Report of Ad hoc Library Committee on the Future of the University Archives

June 1, 2004
INTRODUCTION
The ad hoc Library Committee on the Future of the University Archives was established by University Librarian Diane Perushek in order to make strategic, actionable recommendations on acquiring, preserving and making available university archival materials in all formats, with an emphasis on addressing the handling of electronic records. The group convened from March 4 to May 26, 2004. The committee was asked to come up with a "road map" for the University Archives to address issues regarding archival retention and access to UH-related historically valuable material. Most particularly the committee was to investigate and recommend methods of handling the burgeoning collection of "born digital" documents in UH administrative offices.

GOALS
The goals of the committee were to:
1.        Outline a schedule for facilitating records acquisition from UH administrative offices (in both hard-copy and electronic formats), suggest policy for the submission of digital records, and plan for outreach/education regarding electronic record keeping.
2.        Develop a strategy for creating abbreviated descriptions of unprocessed archival record groups, and explore the eventual role of EAD for fully developed finding aids.
3.        Suggest ways of handling UH-created online web periodical publications (those with no hard-copy counterpart) and make recommendations for coordinating the archiving of UH web sites.
4.        Evaluate existing standards/best practices for digital creation and storage of records of historical value.
5.        Offer counsel as to which UH Library collections might be the best candidates for digitization, and identify grant sources that might fund library digitization projects.
6.        Suggest professional development opportunities for Archives staff.

RECOMMENDATIONS
In summary, the committee recommends:
- Archives staff create a Record Group Inventory of the holdings in UH Archives by December 31, 2004.
- Archives staff design a template for, and begin to implement a method of brief "cataloging" description for unprocessed collections by December 31, 2005.
- The Library purchase the OCLC Digital Archive service in Fiscal Year 04-05.
The OCLC Digital Archive could be used as the primary catalog of archival records (accessible using FirstSearch), and/or exported to the Voyager database. The committee recommends that archival record-group series-level descriptions be included in the main Voyager catalog.
-Library Administration and Archive staff take the lead in forming two campus-wide committees to address issues and implement solutions for:
1.        Archiving UH web-based electronic publications no longer offered in print format. This group would include campus webmasters, online editors, the web support librarian, etc.
2.        Records retention of email correspondence and "born digital" documents of permanent historical value, e.g., related to policymaking by university administration and faculty. This campus-wide group would include the Assistant University Librarian for Information Technology, the UH Chief Information Officer, a director from the Office of Procurement and Real Property Management, and other policy-level campus administrators. The group would devise policies, standards and guidelines covering archiving email and electronic documents.
- Archives staff develop Records Schedules for UH Administrative Offices to track archival accession and record keeping practices by September 30, 2004.
- The Library and UH Archives impose a moratorium on accepting digital files until a campus-wide committee has defined policies and guidelines on acceptable formats and hardware/software systems to store and maintain them.
- Library support and funding for Archives staff to attend relevant training from SAA offered in the next fiscal year.

DISCUSSION
1.          Outline a schedule for facilitating records acquisition from UH administrative offices (in both hard-copy and electronic formats); Suggest policy for the submission of digital records, and; Plan for outreach/education regarding electronic record keeping.

Records Schedules
There is an informal understanding between the state Department of Accounting & General Services (DAGS) and the University of Hawai'i that UH administrative records come to the UH Archives for permanent archival retention rather than to the Hawai'i State Archives or DAGS storage. The committee suggests that the University Librarian may wish to investigate whether this understanding should be formalized in a memorandum of understanding between the State Comptroller, the UH Procurement Office, the Hawaii State Archive and the Library. Based on the state's General Records Schedule No. 1 (2002), a draft Records Schedule for UH Administrative Divisions has been created which identifies the top policymaking offices, departments and programs. Once finalized and approved, contact with administrative assistants in each of those offices will be made and annual transfers begun.
Submission of digital records
Records in electronic formats will be accessioned after the records schedule process is a normalized and accepted record keeping procedure by these offices for paper records. After a campus or system-wide committee has addressed issues such as the submission of digital records (discussed more fully in No. 4). For the purposes of this report, "electronic formats" include both non-networked, born-digital documents (e.g., reports on someone's PC) as well as born-digital files stored in a shared system (e.g., email).
Outreach & education for electronic record keeping
The committee mentioned above will also help craft "best practices" for electronic record keeping for which Archives staff may create or sponsor workshops and one-on-one training sessions for staff of UH offices which create records of permanent historical value.

2.         Develop a strategy for creating abbreviated descriptions of unprocessed archival record groups; Explore the eventual role of EAD for fully developed finding aids.

Abbreviated descriptions for unprocessed collections
In order to provide access to our unprocessed archival and manuscript collections (until such time when there is staff and money to process them fully) an abbreviated form of description will be created. It will employ a generic template similar to "cataloging on the fly." Before that can be done, a Record Group Inventory of holdings in UH Archives is being developed in order to document all the processed and unprocessed collections. Jim has begun this project and anticipates its completion by December 2004. Archives staff have confirmed with the Cataloging Department that they will be able to process approximately 10 records at a time (less than 100 will need to be created). The basic information which will be included in the Voyager records is: title of collection, name of person/family or agency, size, donor, accession number, contents note, restrictions on use.

Encoded Archival Description (EAD)

EAD is a Document Type Definition (DTD) and is written following the syntactic rules of Standardized General Markup Language (SGML) and Extensible Markup Language (XML). It is a data structure for archival description that preserves multi-level and hierarchical description for complete collections. The standard is maintained in the Network Development and MARC Standards Office of the Library of Congress in partnership with the Society of American Archivists. Archival finding aids created with EAD can be made available electronically through the web in their native SGML/XML format or converted to HTML for broader usage. The latter tend to be static documents and searches across them usually result in the retrieval of the full finding aid rather than sections that are most relevant to search.[2] One of the most appealing reasons for standardizing the encoding of finding aids is that standardization will support universal, union access to primary resources. Standardized description will also enable the "virtual" reintegration of collections related by provenance, but dispersed in different repositories.

The EAD standards present many intellectual and technical challenges, as well as budgetary and political ones. Due to the necessary expense of specialized software and training, the benefits in using XML-based EAD for finding aids are not suitable for every institution, particularly small units with limited resources. The UH Archives & Manuscript Collections priority is to focus on essential, fundamental, "building block" tasks which will serve the needs of the largest number of scholars and researchers:
         Creating an inventory of existing record groups;
         describing unprocessed collections;
         processing high interest collections and creating finding aids to assist in their use;
         building relationships with UH record-creating offices; and
         outlining records schedules in order to accession university records of historical value in a traceable and methodical fashion.

