Dear Moderator,

This is in connection with the ongoing discussion on the modalities of Digitization. I would like to put forth the following points concerning policy to be adopted for the selection of materials in a library to be digitized.

1.                   Meeting the concern of copyright restrictions: In the Indian context 60 years is the period when a copyright to a published material holds valid. That is to say, we will not breaching any copyright obligation if we go for documents published by 1948 (2008-60=1948)

2.                   But fulfilling the copyright law demand should not make a librarian to conclude that now he/she is free for digitizing any old library material. Every penny to be spent has to be valued in terms of return. We are obliged to be conscientious as the Digitization is costly process- money wise as well as time wise.

3.                   How to avoid duplication? A number of libraries may be digitizing the same document.

4.                   Does the document to be digitized have any readership? This should be of particular concern for a librarian going to digitize printed books & documents.

5.                   Digitization for preservation purpose as one often hears has to be taken only in case of rare documents and manuscripts.

6.                   Digitization of Theses and post-graduate level Dissertations is greatly recommended.

7.                   Similarly, one can readily digitize the class notes, lectures etc. of the academic staff.

8.                   The Syllabus and Question papers can be also digitize on priority basis with a link to the digitized collection on the library Webpage, etc. & etc.

 

My own preference is to start with the creation of ETD (electronic Theses & Dissertation) database for every University.

I hope this topic will receive more attention from our professional community, better with a brief case study type presentation.

Regards

TANWIR

 

In response to the query from N Shailaja of Deccan Herald in this forum Volume 66, Issue 20, I am providing some information regarding the digital conversion of library materials.
The process of digitalization is time consuming and costly. Hence a proper planning is required in that respect. The major aspects we have to think about are :
1.Hardware requirements
2.Software requirements
3.Benchmarking
4.Storage formats and media

1.Hardware requirements
Personal Computers with the present day configuration are more than enough for undertaking digitalization processes. As you have a lot of back up data better to have more disk space. RAM capacity also could be enhanced as you have to deal with graphic data. Scanners of various capacities are available in the market from Heavy duty Scanners to simple flat bed scanners. If you need to undertake OCR conversion, see that the software attached to the scanner has that facility.
2.Software requirements
The software attached to scanners is suitable to carry out digitalization works. Abbey Fine reader is an OCR software. The twain utility attached to Photoshop is also helpful in scanning. He scanned images could be later edited for clarity in the Photoshop software itself.
3.Benchmarking
We are not at all going to convert all materials that are available in our library into digital format. Then we will have to think of a selection process. A policy has to be framed to select documents for digital conversion. It should be reasonable. While making such a policy, copy right restrictions should be taken into consideration.
4.Storage format and Media
Scanned image could be stored in various available digital formats. TIFF, PDF, JPEG  etc are some of the formats that could be used. Adobe Acrobat TM software could be used to add security regulations to your scanned documents. It can be used to add metadata elements along with the documents.

Dr GOPAKUMAR V.
Librarian (UGC),
University College,Palayam,
Thiruvananthapuram,
PIN 695 034.
gopakumar.v@rediffmail.com
Mobile No: 09447056713

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