0:02
Hello everyone and welcome to today's webinar hosted by info people and today our topic is demystifying digitization and introduction of California revealed and I am now happy to turn the webinar over to our presenter Pamela Vatican director of California revealed.
0:23
Thank you, Mary. And hello everyone. Thank you so much. And for people for hosting this is California revealed this first webinar, so I just want you all to bear with me as I manage these new format. Our regularly scheduled summer workshops were canceled. So we're trying to substitute our training with this webinar.
0:50
No, so my name is Pamela Vatican and I'm director California revealed, which is a California State Library funded program that provides free digitization preservation and online access services for cultural heritage collections across the state and we also give out small grants to support cataloguing and community outreach projects, which also talk a little bit about today.
1:15
So welcome to demystifying digitization a webinar that will introduce you to the California revealed program and along the way provide General guidelines to help you prepare for any digitization project. We're going to cover a lot of ground today. Usually our workshops are a day long and we only have about an hour and a half together today.
1:38
So right away, I want to point out that documentation on the program additional resources all the Sober for two today are live at our website at California revealed dot-org. And also I want to say that you will have an additional half-hour today for questions and comments after my presentation. So please save your questions for later. And of course, you can contact me anytime after today. So in case you don't know about our program we serve a wide range of keepers. 
2:15
Purrs, collect libraries. Sorry, we serve a wide range of Keepers Librarians archivists curators collection managers volunteers and Loan arrangers and all our all our Collective Partners in the effort to stay in California history, which as you can imagine is a never-ending effort and threatened by backlogs of physically deteriorating materials poor storage conditions never-ending.
2:46
Never Enough funding to a few to no staff and in the case of idea visual recording format obsolescence and scarce playback equipment. I'm sure all of this sounds familiar and this is just the counting for what is held by institutions. Imagine what Treasures are in family closets recall California revealed a partnership because we try to meet our partners where they are.
3:11
Our process is based on best practices in the field, but we try to be Be practical in our approach to recognizing most organizations have limited resources and doing something is better than doing nothing planning. A digitization project is an opportunity to assess the general needs of your collection identify what is valuable to your community jumpstart preservation access and leverage additional resources over the years.
3:38
We found that the theory of best practice compliments good enough practice on the ground and this afternoon we'll discuss How to apply these practical practices to your own digitization projects and of course California revealed is here to help you along the way. So this is just the first of many conversations to come.
4:06
So I imagine we have a variety of experiences and skill sets here and everyone's in a different place. So to get a sense of where we are as a group. I wanted to take a quick poll.
4:26
Does your organization have a a digitization program?
4:32
And will give you about 10 seconds.
4:35
To get a sensitive.
4:38
Who's here?
4:42
No, yes, and how yes, you're Outsourcing the work, but maybe yes the combination of both a little bit and how a little bit outsourced.
4:57
hey great, so we have most people well, it's about half and half of not digitizing and house at all Outdoor Store in house and then mostly in house, which is great interesting. I do want to say that I do want to say that we we mostly Outsource the digitization work that we do so I will speak mostly to working with them.
5:36
But we will address specifications for a digitization program in house is well, I think the standards apply and either scenario.
5:52
So today we're going to just briefly cover who who we are brief introduction to California revealed will discuss the opportunities of digitization and how the benefits really over overrule the challenges. I think you'll find and the real focus of this webinar is to detail the six steps of the digitization process.
6:20
From inventory and assessment to preparation of materials for digitization to digitization standard to quality control of the files to long-term storage and preservation and to online access in the end along the way we'll decide roles and responsibilities of our partnership. So you can get a sense of how to participate in California revealed and at the very end. I'm going to give you an overview of our timeline for our next Grant.
6:50
Michael and hopefully we'll have plenty of time for questions and comments.
7:06
So the California revealed collection has actually been around since 2010 and these are just the hard numbers to give you a sense of our growth and we've grown tremendously since we first started uploading at first recordings, we uploaded in the spring of 2011. And so we're coming up on our tenth anniversary now and we've steadily been funded by the California State library, but over.