In the future, after the University Archives has proceduralized basic tasks and description formats become standardized within the archives field, staff will assess the finding aids using the standards current at that time.

3.         Suggest ways of handling UH-created web based electronic periodical publications (those with no hard-copy counterpart); Make recommendations for coordinating digital archives of UH web sites[3].

UH E-Pubs
The growth of web publications on the UHM campus has increased exponentially in the last few years. Martha contacted and collated the e-pubs extant on campus and received email responses from the editors/webmasters/controllers of Malamalama; News@UH (replaces printed Ku Lama), InfobITS, Ka Leo o Hawai'i, UH NewsLinks, and University News and Announcement. As this is a campus- and system-wide issue with far-reaching implications, we recommend that a committee be formed to investigate and address coordination of the archiving of campus and system electronic publications.
Two possible scenarios could be considered:
Scenario #1 - UH Library/Archives makes contact with various custodians of e-pubs to provide advice and assistance for their current archiving, each publication would remain stored on the "publication" local server;
Scenario #2 - UH Library/Archives helps systematize all e-pub archives and takes on the role of "harvesting", storage of files and provision of access to them.

The committee feels that Scenario #1 is preferable but requires buy-in from many constituents and should be centrally coordinated by an individual or office. Scenario #2 would require a large commitment of funds, equipment and staff on the part of the Library and would require ongoing technical coordination with the custodians of the publications to maintain linkage between the archives and the current issues.
Digital archives of UH web sites
Just as with e-pubs above, there are two directions the library can take in archiving web sites:
- Create and maintain a list of webmasters and UH web sites on campus and provide advice and assistance for them to host their own archived backfiles on their server(s);
- UH Library/Archives harvests and store multiple "editions" of web sites defined as important to preserve on servers housed and maintained by the Library.

The committee recommends that the OCLC "Digital Archive," product be purchased for Library reference units to use for "web archiving" and for the UH Archives to use to create collection, series and sub-series records. The Digital Archive is OCLC Connexion software that will "ingest" digital documents, images, and publications and store the information on the OCLC server. Entire web sites can be automatically "harvested" at scheduled times or on demand.

The Web Harvester for OCLC's Digital Archive allows for item-by-item archiving of web pages and web documents, notably HTML, PDF and associated files that are often "born digital." The Web Harvester extracts the components you want to place into the archive. After the content is ingested users can access it through Connexion, FirstSearch, Voyager or web links. The Batch Service permits submission of "collected assets" in TIFF and other formats for inclusion in the Digital Archive. It uses a PC-based program supplied by OCLC to format digital collection(s) and basic metadata on CD-ROM. The Library sends the CD to OCLC to ingest the batch, automatically generate metadata records and notify you when your collections have been archived for administration and access. The OCLC Digital Archive product is affordable and feasible. The Committee recommends the Library purchase yearly item-by-item service, but batch service could be investigated on a pilot project basis for evaluation purposes.

4.         Evaluate existing standards/best practices for digital creation and storage of records of historical value.

For the near term, the Library Archives will attempt to follow and comply with guidelines in existence to whatever extent is practicable, including State of Hawaii DAGS General Records Schedules 2002, UH Administrative Procedure A8.450 and the relevant NARA directives.

For the long term, the committee recommends that the Library take the lead (spear-headed by the AUL for Information Technology) in establishing a campus-wide group to review existing standards and decide on best practices that are appropriate and feasible for the University of Hawaii system. The group would devise policies, and guidelines covering creation and storage of email and electronic documents, specifically "born digital" files of permanent historical value (e.g., those related to policymaking by university administration and faculty). Of particular concern are the challenges of acquiring and maintaining adequate storage technology and insuring timely and successful migration of data from obsolete platforms. This is an issue that cannot be adequately addressed by a single unit or department. A campus- or system-wide group is necessary to insure consistency and adequate funding. Members should include the Assistant University Librarian for Information Technology, the UH Chief Information Officer, a director from the Office of Procurement and Real Property Management, and other policy-level campus and system-level administrators.

Concerns of custody and access are two of the key issues such a committee will need to address. The following options may be considered:
Print Only-Archival Custody
The UH Archives advises offices to print everything identified by the record schedule for transfer to Archives; Archives does not request or retain records in any digital format. This option avoids problems of incompatibility and obsolescence of format, software and hardware and relies upon the most stable archival form in existence (i.e. paper).
Archives Harvests and is Custodian of Digital Format
UH Archives accesses, or is provided with consistently formatted digital output, of records to be transferred on a quarterly/semiannual/annual basis. The files will be migrated and retained on protected library server(s) until time to open the records for research. This option would require a major immediate and ongoing commitment of funding for storage, equipment, file format migration, technical support and server hardware and software.
Retention by Creator until Available to Researchers; Ultimate Custody & Access in Archives
Archives staff advise record-creating offices on retention guidelines for digital records and can arrange and describe the material. Each office maintains their own files until time to transfer for public access in Archives. The files are permanently retained on protected library server(s). The same commitment as in #2 is required, but with a longer period of time to plan and muster resources.
"Post Custodial" Role For Archives; Records Permanently Retained By Creators
Archives advises UH offices on retention guidelines for digital records and mediates authenticated and authorized for Archives users to access the creating agency's records open for research. The files remain permanently on agency's-not library's-servers. This option would require extensive technical coordination and rely on non-archivally trained staff and organizations to keep historical records
5.      Advise on UH Library collections deemed best candidates for digitization, and. Identifygrants to capitalize such digitization projects.

Digitization projects
There are many UH Library collections which could be digitized to great advantage. The committee selected three collections that seemed realistic possibilities and three "blue sky" options. We focused on collections that were more scholarly or academic in nature and which did not include extensive audiovisual materials due to difficulties with copyright and permission (i.e., release statements).
The three realistic candidates are:
    Electronic Theses & Dissertations - Hawai'i/Pacific/Asia[4]
    Miyamoto (AKA University Relations Photograph collection)
    Posters of the Pacific regions
The three "blue sky" options are:
    Japanese-Language Schools in Hawai'i Textbooks
    Frank Hawley Collection Scrolls: On the Kingdom of the Ryukyus
    Russians in China material

The committee recommends that the Preservation unit be funded to purchase a high quality digital camera and accessories such as appropriate lighting, stands and tripods. Such a digital photographic setup would expand the ability to serve patrons who need images of the Library's unique and often fragile resources. The Preservation unit is already equipped to prepare and stabilize materials and has staff trained in photographic techniques therefore it is a logical place for a digital camera setup. The camera equipment could be used to respond to research and interlibrary loan requests as well as digitization projects.

