web stats increase as much, or more, than our turnstile counts? And if so, are we ready to respond to that usage? How do we offer the services that patrons need with a smaller budget and fewer staff? I’m betting on our online services to help us weather this storm. And, we’ll continue to do our part in preserving democracy by providing free access to government information.

* See, for instance, http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008630228_libraries15.html, http://www.wickedlocal.com/braintree/archive/x511410985/Library-use-booms-during-economic-downturn, http://www.stevenspointjournal.com/article/20081215/SPJ0101/812150372/1657, and http://blog.njla.org/archives/2009/01/

Ms. [Victoria] McCargar [a digital preservation consultant] estimates that 20,000 people work in the field today — plus others in related areas — and she expects that to triple over the next decade, assuming that economic conditions stabilize before long.

I suppose that amidst budget cuts and hiring freezes all over the place, we should consider this good news. I would definitely say there’s a big difference, though, between the jobs of digital collections managers in libraries/archives and those in the private sector, for instance, for “experts on digital copyright and other issues tied to the migration of legal documents from filing cabinets to databases.” The following quote from Jacob Nadal at UCLA struck me:

“We belong to the people of California and hold our collections in trust for them and for future generations of students, scholars and members of the public,” he said. “Public-sector institutions just strike me as far, far cooler. They have better collections, obviously, and they are innovative, connected and challenging in ways that seem more substantial to me.”