Meeting notes
CDC Digital Collections TF
10.10.03
-we first talked about what we are interested in getting out of this group, in addition to the goals. Some points were brought up, two being.
-some kind of definition or at least discussion of “what are Digital Collections”, what is their purpose and what are their components.
-what are the criteria for creating a good digital collection
-potentially developing the beginnings of a vision for digital collections at the library
-setting a base line to get some libraries up to speed, but also developing a good base from which to potentially get more grants.
-information and communication were also stressed as something we’d want to emphasize or improve in the library, in terms of communicating our work and also trying to facilitate further communication about digital collections and their development in the library.
-We also commented on some additions to the proposed meeting schedule. Cesar had some interesting things to say about consortial agreements and problems with working with other universities’ bureaucracies. We will probably address this next time but it was a good taste of the kinds of opinions each member of the group can bring to the discussion.
We briefly talked about the Digital Landscape Survey (www.yale.edu/diginv) which everyone is welcome to look at. It has a list of some Yale University digital collections. There is one attempt at a definition of a “digital collection” on that site. The working group will be meeting with the Steering Committee later this month, and we’ll hopefully have some idea about where this project will be going after that time. In the meantime, this list can give us an idea of the wide range of projects at Yale.
Advantages:
-Takes access out of the university library hours to 24 hour access anywhere
-Preservation in that people are not using the material every day
-new ways of using the material and searching the material: flexibility of access
-Access to the rest of the world, particularly in the case of materials where we have unique materials not available in their home countries (national patrimony)
-different levels of access: basic to specialized
-finding new things in old material
-a change to process material that hasn’t been processed or is not available, or people don’t know its there
Reasons for starting these projects
-PR/Good Will, particularly in cases of National Patrimony, New Haven materials, as there is intense dislike of US and European collections and this may help people improve their image of Western libraries
Next time we will continue this discussion. In addition, we’ll look at YUL’s digital collections and discuss what we’d like to know about them (how they started, with what funds, what were the conditions under which they developed) in order to learn more. We can also begin to talk about digital collections at other libraries or outside of Yale.
Each of us will contribute one outside digital collection we’ve used to discuss in order to start off that conversation.
comments to: Jen Weintraub