Grants
There are few granting agencies that could possibly fund UHM digitization projects. The Committee recognizes that grant application preparation and grant project implementation are time consuming efforts. We recommend that an overall outline or process for prioritizing the level of energy that should be put into seeking and implementing specially funded projects be established. Such a "triagesystem" should include receiving firm commitment from Library Administration that matching fund contributions will be supported prior to embarking on pursuit of major grant funding.

If a grant is awarded, it means extra work for already over-committed staff. If the Library identifies grant pursuit as a priority action, the committee recommends that adequate support, for example clerical support staff, real release time, and replacement staff to cover duties of individuals working on grant projects. The committee also recommends that Library Administration establish an official ongoing commitment to grant funded projects after the grant funds are expended.

6.      Suggest professional development opportunities for Archives staff.

The U.S. National Archives & Records Administration is in the midst of a plan to archive electronic government documents so that far into the future, they can be accessed with the technology in use then. NARA predicts the new products and processes developed during the project will benefit other archivists -- including colleges and universities, libraries and archives. According to an April 2004 announcement, the first installment (emphasis added) of an operational ERA is scheduled to be up and running in 2007[5]. The practices and standards for electronic archives will be in flux for several years, therefore continuing education for Archives staff will be essential. The Society for American Archivists is the major purveyor of digital archival training. They offer a number of relevant workshops, and are the primary source for training in the most current practices. The committee recommends that Archives staff receive funding to attend courses such as:
         Advanced Electronic Records: Design, Implementation and Evaluation
         Copyright: The Archivist and the Law
         Building Digital Collections
         Archival Perspectives in Digital Preservation
         Preserving Digitally Signed Documents: Technical, Legislative, and Policy Responses

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[1]Please note in statements referring to "web archives" or "web archiving" the word archive should be understood to mean, "to place or store; save, record, cache" for recall/access at a later time. References to "archives" should be understood to mean "a place in which public records or other important historic documents are kept and in which these archival records are preserved and maintained according to the standards and principles of archival science."

[2] Because of this, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has chosen not to use EAD as its data structure, but has created a proprietary database called Archival Research Catalog (ARC). Lydia Reid, "The National Archives and Records Administration and EAD: Structure v. Presentation," The Government Records Section Newsletter of the Society of American Archivists, Winter 2004, Vol. 20, No. 1, pp. 3, 5).

[3]See footnote #1

[4] The committee notes that a report of a committee chaired by Karen Peacock on this subject was submitted to Library Administration in August 2002.

[5] U.S. National Archives & Records Administration Prologue Spring 2004. http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/spring_2004_archivist.html

DIGITAL INITIATIVES TEAM (DIT) ACTION PLAN REPORT

I. Introduction

A. Digital Initiatives Team (DIT)

The Team was charged with the task to "Merge and integrate past and existing policies and procedures into a cohesive and comprehensive library-wide program for digitization, access to, and archiving digital surrogates of print and non-print holdings." See endnote for complete text of charge to the team.[i] Members of the team were: Martha Chantiny, Beth Tillinghast, Lori Saeki and Salim Mohammed.

B. Executive Summary

The focus of the work of this team was on digital collections created from or based upon special or unique library collections, or under the direction of library staff which are intended to be surrogates for the artifacts themselves.The broader category of "digital assets" could include material in electronic format that does not have any corresponding material in any UH Manoa Library collection. An existing spreadsheet list of known digitization projects involving special collection, archival or other unique material was updated by the team (Appendix A). A survey form was devised, with examples of issues to address in each section.The sample and a fill-in-the-blanks version was distributed to all known project originators and/or custodians (Appendix B).The responses which were received are included in Appendix C.Digital Library Project mission statements, goals and objectives and service models were investigated.Extensive information from the Indiana University Digital Library Program and the University of Chicago Digital Library Program and well as shorter descriptions of programs at two University of California campuses (LA and Davis) are included in Appendix D.

A suggestion mission statement and goals for a UH Manoa Library Digital Library Program are presented in section III.Challenges that UH Manoa Library must address in order to implement a cohesive digital library program are addressed in section IV.Those include infrastructure, resources, the distributed nature of the collections and organizational structure, and commitments needed from UH Manoa campus level administration.

General recommendations for best practices and to use when setting priorities for digital collection creation are described in section V. These include:

* Allocate resources including commitment to provide systematic development support only if a project is deemed high priority.
* Insure that such collections are regularly and promoted (PR person needed)

High priority projects should:

* Have a specific area focus (in an "area of excellence").
* Involve heavily-used/high-demand material.
* Establish and disseminate a management plan for preservation and distribution.

Technical recommendations for the collections include:

* Be OAI harvestable.
* Use at minimum the basic Dublin Core metadata schema.
* Be copyright compliant.
* Use standardized platform(s) which can be supported by library IT
* Follow appropriate best practices

II. Digital Collection Overview

Historically, digital projects in the Library have been funded by grants or other external sources of financial support. This is a list of those types of projects:

A. Projects which were begun with grant funding:

* Higher Education Act Title II-C federal grant "Strengthening Library Resources Trust Territory Archive photographs, 1991
* Student Equity, Excellence and Diversity (SEED) to digitize selected Hawaiian language newspaper articles, 1997 & 1998
* Institute for Museum & Library Services, National Leadership Grant Research and Demonstration Grant to begin building a digital library of Hawaiian and Pacific resources, 1998
* Hawaii Council for the Humanities for Digitization/Preservation of an Important Hawaiian Language Newspaper - Ka Nupepa Kuokoa, 1999
* Student Equity, Excellence and Diversity (SEED) to digitize reports on the overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom and annexation of Hawaii, 2001 & 2002
* Diversity and Equity Initiative (DEI) grant for digitizing project "Save Our Surf", 2004
* PRDLA award to digitize items to collaboratively create the "Oceania Digital Library" (OdiL), 2007
* RTRF funding from Vice Chancellor for Research & Graduate Education to create and make available digital PDFs from 1,648 microfilmed dissertations on deposit with Proquest, 2008
* National Digital Newspaper Project, NEH "Digital Access to Hawai'i Newspapers 1880-1922", 2008

