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Digitisation of Special Collections: National and Academic Libraries’ Examples DESIDOC Bulletin of Information Technology, Vol. 24, No.5, September 2004, pp. 3-9 © 2004, DESIDOC Digitisation of Special Collections: National and Academic Libraries’ Examples Rochna Srivastava Abstract The paper describes a few major national and academic libraries of the world that have undertaken projects to exploit the potential of digital technology for displaying unique and fragile materials. It also highlights major goals of these digital projects. Selection criteria of special collections for digitisation, by these libraries, have also been discussed in the paper. 1. SPECIAL COLLECTION four terabytes of digitised information1. Special collection forms the core of the Special collections of the BL are digitised to primary research collection of a library. maximise their use by facilitating a greater volume of networked access and by providing Whatever may be the format, the common features of special collection are that they are the enhanced functionality intrinsic to the unique, rare, require special handling, and in digitised items. Materials covered under limited availability or just something that digitisation programme may be: cannot be located in the open stacks. Equally q Owned by the BL important is that the material is valued as an q Deposited with the BL artifact. Special collection may use digitisation q Owned by a collaborative partner of the BL as a preservation technique but its real value 2 q Owned by a commercial partner of the BL . is related to the increased access to special collections. The Early Printed Collections Department of the BL provides wider access to important The selection of special collection material for digitisation is based upon the same criteria items by digitising them so as to preserve fragile originals for future generations of for placing material in special collections: researchers. A wide range of fine and historic uniqueness; artifactual value; importance to bindings found in the BL are being digitised. original research; etc. Almost all major Well represented bindings are mainly British libraries of the world are having digitisation and Continental. programme to provide greater access to its special collections through the digitisation of Database of Bookbindings3 is an image material including photographs, manuscripts, database of bookbinding compiled since 1997 maps, printed music, pictures, etc. covering Western European printed books. Evanion collection of Henry Evans 2. NATIONAL LIBRARIES (1832-1905) containing around 5,000 items relating to Victorian entertainment and 2.1 The British Library (BL) everyday life has been digitised by the BL4. There is a growing number of collaborative ‘Burney Collection of Early English digitisation initiatives within the British Library Newspapers’ is trying to make the text of (BL) and the library already has an estimated newspapers and newsbooks of pre1801 fully DESIDOC Bulletin of Inf Technol, 2004, 24(5) 3 searchable via a website. Individual plays of q The Library’s catalogue Shakespeare, referred to as quartos, are q PictureAustralia completely converted into digital copies under q MusicAustralia the project ‘Shakespeare Quartos’. About 200 q Library’s multimedia applications. books describing public displays at royal marriages and funerals, stately entries into 2.2.1 Pictures cities, and other similar events have The Pictures’ Catalogue provides access completely digitised under the project to over 65,000 pictorial images available ‘Renaissance Festival Books’. online which are also exposed to internet The digitisation project ‘The Gutenberg search engines through a URL list. Bible’ aims to provide wider access to this 2.2.2 Music rare material printed in Mainz around Some music albums published before 1454-555. 1930 and all Australian sheet music Another project ‘Canterbury Tales’ has first (composed by an Australian, or on Australia two editions of Geoffrey Chaucer’s ‘The or published in Australia) available at NLA is Canterbury Tales’ as printed by William now available through digitised printed music Caxton in 1476 and 1483 in complete digital collection. Initially over 2,000 sheet music form. In order to increase access to Beowulf, items were released which are exposed to the oldest surviving epic in British literature internet search engines through a URL list. has been published on CD-ROM (The Electronic Beowulf) by the BL. 2.2.3 Maps All sheet maps and selected atlases ‘Turning The Pages’ is an award-winning interactive display system developed by the published before 1900 possessed by the BL to increase public access and enjoyment National Library of Australia are digitised. 6 Initially, over 1,000 sheet maps from the Nan of its treasures using touch screen technology and animation. Kivell rare map collection were released. More maps from the Ferguson rare map ‘International Dunhuang Project’ is to collection are expected to be added to this promote the study and preservation of pre collection thus reaching the collection over eleventh century manuscripts and artefacts. 2,000. 2.2 National Library of Australia 2.2.4 Manuscripts (NLA) The Library’s online exhibition features digitised manuscripts’ collections of the NLA A number of digitisation projects have (e.g., Diary of William John Wills and the been undertaken by the NLA7 for long-term papers of Sir Edmund Barton). All kinds of preservation of traditional documentary 8 unpublished records, maps and plans relating materials. Digitisation provides access to to Cook’s South Sea voyages have also been electronic information resources such as digitised. NAL is in the process of digitising image databases, recordings, theses, oral history and folklore collection and will be manuscripts and the full text of periodical made available online very soon. As part of articles index by the library9. the International Children’s Digital Library Special collections (including photographs, Project, it is also involved in digitising cartoons, drawings, transparencies, Australian children’s works. negatives, postcards, maps, printed music and manuscripts) of the NLA has been 2.3 Library of Congress (LC) digitised under a major digitisation The Library of Congress (LC) is trying to programme aiming at providing greater develop a national strategy for the access to its collection. This digital material is preservation of digital information 10 and has made available on the internet through: carried out its preservation responsibilities by q Online exhibitions providing adequate storage conditions, 4 DESIDOC Bulletin of Inf Technol, 2004, 24 (5) reformatting materials from their original treasures of the LC. Maps are available in fragile formats to more stable media and from three images: rare and unique materials with intrinsic value q Master image in TIFF file format to restoring originals through conservation q Reference image in SID file format treatment. q Thumbnail image in GIF file format. American Memory,11 the flagship of the 2.3.4 Documents (text and page library’s digital services, offers more than 7.5 million digital items from more than 100 images) historical collections. Multimedia collections of American Memory document collection digitised documents, photographs, recorded also includes pictures of pages and sound, motion pictures and text from the illustrations from original documents. They American historical collections of the LC and are presented in five formats: other institutions are now the part of American q Images of original pages (.tif or .tiff format) Memory, the National Digital Library. q Images of original illustrations (.pcx format) 2.3.1 Sound Recordings q Page images (.pdf format) The majority of sound recordings included q Page images for large-format document in the American memory are taken from material (like newspapers and maps) (.sid cylinder and disk recordings and are offered format) in three formats requiring special players: q SGML viewer option (text). t RealAudio delivering sound fast, with a Online collections of manuscript materials minimum download time such as Presidential papers, papers of Government officials, organisational records, t MPEG2, layer 3 (.mp3) offering high quality foreign sources and special collections are sound downloading available as digital images or as searchable t WaveForm (-wav) higher quality version. text. 2.3.2 Motion Pictures 3. CO-OPERATIVE DIGITAL The motion pictures, (from 1894-1912) PROJECTS deposited to LC for copyright, were chosen for digitisation. They were all black-and-white 3.1 Berkeley Digital Library and silent whether originating from paper SunSITE prints or from early film copies in other The University of California, Berkeley collections. Current motion pictures are presented in three formats: Library is using digital technology to build a national digital library in collaboration with a q .mpg (Motion Pictures Experts Group or number of other organisations to enhance MPEG) containing highest quality film files access to information while preserving it for 12 q .mov (QuickTime) offering small future generations. The Berkeley Digital downloadable files Library SunSITE13, sponsored by The Library, UC Berkeley and Sun Microsystems, Inc., q .rm (Real Media) allowing viewing of the film builds digital collections and services while as it arrives at the users’ computers. providing information and support to digital 2.3.3 Maps library developers worldwide. The digital map collection represents only California Heritage collection14 is the result a small fraction of the Geography and Map of the
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