Customer Reviews

Digitizing Collections: Strategic Issues for the Information Manager (Digital Futures) (Digital Futures Series)

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I've almost finished a course that uses this text as a required book. We have read nearly the entire book, and I have found it to be very useful in understanding what it would take to manage and create a digital collection. It focuses on management aspects as well as technical ones, provides many links and case studies, and is written in very approachable language. For librarians who are looking to expand their work into the digital realm, this is a must-read.

If you have a background in project management, you'll be able to whiz through a lot of it pretty quickly.

Please note that although some of the information is becoming outdated (in terms of costs and some of the newer technologies), there is a very solid foundation that is provided in the text. It is very well researched. The references are good to use for further research as well.

What it covers:
1. Benefits and drawbacks of digitization.
2. Selection management.
3. Intellectual property and copyrights (although I can point you to so many online resources on this now that are more useful).
4. Project management.
5. Technology standards.
6. Metadata (also, there are much better resources on this topic online).
7. Handling and digitizing rare and fragile items.
8. Formats other than "analog."

I hope they develop another edition soon because there are many, many URLs listed in the book, and I'm afraid they might be dead links in the coming years (some already are).

Well written, and extremely informative for anyone who deals with collections management.