B. Projects which have been funded by contributions from other departments:

* Jean Charlot Murals and Sculpture, 1997-99 (Nancy Morris Charlot Foundation grant)
* José Guadalupe Posada (Nancy Morris Charlot Foundation grant, Rockefeller?)
* "Local Sightings/Citings" - Center for Teaching Excellence, OFDAS - Educational Improvement Fund (EIF), 1999
* 442nd papers (wartime letters from the Chaplain Higuchi Papers/Japanese American Veterans Collection) 2005-06
* Library recap 2/27/04: "funded by the Chancellor's office to handle bringing over, organizing and conducting research on the 442nd Veterans' Club World War II Collection"
* Rapanui - Center for Pacific Island Studies, 2005
* Dakin Fire Insurance Maps scanning paid for by FEMA, 2005-06
* Statler - Oliver Statler Papers Fund at UH Foundation, managed by Tokiko Bazzell, 2006
* Signal Corps HWRD photos Chancellor? 2006
* Steve Thomas Traditional Navigation Center for Pacific Island Studies, 2006
* Bob Krauss Research Index "University of Hawaii's University Research Council" (RTRF?), 2006-present
* Margo Duggan Collection Center for Pacific Island Studies, 2008

C. Miscellaneous Projects

Some projects "just happened", mostly starting as projects for student interns or piggy-backing on already existing digital projects. The Asia projects first appeared on the 2006 Library Strategic Goal I chart (https://libstaff.manoa.hawaii.edu/uhm-policies-planning-procedures/planning/old-strategic-plans-2000-2006/strategic-plans-pdf/I.pdf/view) but without any explanation of funding source or importance to collection development.

* Russian Passport Album (2003, DNS & Russian bibliographer)
* Social Movements Collection (2004-Preservation, then 2006-DNS & Russian bibliographer)
* XXth Century, Shanghai, 1941-1945 (2004-2005 DNS & Russian bibliographer & volunteer scanners)
* Asia At Work - Images from Books (2005?-?)
* Opium in Asia - Images from Books (2005?-?)
* TRAIL-Technical Report Archive and Image Library (2006-08 AUL for LIT & DNS pilot project as member of GWLA)
* Shackford Collection of photographs of China (2006 KT Yao, Asia interns?)
* Lian Huan Hua Chinese Picture Story Books (2007-08 KT Yao, Asia interns?)
* Magic Lantern Slides (2007 Tokiko Bazzell, Asia interns?)
* South East Asia Posters (2007 Yati Paseng?, Asia interns?)

III. Mission Statement and Goals (suggested)

The mission for a digital collections program is to produce, maintain, deliver, and preserve a wide range of high-quality networked information resources for scholars and students at UH and elsewhere.

The goals for developing specific digital projects are the following:

Goal #1 To build digital library collections that are sustainable, scaleable, and compatible with UHM's technology infrastructure, and interoperable with national and international digital library collections and initiatives

Goal #2 To facilitate the creation, discovery and use of special collections and unique resources by providing digital surrogates

IV. Challenges

There are numerous, but not insurmountable challenges in providing a programmatic and sustainable approach to digital collections development. It will, however, take a systematic and dedicated Library Administration and UHM commitment to provide such dedicated services to our patrons.

A. Infrastructure size, replacement cycles, network
The library has no regular source of funds to purchase, maintain, expand or replace servers used for storing and making digital collections accessible. Software is primarily open-source, and though ?free?, it requires staff time to install, configure and maintain.

B. Resources time, money, staff, expertise, interest
The library has no full-time staff devoted exclusively to a defined digital initiative or digital collection program. Expertise has been developed on an ad hoc basis by existing DNS, Preservation, and Archives staff. Is creation of digital surrogate collections a core service/function of library or not? Can the library afford to reallocate from other services the funds necessary to provide consistent funding and attention to digital collection support?

C. Distributed digitization efforts
Special Collections, Archives, Maps, Asia, and Preservation are all involved with developing various digital collections. There is no central or standard approach to the development of these collections. Given the current organizational structure of Library departments and divisions, is it even possible to coordinate communication, training, initiative development, grant applications, etc.? There is no official way to prevent any department from creating their own collections, interfaces if they opt to use external internet services such as ITS web pages, web-based database products (Google, etc.) and divert their own resources or obtain outside funding.'

D. UH Administration commitment
Will the Library be able to obtain funding and other support from the UH System/Manoa Campus administration for a digital collections program? Will they support Library administration if resources are diverted from "traditional" areas of library service to digital collections?

V. General Recommendations

The Digital Initiatives Team concludes that a programmatic approach to digital collections and assets requires establishing basic ground rules and requirements.Projects which follow the guidelines and abide by the requirements should be awarded higher priority consideration for resource allocation whenever feasible. The benefits of establishing a consistent digital collection program include:

1. more standards control in project development.
2. a higher quality product.
3. more efficient spending of budget for student and staff time.
4. more coordinated effort should facilitate funding.

The Digital Initiatives Team makes the following recommendations for officially-supported Library Digital Collections for providing access to, and archiving digital surrogates of print and non-print holdings.

A. Library-supported Digital Collections must

1. Be OAI harvestable.
2. Use at minimum the basic Dublin Core metadata schema.For Geospatial data and collections, metadata should follow the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) format where ever possible.Metadata must include elements from an institutional template (customized for specific needs).
3. Be copyright compliant.
4. If database driven, they must use standardized platform(s) which can be supported by library IT (e.g. DSpace, StreetPrint, Greenstone).
5. Must follow appropriate best practices for the content and reason for creating the digital collection (section VI. below)
6. Must be fully described by the principal developer(s) using the "Digital Project Survey" (Appendix B) as a guideline.The survey information must be submitted to Library administration.

B. Caveats

1. Ephemeral projects do not need to meet the requirements but will not receive support or backup.
2. Geospatial data is its infancy and as such, standards are constantly being re-written.

