Volume 30, Issue 1

The human-perceived content of any digital object is an artifact of systems, not an amalgamation of fixed physical attributes. Many of these objects are designed to have multiple renderings to optimize content for specific tasks, such as searching, sorting, analyzing, or reading. Using digital technology either to reproduce historic materials or to preserve original digital objects requires a definition of information integrity that accommodates function as well as appearance. The choice of encoding is critical to enable specified functionality, but the choice of repository is likely to be the guiding factor to preserving object integrity. If scholars, collection managers, and computer programmers collaborate to design large-scale digital repositories, perhaps the choice of where to store an object, particularly for the long term, will not require compromising what it contains.

The Oregon Newspaper Project (ONP) was established in 1952 as a joint venture between the Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association and the University of Oregon Library. Filming began the following year and has continued uninterrupted for 49 years. More than 15,000 reels of film have been produced, capturing one of the most complete archives of state newspaper publication in the nation.

Background, Foundation and Tasks In Summer 1997 the Munich Digitization Center (MDC) was founded at the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (BSB; Bavarian State Library). It was the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG; German Research Association) that had initiated the foundation of two so-called centers of excellence at two libraries which had already some experience in digitization. In parallel the DFG established a new grant program, named “Retrospective Digitization of library holdings” that currently sponsors about 50 projects. This program intends to encourage libraries to work up digitally library holdings with interest for researchers, holdings that exist only in print form, and to offer them freely to everybody via the WWW. The processing and presentation should realize not only universal access but also recognizable added value in search and retrieval compared to the print version. Together with the funding programs “Electronic Publishing and Virtual Subject Libraries” and “Modernisation and Rationalisation” the program “Retrospective Digitization of library holdings” aims towards a future vision of a distributed digital research library.

This online web site of digital conversion fundamentals serves a number of purposes. According to the Preface page, it “offers base-level information on the use of digital imaging to convert and make accessible cultural heritage materials. It also introduces some concepts advocated by Cornell University Library, in particular the value of benchmarking requirements before undertaking a digital initiative.” Although the tutorial can stand alone, it complements Anne R. Kenney and Oya Rieger's Moving Theory into Practice (Mountain View, Calif.: Research Libraries Group, 2000), serving as an introduction to concepts that are given more detailed coverage in the print publication. It is also intended as a prerequisite tutorial for students planning to enroll in Cornell University's “Moving Theory into Practice” workshops. In addition, I have found it to be a valuable reference tool. I refer to it for its now-established definitions of key concepts and for its generous inclusion of hyperlinks to publications and web sites relevant to digital imaging and digital preservation.