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Digitial Initiatives: Key Questions

Types of Projects

 What types of digital projects do we want to engage in?

For example:

  • Institutional Repository (IR)
  • Digital Exhibits
  • Patron-Driven Digitization
  • Visualization Tools (e.g. location, date, charts)
  • Crowdsourcing
  • Statistical Data Analysis (e.g. R)

Content

What types of resources do we want to handle?

For example:

  • Born-digital vs. analog, physical materials
  • Scholarly documents (articles, dissertations, theses)
  • Books
  • Images / Photographs
  • Maps
  • Audio
  • Motion pictures (inc. video)
  • Three-dimensional objects
  • Data sets
  • FSU-specific documents & records

Use & Need

  • Who are our target user groups for proposed digital project(s)?
  • Have users identified particular needs or requests for digitization and other digital projects?
  • Are there any projects that are urgent priorities and why (e.g. Coal Mine Mapping Project)?

Access

  • What form of access is best for users and is sustainable for the Ort?  (For example, would DACS minimum-level finding aids provide increased usuage of Special Collections resources?)
  • Do we want to put all digital objects (both born-digital and digital surrogates) into an institutional repository (IR)?
  • Do we want to restrict access to some objects in an IR (e.g. embargo or other restriction) while making metadata about object available?
  • Will some digital objects not be in the IR but elsewhere on the Ort Library website or only available through in-house use?

Stakeholders

  • Who are our stakeholders in the library? Are they direct or indirect stakeholders?
  • Who are our stakeholders outside the library? For example: Faculty, students, the public

Where do we find content for these projects?

For example:

  • Faculty scholarship, e.g. articles
  • Dissertations and theses
  • Special collections
  • Archives
  • Other institutions/organizations
  • Individuals

Money

  • What is the budget for digitization operations and/or specific projects?
  • Where does the money for particular projects come from?