Putting Content Online: A Practical Guide for Libraries

Citation

Cloete, L. (2007), "Putting Content Online: A Practical Guide for Libraries", Online Information Review, Vol. 31 No. 4, pp. 546-547. https://doi.org/10.1108/14684520710780557

The digitisation of the world's books and making them available on the web was once considered a distant futuristic dream. It has fast become a reality with the recent media announcements from inter alia, Google, Microsoft and Amazon of their digitisation projects. Furthermore, the European Commission encourages member nations to digitise their cultural heritage and make it freely available to the world. A number of other organisations, archives, associations and alliances have also indicated their initiatives to embark on various digitisation projects. The question arises: what role do libraries, especially small and medium‐size libraries, play in the digitisation and dissemination of printed material held by them? Putting Content Online: A Practical Guide for Libraries is a timely publication specifically aimed at libraries and librarians involved in digitising projects or planning such initiatives.

The book focuses on the planning, management and execution of projects in which institutions, especially libraries, digitise material and make it available on the web, or make born‐digital collections available. The emphasis is on the planning, technical and operational aspects of digitisation projects.

Important topics covered include: the rationale for digitising, collection goals, scope and objectives, libraries as publishers, evaluation and selection of source material, intellectual property issues, the implications of copyright law, metadata and interoperability standards for digital collections, file formats, search and retrieval considerations, digital library content management systems, project management and operations, developing workflows and preservation strategies. Finally, the book concludes with the presentation of a fictional case study to illustrate how all the aspects of a digitisation project can be realistically managed and executed.

Although essential technical aspects are covered, this is not done on such a level that it becomes difficult for the non‐technical expert to understand and appreciate. The most important features of the publication are that the approach is practical and standards‐based, that it provides advice for solving realistic problems, that it addresses potential challenges and that it covers a comprehensive range of topics related to digitisation projects.

There is an extensive further reading list and endnotes at the end of each chapter, which offer valuable sources for further study and research. A well‐structured index enables the reader to locate information on the most important topics covered.

Putting Content Online: A Practical Guide for Libraries is recommended for librarians who are developing collections of digitised and born‐digital documents according to standard library principles. Archivists and museum curators may, however, also benefit. Students of digital librarianship will be able to use the book as a text in their studies.