7:36
Years. We've also received Federal funding from any age in 2012 and then again in 2016, and then from 2013 to 2015. We were funded with a diagram with them from imls. So we've had a combination of state and federal funding but we're now at this point funded annually by the State library with lsta funds.
8:04
And we started digitizing audio-visual collections for the first six years of the program. And then we acquired about a dozen lsta funded digital projects including several shades of California photograph collections. Some of you may be familiar with that project.
8:23
So that's that's when we started expanding our formats to include images and documents and in 2000 and 18 is when the state librarian asked us to try to Pilot that included all material type. So I'll you know, we're basically format agnostic at this point. We're digitizing audio visual recordings newspapers Ledger scrapbooks photograph.
8:53
We really what you know, we appreciate the challenge of esoteric idea visual formats like Wax cylinders and 22 millimeter Motion Picture film will Pick what whatever you have will take it as long as it's a significant State history. So we'll talk a little bit about the selection criteria in a bit. But anyway, as you can see have we as we added items we we are getting more and more hits and we're averaging about 42,000 a month.
9:23
And of course that went up recently this past month is everyone's Sheltering in place now, I'm I'm doing all the talking today, but I wanted to acknowledge that there are actually eight of us and we have an active paid internship program where we host at least one student a year and this year. We're processing tens of thousands of objects. We have many in the queue. So the numbers always growing what's available on my and once you once you go online and see our collections, you'll you'll see them grow.
9:58
So please check in and And see what we've put up recently.
10:04
So we are a program where a process it's a labor and a labor of love and it's also a partnership.
10:17
So we have almost 300 Partners across the state. This is just a sample of people A to Z wonderful range of collections including libraries archives historical societies government agencies independent nonprofit production companies and you can see from the map. Just how much of the state is not represented by this program and we know you know, there are missing stories there.
10:47
More places we need to visit with our regional workshops and Chris just so much to discover and make available and I hope some of you here well will join us in this effort and the on the map.
11:03
Tap last California revealed is is also you know a a collection of mostly unpublished primary source materials. And at this point we have almost 60,000 objects available online. This is quite a rich collection at this point. We have photo albums scrapbooks Flyers newspapers home movies oral history.
11:32
These are just Apple images and and I can add I can send you all links later.
11:38
So you can actually see the objects and explore them but it really is an amazing collection history as it happened and it and it's there's just a lot of potential for research and reuse, which is an exciting benefit of the program kind of like the cherry on top of our effort to size and preserve our history Why should we digitize? What what is the if it is here? Well, we know we can't save everything digitization is an opportunity to assess the preservation needs of your collection and really kind of be honest and select what is most at risk. What is most valuable?
12:35
And what is most requested by your community? So it really is like an opportunity to move forward with your preservation plan and make a decision kind of forces you to decide what is most significant to your your institution your community and you know preservation requires an explicit commitment of resources, the triage and selection is necessary and I'm going to kind of guide you through this process.
13:05
Of selecting a necessity in a second.
13:10
And I didn't want to just tell you why I think you know what I think we should digitize and make collections available. We we have Partners to of attested to the rewards of being part of this process. And just in this could I say to speak to their own digitization projects? We have found that many many people who start participating in this program if it usually is a first time experience for them, so that that is changing.
13:38
I know a lot of a lot of Have have built in-house programs like many of you here. So it really kind of compliments. I think the in-house effort in and what were able to Outsource, but just to kind of give you a sense of what what people have said one person said we are able to share recordings that would otherwise not be known by staff for the public. It's also the preservation of California history for the future once digitized. We integrate them into the education.
14:10
A tional experience that the library provides a community of Scholars greater dissemination of our materials is an excellent benefit and we games connections and our community that has helped all of us work together better.
14:23
We've learned much more about managing or trying to manage digital objects and it has helped her staff build a case for more investment in digitization projects.
14:43
So I'm going to go over just the quick steps of a basic inventory assuming that this is a good kind of starting point. For those of you who haven't started a digitization program and you need to know what what you have and I I see the inventory as again another opportunity to know what you have and assess the value and condition as you identify.
