Tag Archives: Digitizing

Smithsonian Libraries Staff Assist with Growth of the Digital Public Library of America

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Image of exterior, Chicago Public Library

Impressive exterior of the Harold Washington Library Center, Chicago

This post was written by Martin Kalfatovic, Associate Director, Digital Services Division, Smithsonian Institution Libraries.

On October 11-12, Nancy Gwinn, Director of the Smithsonian Institution Libraries, and I participated in the Digital Public Library of America’s (DPLA) Midwest workstream and plenary meetings. The meetings were held in some wonderful meeting spaces at the Harold Washington Library Center of the Chicago Public Library (interesting side note: the building holds the record for largest public library space!). Continue reading →

Increased Access for History, Art, and Culture Digitizations — New URLS!

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Online If you’ve seen any of the 1,000+ physical copies of the books scanned through the History, Art, and Culture (HAC) Digitization Project, maybe you noticed a sticker just below the barcode that reads ”ONLINE.”

We do that for the same reasons the Biodiversity Heritage Library puts stickers that read “BHL” on the thousands of items the Libraries has digitized for that collection: to alert staff that the book is available online, thereby increasing access while decreasing the wear and tear on the physical item.

We are now pleased to announce the presence of URLS in SIRIS with direct links to Digitized HAC volumes. The methodology varies slightly between monographs and multi-volume titles, but the end result is the same, links that take you directly to the digitized version of the item without a trip to the stacks.

—Erin Thomas

 

Preservation Week

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Phu2The American Library Association Preservation Week is May 9-15. The Libraries is committed to the preservation, safe exhibition, and long-term access to its collections, many of which are irreplaceable. Our comprehensive preservation program includes the coordination of all library-wide activities relating to the preservation of library collections; conservation treatment of special and general collections needed for research, exhibition or digitization; collection maintenance and shelf preparation activities; commercial binding of serials and monographs; reformatting to microfilm or photocopy; disaster planning and response; environmental control; staff and user education; and public outreach.

—Elizabeth Periale

Phuong Pham, Library Technician, Preservation Services.