What is Reformatting?
Overview of Issues
LDI Procedures
Reformatting Services
Standards and Other Documentation
WHAT IS REFORMATTING?
Reformatting refers to the processes
of transforming material from its native format to an alternate
format:
- to enhance one's ability to identify items
or collections (e.g., conversion of finding aids from print
to encoded text), or
- to make a surrogate available in lieu
of the original for searching, browsing, study (comparison,
analysis), reprinting, or other purposes, or
- to replace original material that is no
longer usable
OVERVIEW OF ISSUES
Digitizing historic materials presents five managerial and
technical challenges:
- Achieving appropriate outcomes for source
materials
- Harvard conservators are available
to assess the condition of items prior to digitization
and to provide advice or training in the safe handling
of materials (contact Pamela
Spitzmueller in the Weissman Preservation Center)
- Creating digital reproductions with sufficient
quality to meet current and anticipated use requirements
- metadata
ensure that these reproductions may be located, used,
and managed
- Using file formats optimized for preservation
and for networked-delivery
- this often necessitates making multiple
versions of digital audio, image or text files from
each original source item
- Controlling costs
- by using specifications appropriate
to project goals, and following batch-oriented procedures
for digitization and quality control
- Planning the approach that best meets your
needs and budget
- effective planning accounts for the
tradeoffs inherent to the four challenges listed above
(contact Stephen
Chapman, the LDI Reformatting Advisor, for guidance
to identify and review options)
LDI PROCEDURES
Developed, tested and refined in the LDI
Internal Challenge Grant Program, Harvard University Library's
reformatting procedures are categorized by the format of the
material selected for digitization:
REFORMATTING SERVICES
Coinciding with LDI
Technical Development, several Harvard organizations have
created high-quality audio, image, and text digitization studios
to meet their programmatic needs. Whenever feasible, these
studios are used for collections digitization projects funded
by LDI Internal Challenge Grants.
Consult the Digitization
Services page at the Library Preservation at Harvard web
site for descriptions of the Eda Kuhn Music Library, the Harvard
College Library, and the Harvard University Art Museums and
Fine Arts Library studios.
The LDI Reformatting
Advisor provides liaison services between project managers
and providers of digitization services at Harvard and beyond.
Project workflows vary, so up-front analysis serves to identify
viable service options for materials preparation, digitization,
production of administrative metadata, and deposit of objects
to Harvard's Digital
Repository Service or elsewhere. The Reformatting Advisor
can help project managers locate vendors, then prepare Requests
for Information, Requests for Proposals, or project contracts.
STANDARDS AND OTHER
DOCUMENTATION
The Digitization
Resources page at Library Preservation at Harvard web
site is the portal to the standards and selected professional
literature that inform Harvard's procedures.
Standards exist for file formats and are
in development for administrative metadata. Best practices
for digitization are documented in professional literature,
although processes and procedures vary widely according to
the nature of source materials and the functional requirements
specified for the digital reproductions.
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