digitizationblog News on digitization in libraries and allied institutions

I've posted a functionality checklist for a Drupal-based collection manager over at drupalib. Feedback and/or comments are welcome.

Jeremiah Saunders has posted a couple of blog entries that will likely be of interest of digitizationblog: the paucity of commenting features in local digital collections and using flickr as a digital library collection manager. Jeremiah and I are planning to investigate the former topic in some detail, so if you have any thoughts on commenting features in digital library collections, post 'em on his blog or here.

This article in Computerworld describes UC's agreement with Google, who will digitize material from its collections for inclusion in Google Book Search.

The EU has released a recommendation "On The Digitisation And Online Accessibility Of Cultural Material And Digital Preservation." From the page just cited:

OCLC has acquired DiMeMa, the company that produces and supports CONTENTdm. This article in Information Today supplies more info.

Steve Wade has started a new blog called Digital Preservation Strategies. Disclosure statement: Steve is currently doing a practicum with my library investigating how we might use LOCKSS to mirror locally hosted (as opposed to licensed-from-vendor) content.

The latest RLG DigiNews (Aug. 15, 10.4) contains a useful FAQ on two aspects of US copyright law, orphan works and Section 108 (limited number of copies of copyrighted works).

This article by Robert Tansley in the July/August D-Lib Magazine (12.7/8) describes a project in which mirrors of collections are created by replicating metadata and content from others by harvesting METS Dissemination Information Packages via OAI-PMH.

University College London and the British Library's LIFE Project (Life Cycle Information for E-Literature) has released a summary report describing "a methodology to calculate the long-term costs and future requirements of the preservation of digital assets." Other useful LIFE documents are also available.

The latest issue of Library Hi Tech (24.2: 2006) contains this article by Laurie Lopatin (pages 273-289), which provides a selective bibliography of literature on library digitization projects published between 2000-2005. The bibliography contains sections on project management, funding, selection of materials, legal issues, metadata, interoperability, and preservation.