C. Projects that should be high priority must

1. Have a specific area focus (in an "area of excellence").
2. Involve heavily-used/high-demand material.
3. Establish and disseminate a management plan for preservation and distribution (handling requests for copies)

D. Library Administration should

1.Allocate resources including commitment to provide systematic development support only if a project is deemed high priority.
2.Insure that such collections are regularly and promoted (PR person needed)

VI. Recommendations and Resources for Best Practices

The UHM digital collections efforts need to endorse and strive for best practices in the industry. Resources to guide us can be found at the following sites:

* American Memory, Technical Information (Library of Congress)
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/about/techIn.html

* BCR Collaborative Digitization Program (formerly Colorado Digitization Program) Best Practices & Publications
http://www.bcr.org/cdp/best/digital-imaging-bp.pdf

* Digital Library Building Blocks (California Digital Library)
http://www.cdlib.org/inside/diglib/

* Digital Library Standards and Practices (Digital Library Federation)
http://www.diglib.org/standards.htm

* Federal Agencies Digitization Guidelines Initiative
http://www.digitizationguidelines.gov/

* Moving Theory into Practice: Digital Imaging Tutorial (Cornell University)
http://www.library.cornell.edu/preservation/tutorial/

* Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) - A Framework of Guidance for Building Good Digital Collections
http://framework.niso.org/

* National Initiative for a Networked Cultural Heritage (NINCH) - Guide to Good Practice in the Digital Representation and Management of Cultural Heritage Materials
http://www.reference-global.com/doi/abs/10.1515/MFIR.2002.131?cookieSet=1

* Visual Arts Data Service (VADS) - Creating digital resources for the visual arts: standards and good practice
http://vads.ahds.ac.uk/guides/creating_guide/contents.html

* Washington State Library: Digital Best Practices
http://digitalwa.statelib.wa.gov/newsite/best.htm

* University of Maryland: Best Practice Guidelines for Digital Collections at the UM Libraries
http://www.lib.umd.edu/dcr/publications/best_practice.pdf

VII. Archiving and Sustainability

There are a number of methods in place that assure the archiving and preservation of the digital collections. These methods will be more fully described in the documentation for the Digital Asset Management Program. The systems and issues that will be covered in that report include:

*Internet Archive
*Routine Backups
*Off-site storage of back-up tapes
*Format migration
*Formation of a digital collections facilitation team to monitor current digital collections and to further develop collections

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Endnote [i]

Digital Initiatives Team

Goal II: The Library is the essential steward for collections that serve our diverse communities
Action Three: Merge and integrate past and existing policies and procedures into a cohesive and comprehensive library-wide program for digitization, access to, and archiving digital surrogates of print and non-print holdings.

For more than a decade, libraries, research libraries in particular, have been digitizing parts of their collections. They have done this for varied reasons: provide access to local special collections to the world, limit the handling of rare materials, enhance distance learning opportunities, and because it was the most recent trend. Most began such enterprises in an opportunistic or entrepreneurial fashion without giving significant thought to what should be digitized, how it should be digitized, who will use it, or when should it no longer be maintained.

Therefore, a Digital Initiatives Team is charged to:

* Review existing collection development, digitization, archiving, and retention policies and procedures for digital collections the Library has created.
* Document existing practices not covered by policies and procedures.
* Consult stakeholders as appropriate. (Stakeholders include selectors, staff in IT and Preservation as well as Library users.)
* Assess how to best anticipate and meet the needs of the Library?s communities. For instance, which collections should have digital surrogates created to facilitate access or reduce handling of the physical object? What standards or specifications should be used in digital initiatives? What is our long term responsibility to host these collections?
* Make recommendations to help ensure that the Library?s efforts in building, maintaining and archiving digital collections may be carried out in a programmatic and sustainable manner to the University Librarian by November, 1st, 2008.
* Merge the approved recommendations into an integrated document or integrated series of documents
* Report regularly to the University Librarian and to the Library as a whole on Team?s progress

Digital Assets Management Team

Goal II: The Library is the essential steward for collections that serve our diverse communities

* Action Four:Merge and integrate past and existing policies and procedures into a cohesive and comprehensive library-wide program for acquiring, accessing, and archiving "born-digital" university-related materials.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The focus of the work of this team was on digital assets management.This team identified and described the digital assets that play a significant role in supporting our institution’s mission. These assets include materials in digital formats created and/or collected by our institution and that are not “owned” by a commercial entity. A summary of digital assets at UHM Library was created by the team (See Table 1.) and is included in Section I. Section II provides an overview of the Library’s digital assets, including a description of each (when available) with a list of goals. Links to existing policies or to the appropriate appendix are also provided.In addition this section addresses potential projects for future consideration. A reference page of bibliographic citations is included, as well as appendices referring to various policies found in the UHM Library Intranet, drafts of policies, project planning worksheets, and a model for visualizing digital content that provides a framework for analysing asset management priorities in a university setting.

General recommendations for a encouraging a programmatic approach to digital asset management appear in Section III.These include the following:

* Prioritize support and resources allocations based on campus needs and requirements
* Apply the principles of

o transparency and open communication
o project proposal documentation which apply specific metrics
o elimination of duplication of efforts
o promotion of broader understanding of projects

* Approach project planning in a standardized manner, including documentation and the application of standards
* Continue support for the institutional repository
* Commit to supporting a web archiving program
* Strive to meet evolving standards
* Explore options for participating in a Scholarly Communication Program for UHM

INTRODUCTION

Definitions

digital content/digital assets

Digital content may encompass almost any sort of digital information or "knowledge asset" that can be identified and described and which plays a significant role in supporting an institution’s mission, efficiency, and effectiveness (Conway, P. 2008 Library Hi Tech, v.26, no.3).Some digital assets are "born digital" while others are created through the digitization of analog materials. For the purposes of this report, digital assets include materials in digital formats created and/or collected by the institution and its members that are not "owned" by any commercial entity or enterprise.In other words, material unique to the institution and its roles, which is created or acquired, managed, made accessible and preserved and unlikely to be well-stewarded by other agencies or means (see Conway Content Landscape Model (CLM) in Appendix D.).

Digital assets are categorized in three major groups that may be defined as textual content, images, and multimedia(van Niekerk, A. J. 2006. Allied Academies, New Orleans Congress). Some examples of digital assts are

* Reports
* Databases
* Image Repositories
* Websites
* Distant Learning Courses
* Institutional Repositories
* Scientific data

digital asset management

The Cornell University Library gives us a definition of digital asset management as a

“systematic management of digital data, such as text, image, audio, and video files, so that they can be reused and re-purposed. It aims to maximize the value of these assets by facilitating easy storage and retrieval while protecting, and at times, enhancing their utility” (Vernon & Rieger, 2002).

open scholarship/open access publishing

Open scholarship, an increasingly important element of scholarly communication, is an integral part of open access publishing.Open access publication refers to the free availability of any scholarly literature and information without access restrictions or fees.However, open access publishing (e.g. publishing in an open access journal) is not the only available venue in which to carry out open scholarship.Some recent articles have proposed that libraries become part of an "institutional framework" that evolves from a "reworking of scholarly communication" as electronic publishing initiatives such as blogs, RSS, integrated media players, podcasting and publishing on-demand devices become established parts of the information landscape” (Steele, 2008).

