Mission and Guiding Principles
of the Digital Research Library
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Mission and General Selection Principles
The mission of the Digital Research Library (DRL) is to create for the University
of Pittsburgh community digital collections of materials that substantially support the teaching and research of
its faculty and students. The DRL especially welcomes proposals
when digital technologies increase the value of materials by providing
new forms of intellectual access to content of works, additional
research possibilities, such as collaboration amongst a virtual
community of scholars through Web access.
In addition to following the University Library System's (ULS)
established collections development criteria and policies, selection
for digitization requires that materials have enduring value and
be available in a sufficient number or quantity that they form a
significant and unique research corpus.
The expected audience or constituencies of a digital collection
must be such that sources of external funding can be identified
and pursued.
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Digitization for Preservation
As part of ULS' ongoing commitment to the preservation of intellectual
content for future generations, the DRL supports a program of application
of digital technologies to extending the useful life of materials
at risk. When it is appropriate and cost effective, digital projects
will integrate a preservation and conservation component such as
production of acid free paper facsimiles, microforms or careful
treatment and preservation of originals.
Although data migration is an ongoing concern of the ULS, digital
editions will not be considered preservation quality replacements
for original editions until technological issues are resolved and
standards are widely accepted.
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Legal Issues -- Copyright -- Ownership Rights
The DRL will honor intellectual property rights and laws and follow
best practices of academic research libraries.
While published works clearly in the public domain (works published
prior to 1923) are given priority, the DRL will consider digitization
of materials for which written permission for open access on the
World Wide Web or copyright clearance has been obtained.
Any property rights related to digital collections created by ULS
accrue to the University of Pittsburgh. Secondary use or re-purposing
of digital files must be cleared through the DRL and specific permission
obtained.
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Bibliographic Integrity -- Authenticity or Provenance -- Bibliographic Identification
The DRL applies the principle of bibliographic integrity to digital
editions and favors digitization of complete works with attribution
of authorship or intellectual responsibility for content or clear
provenance.
Articles from journals, single pages or chapters of books, etc. will seldom be selected for digitization.
Because metadata records facilitate navigation and retrieval relevance,
projects with existing records or with additional resources to create new metadata records will be preferred.
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Specifications and Standards
Preparation of specifications for each project will be an integral part of the
planning process and will follow best practices of leading digitization experts
Outsourcing options will be investigated and cost and quality comparisons
between vendor work and in-house work will be completed as part
of the planning process.
The DRL will review project proposals as to technical feasibility
and assess how well a project will integrate with workflow, platforms,
and systems in use at ULS or at peer institutions.
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Project Initiation, Development, and Resource Requirements
The DRL
Checklist for Digitization Projects must be completed during
the process of project development.
Additional resource issues that need to be addressed during the
planning process include:
- Need for systems development
- Security of rare items
- Transcription of items not suited to optical character recognition
- Pre-scanning conservation measures and production of stable
preservation quality output products
- Expected demand for extensive services to remote users or expansion
of user services
- Use of technologies not available through imaging vendors or
the ULS and which require acquisition of hardware, software, and
personnel with appropriate skills.
A project proposal, based on the information in the checklist and meetings held with the DRL, will be developed jointly and submitted to appropriate administrators for approval.
Pending approval, a project team will be formally created to discuss and determine the details of workflow, deliverables, timeline, personnel, equipment, imaging specifications, etc. Work on the project will begin when funding is appropriated.
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