Gleaning Local History: Community-based Digitization Experiences in Rural Washington

摘要

Despite their different approaches to community-based digitization, all three organizations faced similar challenges. Copyright research, documentation, and permissions gathering certainly added to each project's overall work burden. Training and oversight of volunteers and less-experienced staff required vigilant leadership and constant quality assurance. The capacity for imaging a wide variety of materials - especially oversized materials - was often a major stumbling block; two of the three organizations reported that they would have gladly allotted significantly more of their grant funding to the purchase of a large-format flatbed scanner had they realized how much of an issue this would be. "Project creep" was a regular threat, and libraries had to keep project goals and scope-of-collection considerations at the forefront of all their selection decisions (even if this meant occasionally disappointing private contributors). Gathering accurate descriptions and contextual information was, and remains, a challenge; in all cases, local history experts contributed significantly to metadata creation.