Heather Joseph notes in her recent article the Journal of Library Administration:

"As scholarship becomes ever more digitally driven, the communication of peer-reviewed research results has undergone a dramatic transformation. The Internet has created an unprecedented environment where results can be broadly shared, immediately. Access policies are evolving as researchers, funding agencies, and policy makers become aware of the opportunities that faster and wider sharing of research results bring. From policies focusing primarily on protecting this material from unauthorized users, a proliferation of policies designed to leverage the value of funding agencies' investment in research by sharing the results as widely as possible are now appearing [...] designed to create a more inclusive scholarly communications playing field..." (Joseph, 2008).

I - Digital Library Program and Digital Asset Management Strategy

The Library has made it a priority mission objective to commit to supporting efforts to build, maintain, archive and retain digital assets.In order to assure that those efforts are programmatic and sustainable, a digital library program and digital asset management strategy must address the following:

Overall Goals

* Support the teaching and research of UHM faculty
* Support learning and research by UHM students and community users
* Enable ownership control (rights management) and security
* Create reusable content that can support both short- and long-term use
* Ensure effective management of assets to maximize efficiency and productivity
* Ensure the authenticity and integrity of documents
* Protect the integrity of data (storage and transmission requirements)
* Ensure the longevity of data (archiving)

Mission & Purpose

The University of Hawai’i at M?noa Library recognizes the increasing importance of digital resources as part of the Library’s collection and services. Therefore, the Library will facilitate the creation, description, discovery, and use of these resources as part of a clearly defined Digital Library Program.In addition, the Library will ensure long-term preservation, availability, and access to these resources by outlining and implementing a Digital Asset Management strategy.

The Digital Library Program will provide the organizational structure for a digital assets management strategy. The Program would coordinate and guide the initiatives of various Library departments to produce and deliver online access to documents, texts, journals, databases, and other digital resources to the University of Hawaii at M?noa community.The Digital Asset Management strategy would coordinate maintenance, integrity and preservation of a wide range of high-quality networked resources for scholars and students at the University of Hawaii at M?noa and elsewhere.The long-term responsibilities of such a program are essentially the same as for non-digital collection management – acquisition based on UH mission, identifying, making accessible, storing, protecting, preserving and weeding.There are different methodologies involved and much more complex infrastructure needs.

II - Overview of Digital Assets: Description with Goals

A. Assessment of Current Digital Library Projects

Library Website

As a gateway to physical and electronic scholarly information resources, the University of Hawai’i at M?noa Library website is intended to reflect the dynamic growth and change in the way information is produced and disseminated, in the way we use information, and in the way that we interact with our public. The mission of the website, as determined by the Library Web Redesign Committee, is to assist faculty, staff, and community to connect to the Library resources and services they need in their research and teaching endeavors. Regard is given to a number of important factors: the Library’s geographic location; its unique collections; and its standing locally, internationally, and in the Association of Research Library rankings.

Goal #1 Provide access to the Library’s core services and people
Goal #2 Provide guidance on how to use a Library and to conduct research.
Goal #3 Provide the staff the tools necessary to provide better website service to our patrons.
Goal #4 Demonstrate best practices web design.
Goal #5 Library staff will have the basic skills to create and maintain their own content on the website so that patrons will receive the best service possible.
Goal #6 Patrons and colleagues will be fully informed when the redesigned website goes public.
Goal #7 Consistently maintain and improve the site to provides excellent patron service adheres Goal #8 Follow and adhere to web design best practices.

Webpage content, design, and style guidelines for the Library website are posted on the Library intranet https://libstaff.manoa.hawaii.edu/committeesandprojects/web-advisory-group/web-site-policies/.

Intranet

The goal of this project is to support the Library’s mission by providing technical tools to facilitate communication and collaboration within and between departments throughout Hamilton and Sinclair libraries.This objective was met by leveraging Internet technologies to improve ways in which employees and departments coordinate their work and keep each other informed of their activities.

Goal #1 Make web content publishing a more streamlined process by giving content developers the tools to publish
Goal #2 Secure staff-eyes only content from the public,
Goal #3 Serve as a repository of content that supports staff work
Goal #4 Provide staff tools to make more efficient work processes that depend on information sharing and intra-organizational communication
Goal #5 Make staff-related content easily findable

The Policies for Use and Management of the UH at M?noa Library Intranet are found on the intranet at https://libstaff.manoa.hawaii.edu/groups/info-tech-div/dns/intranet/intranet-policies/intranet-policy/

Digital Collections

The Digital Archive Collections at the University of Hawai'i at M?noa Library include historical and cultural material in digital form, made accessible via the World Wide Web. Some projects received partial or full funding from grant awards.Grant award information related to specific digital imaging projects are available on the library web site at http://library.manoa.hawaii.edu/research/digicoll.html#grant. Many other projects were started and/or completed by the efforts of students working in Library and Information Studies (LIS) internships http://www.hawaii.edu/slis/courses/690/

Goal #1 Create, manage, and deliver digital content that supports Library mission and goals
Goal #2 Build digital library collections that are sustainable, scaleable and compatible with UHM's technology infrastructure, and interoperable with national and international digital library collections and initiatives
Goal #3 Facilitate the creation, discovery and use of digital resources
Goal #4 Ensure long-term preservation, availability, and access to the digital collections
Goal #5 Provide organizational structure and secure institutional commitment
Goal #6 Provide digital surrogates for special, rare, archival items

A complete report discussing the Digital Collections at UHM Library is posted on the Library intranet at https://libstaff.manoa.hawaii.edu/committeesandprojects/digitize_team/digital-initiatives-team/Final DIT Report1208.doc/view

ScholarSpace

ScholarSpace is the institutional (IR) repository for the University of Hawaii at M?noa (UHM). The mission of the IR is to store the intellectual works and unique collections of this academic community and to provide a permanent web location for accessing those resources. ScholarSpace is a central storage and maintenance system for scholarly information in digital format. The repository is a home for the increasing amount of digital scholarly output created by the UHM community. It uses the dSpace open source software to capture, index, store, make searchable, disseminate, and preserve digital materials.

Contributors, organized into communities, retain copyright to their submissions and control access to their collections. The ScholarSpace team provides the computer services, advises on workflow and metadata, and ensures long-term retention and access to the materials.These materials can include scholarly communications (articles and pre-prints), theses, dissertations, technical reports, teaching materials, and other textual material, together with images, multimedia clips, interactive teaching programs, data sets, and databases. Currently seventeen “communities” are active in ScholarSpace, with over one thousand items added to the collections within those communities.

