diglib: special digital content meeting March 16

[Carol Hixson <chixson@darkwing.uoregon.edu>]

There is a special meeting of the Digital
Content Coordinators and other interested
library staff on Wednesday, March 16
at 4 p.m.  (I'm checking on the room.)

The agenda topic is: how we propose to handle
new digital content that is donated or purchased -
especially when it does not come with its own
delivery mechanism (such as files on CD-ROM
or DVD that need to be stored and made
accessible to the public in some fashion.)

This meeting is not about new digital collections
that the library wants to create from its own
analog collections. It is, rather, a discussion
of the questions we need to be asking when
we acquire (through purchase or donation)
digital content.

Faye and I met on February 25 to begin fleshing
out some of these questions or issues. Below
is a list for us to start with (there are many more):

- appropriateness of content (fit with CD policy)?
- funding priority compared to other materials?
- expectations of donors?
- is material in public domain or is copyright clear?
- restrictions on public access?
- prioritization with in-house collections of digital
   	content?
- prioritization with other types of materials?
- how many objects?
- what types of files?
- do files meet our standards (for display, storing, etc.)?
- are we equipped to handle the file formats?
- average size of files and total size?
- long or short-term retention?
- is there enough information about the files to
	preserve them?
- expected timeframe for accessibility?
- expected use of materials?
- type of access desired?
- how will they be searched? displayed? downloaded?
- do materials come with any metadata?
- can material be made available through an
   	existing digital asset management system
   	or will it require local development of an
   	interface?
- how do the materials and the interface to them
	fit it with other collections?

To help us think through these and other questions,
we have a couple of recent acquisitions to discuss.

Carol