15:13
What you have? So the first the first step is that you need to know the extent of what you have and what you want to preserve when you you're not going to be able to get support financially institutionally with your community for you know, supporting the unknown, you know, the preservation of unknown materials.
15:37
You have to know what you have and where and Again, like I think the first step is just identifying and and answering these questions.
15:56
And really, you know.
15:59
Starting with just even a partial inventory is you know, if it's a good beginning, you know, you just have to start somewhere and I would even recommend just using a spreadsheet, you know, don't get caught up in deciding what database software to use, you know, just go with the spreadsheet. You can always import the data later and I would just consider two as you're deciding what Fields you want to capture consider your resources available.
16:29
How much staff times available and how accurate do you want to be how detailed you want to be? But generally you can do an item level inventory with the spreadsheet fairly easily if you have you know less than 500 if I just start start in small batches.
16:50
And this inventory can actually see it into our nomination process, which I'll talk about it a little bit as we go over the fields.
16:59
And I did want to speak to this idea of determining what is significant so that you can start to triage and select new future preservation actions including digitization, but could also cut think about rehousing perhaps you need shelving you all all of this data will be useful for other kinds of conservation preservation activities.
17:26
But when we when we asked people to nominate objects for digitization, we do ask specifically.
17:35
How is the content historically significant which can really is more about you know, significant to your institution your community. It's a very kind of subjective question, which is why I have significant in quotation marks because that's not really up to us to Define. It's really up to you all so we just you know, these are just kind of prompts like to kind of add value to the object.
18:02
Is it historically significant do people The object is it part of a comprehensive collection. Ideally, would you want to digitize the whole collection kind of the Arc of the Stream?
18:13
If lost and this is of course it's kind of a weird question, but if you're trying to kind of add some sort of financial value to the object, would your library or archive spend resources to replace it with kind of assuming it's replaceable, you know, a lot of most of your collections are unique so it's kind of a weird question, but you can kind of think about well would it be worth the institution to replace it if they could I also like to add considerations for copyright because usually if it's non-commercial out of copyright public but the public domain material its lower hanging fruit for digitization. So you don't need to worry as much about potential, you know conflicts or, you know, people contesting youth but II would just we're going to talk.
19:10
About rights in a little bit, but I I think that's it's something to consider. Like if you know the copyright status of an object and that's that's a good way to kind of move forward and know that it's safe to make it available online.
19:25
And last but not least is that your responsibility which of course not not the could be a complicated question 2.
19:35
And as you're assessing value at the same time, it says condition and this is this really is about the physical material just consider is this unique archival material. Is it the master and or is it the best available which a lot of times in the audiovisual world? You might have a copy of something but it might be extremely rare. So it's a good candidate for digitization.
20:05
Obsolescence is always a consideration particularly for audio-visual recording. Basically, if it's analog it's endangered magnetic media in particular is extremely fragile and I would say that the window has closed. If not, you know, if it hasn't closed yet. It's closing to really transfer those you need to transfer the magnetic media formats as soon as possible.
20:35
It's getting harder and harder to find that as a playback equipment.
20:40
Aunt and yeah, is it damaged or deteriorating? So this is I would just think of like red flag scenarios. Like is it falling apart? Is that moldy? Does it smell like vinegar questions like that? Just kind of add a little asterisk in your inventory. And if it's a if use continues is it at risk for instance? Are you playing back audio cassette tapes that might get damaged in the tape player?
21:12
So these are the essential fields that I would start with when you're doing an inventory and these are the required fields for California revealed. So it's fairly simple. Just whatever information you capture you could submit as a nomination for the program and I I think that this really is a good start again format and condition and extent information is really important.
21:40
Don't for budgeting purposes for approximating digitization costs file data storage costs and and of course is knowing like what you have in terms of quantity and then you know, the other kind of more descriptive information title call number create a date Creator and significance description.
22:03
Those are all more for like your own kind of content, you know, just to know like what the content And of course help you decide if it's important or not so that the significant and the condition feels I think are what you should use to triage. And if you don't know you can always say unknown that's fine and kind of leave a placeholder until you have the time to get back to those questions. But really I would just start with these basic Fields, you know when you're in in the stack, sir.