Goal # 1 Increase the impact of faculty research
Goal # 2 Raise visibility/prestige of the university
Goal # 3 Create an institutional leadership role for the Library
Goal # 4 Showcase the university’s research output
Goal # 5 Support changes that address scholarly communication needs for the UHM community

Policy Guidelines for ScholarSpace are included on the intranet at: https://libstaff.manoa.hawaii.edu/committeesandprojects/digitize_team/digital-assets-management-team/Draft6Policy Guidelines for the Institutional Repository.doc

Geospatial Collections

Geospatial data falls in roughly three categories: Cartographic (maps), Remote Sensing and Geographic Information System (GIS) Data.GIS data includes any data that can be converted and tagged with a geographic location. Some of the most common data is in the form of shape files and geodatabases and other GIS software-compatible formats. M?noa MAGIS is the entity that oversees geospatial data discovery, collection and distribution at and for the library. The acquisition of geospatial data closely follows M?noa MAGIS’s mission and goals.

Goal # 1 Incorporate geospatial information into research in most academic disciplines so that the research is better informed and is of better quality.
Goal # 2 Seek to acquire datasets that are not available elsewhere on the World Wide Web.
Goal # 3 Make every effort to create derivatives of paper-based data and make available on the Web that are
* most requested and
* unique to Hawaii and
* support the teaching, research and service goals of the university.
Goal # 4 Wherever possible, use and maintain geospatial metadata standards to assist in discovery of data.

Web Archiving Project

As the Internet becomes one of the major venues for sharing culture and knowledge, researchers are turning to digital material found on the web in order to fully understand the cultural, economic, political and social activities of today and to analyze changes in the future. Consequently, there is a growing awareness of the need to track and archive web content, both as a record of our time and to recreate the web experience for future analyses.

During the last three decades of the 20th century, many Pacific island nations have gone through the process of decolonization. As such, they face multiple challenges when it comes to preserving online material. Given the various instabilities that exist in the Pacific, the archiving of Pacific-based Internet content is not only of value to researchers, but serves as a means of maintaining community memory. Without the kind of connection that the Internet helps to foster —and the kind of cultural memory that an Internet archive will help to maintain —, there is a very real danger of many important aspects of Pacific culture being lost.

For the Hawaiian Collection at the University of Hawaii at M?noa Library it is especially important to archive websites and blogs related to cultural, social, and political movements in Hawaii, in particular the Hawaiian sovereignty movement. The Hawaiian sovereignty movement is a topic of great interest within the academic community and the public at large, and is already a much-studied movement on the University of Hawaii campus.

Goal #1 Promote the idea that websites are a digital form reflecting cultural assets
Goal #2 Establish guidelines, strategies, and policies for web archiving to meet the needs of UHM faculty, students, and community
Goal #3 Develop web archiving tools to capture, curate, and preserve collections of web-based information following library collection management guidelines
Goal #4 Build partnerships with the Hawaiian and Pacific institutions whose websites are of cultural and historical interest and that meet the collection criteria

General Guidelines for the Web Archiving Project are included in this document as Appendix C. They are currently undergoing revision as the project develops.

Online Catalog/Library Management System

The online catalog is the first digital asset ever created by the University Library.It has demonstrated the basic principles of sustainability by migrating, more or less intact, through three library management software systems (ALOHA, CARL, Voyager).This is due to the fact that a highly standardized data encoding and transmission scheme (MARC) has existed for nearly 40 years, and metadata (i.e. cataloging) has been created that adhered to at least minimal coding standards.The problems and data lost in each system conversion is also a perfect example of what can happen when information is created to perform a function in one system, but because no agreed upon standard exists, that data cannot be cost-effectively migrated to a different system.

Charles Cutter in Rules for a Printed Dictionary Catalog, 1876 defined the catalog purpose as:

1. to enable a person to find a book of which either (Identifying objective) the author, title, or subject is known.
2. to show what the library has (Collocating objective) by a given author, on a given subject, in a given kind of literature
3. to assist in the choice of a book (Evaluating objective)

The essential goals and use of the online catalog at UHM remain much the same as 130 plus years ago.

Goal #1 Describe in a standardized consistent manner, provide an accurate inventory and make known the print and non-print holdings of the Library by way of indexes and other search methods
Goal #2 Support system-wide collection access across all UH Libraries
Goal #3 Provide a platform for electronic reserves
Goal #4 Link to full-text and other information directly associated with library holdings (e.g. via 856 tag)

Audio Collections - iTunes

Content currently listed on iTunesU created by the Library includes recordings of campus speakers, instructional videos and material uploaded from a video encyclopedia of short public domain clips (limited permission of 50-100 clips given to Sinclair Library).The committee has been unable to determine if there are specific, defined goals for the use of iTunes by the library to create digital collections.No specific documentation has been found and there was nothing provided in response to the committee's queries on this topic.

Goal #1 Support instruction
Goal #2 Provide access to Library materials or talks that can not be accessed in other ways
Goal #3 Provide an alternative method of access with which students are comfortable or familiar

B. Future Digital Library Program and Projects

Electronic Resources Archiving

The Library's Collection Management and Development Committee has made a commitment to purchase or lease access to electronic resources where economically and technically feasible.By providing access to electronic journals, books and databases, the Library enables users to rapidly and conveniently locate and access the latest information and research.

While purchasing access to remotely-stored electronic resources provides many benefits to purchasing physical, print pieces, it also raises questions of continued access to content the Library has paid for should the content no longer be available through the publisher's site, either due to subscription cancellation, publisher failure, or other circumstances.

To protect the investment the Library has made in electronic resources, we recommend the Library explore options to participate in an established digital archiving project such as the LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) program or Portico.

Collective Access or some open source content management system

Managing documentation about original artworks/objects and other specialized library resources which exist in a variety of media, as well as their surrogates (scanned images or digital photos, slides, negatives, etc.) and making the information about those collections known to researchers and scholars is a part of the library mission.However, any new initiatives in this area should be prioritized in light of campus strategic goals, the relevance of the collections to research and teaching needs of the curriculum, and whether the library has the financial and personnel "carrying capacity" for further digital access management projects.

If cataloging/inventorying the library's archival, special and rare collections is deemed a high priority by library administration we recommend that an open-source, web-client based, centrally served solution that is compatible with possible future inclusion of digital files be investigated.In addition we recommend that a single system be implemented for use by Archives & Manuscripts, Charlot, Rare, Preservation and any other special or specialized collection management/database development needs that cannot be adequately served by Voyager, ScholarSpace, Streetprint or Greenstone.

