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NEWS
NEDCC Presents Successful National Conference on Digitization
Digital Directions:
Fundamentals of Creating and Managing Digital Collections
Jacksonville, Florida
June 10–12, 2008
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The Jacksonville Skyline |
On June 10–12, the Northeast Document Conservation Center
presented Digital Directions: Creating and Managing Digital Collections in Jacksonville, Florida. The conference was an updated version of NEDCC’s popular School for Scanning, which was first launched in 1995. This year, the conference was renamed and revamped to reflect its expanded content, which now encompasses the full life-cycle of digital objects, from planning to creation to sustainability.
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Robin Dale discusses outsourcing and vendor relations during a full conference session. |
146 participants from 28 states attended Digital Directions this year. They included digital librarians, registrars, archives volunteers, audio visual archivists, technical services librarians, and executive directors. Participating institutions included the National Archives and Records Administration, the Smithsonian Institution, Sandia National Laboratories, the Mobile Municipal Archives, Walt Disney Entertainment, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum, and the Historic New Orleans Collection. University libraries were well-represented, as were archives and museums. Most attendees were at a beginning level of digital expertise; many had just begun digital projects or were still in the early planning stages.
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Sam Brylawski presents an overview of audio-visual preservation basics during a break-out session |
Break-out sessions on Days One and Two provided an opportunity to explore the nuts and bolts of digitization with experts in the field. The smaller classroom settings encouraged discussion and lively question-and-answer sessions. Topics included Selection for Digitization; the ABCs of Scanning; and Digitizing Text, Audio and Video, and Film.
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| Red Kelley of Boston Systems & Solutions, LLC/LeftHand Networks chats with participants about storage solutions. |
The Vendor Showcase in the adjacent hall gave conference participants the opportunity to meet with leading providers of digitization hardware, software, and services. Participants had many questions specific to their digital projects and were eager to see demonstrations of new digital equipment.
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David Hodnefield of Historical Information Gatherers discusses digitization of maps. |
2008 Vendors
Boston Systems and Solutions / LeftHand Networks
Historical Information Gatherers
The Digital Directions conference is a great way to begin a digital project. It is a complete immersion into the terminology and the issues surrounding digitization and an exploration of the how-to’s – as well as the how-NOT-to’s – of creating long-lasting digital collections. Digital Directions will be presented again in Spring 2009 in San Diego. Watch www.nedcc.org for upcoming details.
For those who are ready to take the next step, NEDCC also offers Persistence of Memory: Sustaining Digital Collections, a conference highlighting evolving best practices for digital preservation to help with the life-cycle management of your institution’s digital collections. Save the date! December 9–10, 2008, Chicago.
NEDCC also offers a two-day workshop on sustaining digital collections entitled, Stewardship of Digital Assets. Through a combination of lecture, case studies, and interactive sessions, participants will learn about the long-term needs of the digital information that exists in their institutions, and how to plan for the preservation of their digital assets. The workshop is presented in a smaller group setting of 35 people. See http://www.nedcc.org/education for more information. Workshops are planned for three locations across the country in 2009. Watch the Web site for details.
If you would like to be added to the mailing list for NEDCC’s conferences, contact Julie Martin, jmartin@nedcc.org.
Sample comments by 2008 Digital Directions attendees:
- This has been a wonderful conference. Thank you for the speakers that have given us tremendous amounts of information and resources to read once we get home. The facility was delightful – very capable of handling all the facets of the conference.
- Very well organized. I got a lot of useful information.
- The presenters were full of energy. They helped us stay entertained and enthusiastic about the topics.
- Excellent, informative program. Worth the money and time.
- The information provided was exceptionally helpful and will give me much food for thought upon returning to my workplace.
- Useful. Inspiring!
- I have been doing serious project planning these last few months and I wanted to come here to just test my mettle and make sure I really knew what was going on. I do. Yeah! I am leaving here confident to finish my proposal, with a greater ability to articulate some of my decisions. Thanks everyone.
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Some of the illustrious faculty members and staff who provided Digital Directions. |
2008 Digital Directions Faculty
Simon Tanner, King's College London
Kristine R. Brancolini, Loyola Marymount University
Janet Gertz, Columbia University
Scott Kehoe, Northeast Massachusetts Regional Library System
David Joyall, Northeast Document Conservation Center
Liz Bishoff, Bibliographical Center for Research
Robin L. Dale, UC Santa Cruz
Tom Blake, Boston Public Library
Sam Brylawski, UC Santa Barbara
Karen Colbron, WGBH Educational Foundation
Greg Colati, University of Denver
Peter Hirtle, Cornell University
Anne Sauer, Tufts University
Bill Walker, Amigos Library Services
Tom Clareson, PALINET
Roy Tennant, OCLC Programs and Research
Photographs: Julie Martin, Northeast Document Conservation Center