22:40
your storage so encourage feel so this is more like extra credit and we we are asking for this information. It's not required, but it's really to just more to enhance discoverability for your users.
23:05
And also as we push out records to various platforms adding more metadata and and having more linked terms can really kind of connect you to other Elections other types of users. So and again this is more about the content and you know many cases you might have something that's not labeled or you just don't you just don't know with audio visual recording.
23:33
Sometimes it's just a film reel and that's all you know, but if you do know anything about the content, this is a good opportunity to add these but add this information or you can always add it after digitization and I wanted to plug our cataloging or processing cataloging mini-grant. We have this little mini Grant its Sons up to $5,000 for a small processing cataloging project with the intent that in the end. It'll help you nominate objects for digitization.
24:08
So we do ask for up to 200 records after that Grant ends to you know, just submit those records as nominations, but We have people, you know, creating finding aids with this grant. It actually covers supplies for rehousing so it really is a nice opportunity to address your backlog and we offer that every spring so we just gave out those Awards, but I would look out for that next year.
24:41
So you have all your you have your lovely inventory and you filled out to the best of your ability. You've made your final selection. Let's say you start with 25 items you'd like to digitize and it's now time to prepare the materials for digitization.
25:03
Now I add this as a step because And in many cases sometimes we've you know, where we often work with unprocessed collections or collections where the record that we have on hand through this kind of nomination process is like in a the first kind of catalog record. So we really we really want people to kind of take out the items from storage and prep them and get them ready for digitization.
25:37
Again, this is something that you know, you'll need to do for your own in-house setup. And we've just found that you know organization is key, you know, putting together related items and the case of film or video that may have multiple reals. We're also able to digitize on a folder level.
25:58
So you might have a bunch of loose clipping files for instance in a folder so we would want you to you know, make sure those Things are in one, you know folder. They're all organized nicely in the order. You want them to be scanned and we really want you ideally this is part of your selection process even as you're doing the inventory if you come across copies, if you have the time to identify the kind of the highest resolution, that's really what is ideal for digitization because you want the highest resolution possible.
26:32
So for instance, you'd want to choose negatives of the once and if they're multiple prints you want to pick the best coffee.
26:41
And you know, I was your these are more like steps for us, but I think it probably would help your own and how set up to is to make sure you have that call number or temporary identifier clearly on the item and you can use that identifier to name your files as you're going along. So that's a good thing to have on reference.
27:05
And we do recommend using your acid-free paper like artist a painter see it for labeling items with that identifier. And we also ask know just to tape down loose film pieces like the end of the film reel the end of audio tape reels. This is actually good practice just for long-term storage as well.
27:29
So just make sure everything's secure and don't you know, don't you Post-it notes like Nick sure you use the tape and then we're also asking, you know, just when you're shipping materials to us to add your organization's name and box number use bubble wrap and we have shipping guidelines available just general guidelines, but these are kind of like the kind of the checklist that we usually give people to remind them. What what we like to see when we get the mail.
28:04
So I imagine this could be its own webinar digitization standards and we don't have tons of time today, but I'm going to try to get through kind of the considerations. You should think about as you're putting together a statement of work which could be, you know, a statement for your own organization as well. As you know, just for the vendor.
28:29
So when you're putting together the statement of work, it's Documentation of your process your standard and it's what you'll send out to vendors to get those on your project.
28:41
So you need to be very clear about what you want and what you expect and And I have questions here.
28:51
Just kind of about If you if you want to setup and house or Outsource the work because we do get this question a lot. We actually questioned it ourselves for our own practice. We recently set up a camera in house to do to accommodate more fragile collection. But you know the kind of that is that you know, it's a big investment and it does require a full-time staff person.
29:20
That's our person happens to be full-time, but you definitely Some dedicated staff time to run the camera and you know, if you are setting up transfer equipment for audio visual recordings, that's that's real time where you're going to have to sit with the recording, you know, play it back and capture the recording and it's in its entirety.
29:43
So it's real time real real time and but the pros of that are it's you have total control of the process your You're minimizing handling and shipping you you can sit there with the collections, you know exactly what you're getting in the end and it really is an opportunity to develop new skills and digitization practices. So I definitely think that there's advantages to an in-house setup.