Audio Collections – Hawaiian Music

In 2002, the library acquired the Hawaiian music collection of Dirk Vogel containing 6,000 78s, 2,650 LPs, 900 45s and thousands of other items. In addition, in 2002, the Library received a bequest of Hawaiian music recordings from the estate of James Grant Cathro a collection of 2,056 phonodiscs (33-1/3, 45 and 78 RPM speeds), 236 cassettes and various other recordings.The National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, Inc. (AKA "Grammys") awarded a grant in 2003 to the Library "to develop a framework for a Hawaii Music Archive." Processing and inventory procedures were developed as part of the grant activities, however only about 2,000 records were entered into a spreadsheet during the grant period.Gregg Geary has recently been in contact with a Music/Hawaiian studies professor who is interested in having his students work on inventorying the Hawaii 78 recordings.In 2007, a request for grant funding was submitted to the EMC Heritage Trust but it was not successful.

A pilot site http://digicoll.manoa.hawaii.edu/music/ using the Streetprint platform has been available on the web since mid-2007.There is great interest in the music community worldwide (researchers and performers) in knowing more about the content of the Hawaiian music holdings of the Library.However, to properly document, preserve the original media, and create and serve digital surrogates is an immense project that would need significant funding and technical expertise beyond what the library can currently muster.

Video Collections

Transitioning to digital off-air television taping, video streaming and conversion of VHS to digital formats are currently under investigation by Sinclair AVC.Standards and practices for long term storage and preservation of large digital video files are still in flux.Copyright issues and "ownership" are much more complex than with digital print or image collections.The committee recommends that a full-time academic/education/media copyright specialist (with expertise in "simple" digital copyright issues) be part of the library staff if major digital/digitized audio or video collections are created.

Laulima (Sakai) Course Management system(s)

The relationship of course content and teaching materials uploaded to Laulima and material that could be added and preserved in ScholarSpace has not yet been explored.Some faculty and institutions treat instructional materials as personal intellectual content and others treat it as a work-for-hire that can be made public and freely distributed.Again, having a copyright specialist on staff would help in future explorations of this area.UH M?noa or UH System administrative support would be needed if the library wanted to take a role in creating any type of Open Learning or OpenCourseware system.

Examples: Carnegie Mellon Open Learning Initiative http://www.cmu.edu/oli/index.shtml

MIT OpenCourseWare http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm
OpenCourseWare Consortium http://www.ocwconsortium.org/home.html

UHM or UH System Records Management

The University System as a whole does not apparently have a coherent records management program for print and standard organizational/departmental records.The University Archives collection policy statement says:

Although the University has a Records Management Officer, the records which go through that office are only a select few, governed by state records schedules for retention in the State Record Center in Mapunapuna until destruction. These records do not come to the University Archives and are not saved.

The boundaries of what the University Archives library unit collects are fuzzy: "valuable historical and legal records of the institution"2.The policy states that the "Archives collects all formats within the other parameters of its collection" however the committee concurs with the June 2004 recommendation of the Report of Ad hoc Library Committee on the Future of the University Archives (https://libstaff.manoa.hawaii.edu/committeesandprojects/digitize_team/2004-06-notes-etc/report-of-ad-hoc-library-committee-on-the-future-of-the-university-archives/?searchterm=archives future) that the "Library and UH Archives impose a moratorium on accepting digital files until a campus-wide committee has defined policies and guidelines on acceptable formats and hardware/software systems to store and maintain them."Purchase of the OCLC Digital Archive product was recommended in that report.The open source options are much greater and more stable now, and the objectives listed in that report could be achieved using a product like CollectiveAccess.

III - Recommendations for Digital Library Program (DLP)

Acknowledge that the Library has a de facto DLP

Many libraries label a few disparate digitized collections as a Digital Library Program3. Others (see the Digital Initiatives Action Team

https://libstaff.manoa.hawaii.edu/committeesandprojects/digitize_team/digital-initiatives-team/Final DIT Report1208.doc/view report) offer digital conversion of images, audio, video and text (OCR and metadata) services; project planning consultation, help with grant-writing, financial planning, copyright research; access to high-end equipment and software; interface design (wireframing, prototyping) and usability assessment to all departments and faculty on their campuses.

On a smaller scale, Desktop Network Services has been performing many of those functions "on the side" for over a decade, without official recognition or authority.

To move from a disconnected, ad hoc mode to a programmatic endeavor, Library administration must designate an official path for participation in digital initiatives supported in any way by Library resources.This should include a clear statement that DNS is the locus for all library digital project decisions.

Prioritize support and resource allocations based on campus prerequisites

* Ensure that the core needs of students are met.
* Enhance the integrity and quality of academic programs, research infrastructure and capacity in areas highly aligned to the UHM vision.
* Enhance programs that serve the current and future needs of the state and/or nation.4

Apply these principles

* Transparency and open communication about project priorities and resource allocation.
* Proposals must include specific metrics to address efficiency, assessment and sustainability.
* Eliminate duplication and reinventing the wheel.
* Promote broader understanding and consideration of the costs, benefits, and methodologies of DL projects.5

Continue support for digital project development under the following conditions:

1) Proposed project developers must complete a project planning document before launching a new collection project.The planning document should address:
* criteria and procedures by which requests for project support can be assessed and resources allocated.
*systematic assessment, selection, and sequencing of DL projects to ensure that projects fit into the broader context of library planning.
* realistic consideration of the estimated costs of potential projects based on data and consultation with appropriate library units and staff.

2) Use the UCLA Digital Library Program Criteria for Digital Projects as a model.It is designed to "help in establishing a strong rationale when requesting support from internal or external sources [and] assess strengths and weaknesses and promote an analytical approach" (http://www2.library.ucla.edu/libraries/2639.cfm).Criteria include:
* The project provides significant support for research and instruction.
* There are faculty and library advocates for the project.
* The project's intrinsic value will ensure long-term use by a significant audience.
* The project can be completed with available funding, or has funding through grants, donors, or other external fund sources.
* The project falls within traditional areas of library service or moves our services in a direction consonant with the Library's strategic directions.
* The project brings credit to the Library in a manner likely to generate further digital library projects and funding.
* The project has local or regional importance.
* The project is reasonable, practical, and achievable.
* The project creates or sustains a partnership that the library will find valuable for future development.
* There is a compelling argument for digitizing mater