Aug: “What do I do with all these Images?” Getting Started with Digital Image Collections

Dates: August 1-28, 2013
Credits: 1.5 CEUs
Price: $175

    

This course is primarily aimed at librarians who are new to managing special image collections and who wish to learn more about beginning a digitization program. Through readings, individual exercises, and class discussions, students will develop an understanding of the following key components of digitization project planning: evaluation and preparation of resources, building sustainable workflows and storage environments, and usability assessment. In the first part of the course, students will become familiar with current research into the behaviours and attitudes of image-seekers, and they will develop a broad understanding of how different metadata standards for libraries, archives and museums record and present information to the end user. In the following weeks, we will discuss basic steps for creating and preserving digital images, such as choosing an appropriate scanning resolution, file naming, and devising scale-appropriate storage methods. Students will evaluate various strategy and planning documents in order to develop goals for their projects, and will be given examples of workflows that can be customized for their own use. The focus will be on providing access to collections that are being digitized from analogue materials, but will also have applications to born-digital collections.
Course goals:

• Increase understanding of current environment for digital images
• Experience digital collections from the user perspective, evaluating their goals and needs
• Learn planning techniques and strategies for implementing a digitization program
• Evaluate various approaches and standards to metadata, understand metadata interoperability
• Learn the standard sizes, formats and techniques for scanning images

This course is followed by Beth Knazook's Describing Photographs for the Online Catalogue, for those who are interested.

Beth Knazook holds an MA in Photographic Preservation and Collections Management from Ryerson University/ George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film. She has previously worked as the Curatorial Specialist for Ryerson University Archives & Special Collections and as the Photo Archivist for the Stratford Festival of Canada. She has presented at library and archives conferences on topics of digital access and cataloguing methods for image-based resources, and she will begin her doctoral studies in Art History and Art Conservation at Queen's University in September 2013 with a focus on the history, use and care of nineteenth century photographically-illustrated books. Interview with Beth