30:13
For outsourcing you lose the control but a big well a lot of Pros I guess are like less investment of resources equipment and staff. So you don't have that real time factor and there's definitely time pressing and and doing quality control. I mean, you can never get rid of that part of the process, but in terms of just the actual digitization work, you know can be sent to the vendor.
30:42
Who has you know that train staff on hand the protocols the standards. It's just easier to send it all out to them and it's great to us a lab can handle a majority of formats and the do, you know majority of particular kinds of materials. So for us we tend to have a lab that handles most of our audio visual recordings in the lab that handles most of our print materials.
31:10
So that's usually how we distribute the work and you want to consider in your statement of work file specifications and I can't go into the details and Nitty Gritty but in general you want to create a preservation Master which is a high quality highest resolution possible uncompressed Master you want to capture it as it is and for the access file, I mean, I recommend stream quality so that you you know, you can put it on Online but you also might want to consider other types of use and I that really depends on your institution. If you want to make something that's maybe broadcast quality or publication quality. You might want to make a mezzanine level Master sort of in between the uncompressed and the compressed version. It's really up to you. But you want to choose a file format that's open source or widely adopted.
32:19
You also want to consider meta data and metadata standards. Do you want to think about all the information that you have about the object like that descriptive information you captured during your inventory. You want to gather that along with all the technical information about the digitization process any administrative notes that you might want to add such as condition notes or notes about about you know, who you're doing.
32:49
Who's doing the work who's doing the digitization and then in the end preservation metadata, so that's information about the process and then the final files so we know exactly the file format to check some all of that information should go into a machine readable kind of XML record is ideal map to these particular schema Dublin core or PB core.
33:15
There's there's lots of metadata schema out there, but These are pretty common and we use Dublin core for the print materials and p-p-poor for the audio-visual materials.
33:26
So you just want to choose again and open open source schema, and these are two that I recommend they're pretty easy to map to And generally you want to think about your file naming conventions used that unique identifier be consistent. This is just an example of using adding the date of the work and maybe the series title or you could use the name title there and then followed by a unique sequential number and this is this is gathered from Stanford University.
34:07
These recommendations which I'll link to later.
34:21
And you also want to think about data storage.
34:27
because ideally, you know, you want to have redundant storage at least two copies and your want to tell you want to decide what kind of storage media you want the files delivered on so Yeah, I can send you kind of data storage estimates to but it really depends on the kind of files that you have for instance a video kind of objects can be about a hundred gigs per hour and then you can have like a microphone collection a whole, you know newspaper series that ends up being about a hundred and seventy four megabytes.
35:10
So it really It can really vary. It really depends on what you're scanning. But you need to get a sense of the requirements of kind of what you're going to end up in the end up with in the end. And then last but not least when you're putting together your statement of work. You're going to want to.
35:31
Know what the final cost is for the for the digitization as well as the storage and you know any vendor if you're working with a vendor any vendor can help you with this process and crunching the numbers and then of course you want to be clear about your timeline.
35:50
Cuz that'll be the basis for your your contract.
35:54
Act I just wanted to show you an example of a couple of objects in our collection just to give you a sense of how we're doing it. Of course, it totally depends on your own situation. But what we ended up doing is use them to Mark the mark organization code from the Library of Congress for each partner. So that's what that CW 80s that stands for the Watsonville Public Library.
36:24
And zero zero zero zero zero six is the unique object identifier for this photograph of Alicia Ramirez in Watsonville at a birthday party with the kids and you can see here. What we ended up doing was we created an uncompressed tips, which is toward the bottom there along with so that's our preservation Master along with that and access copy jpg coffee, and we created checksums for each file.
36:54
File which is a unique kind of thumbprint, I guess for that digital file and if the file ever changes the checks on will change. So we use that check some to make sure that the files Remain the way that they are the way that we receive them and if they ever end up becoming corrupt if it flips or something happens during migration will know because the checksum will sail and we'll have to replace that file from our other copy.
37:22
So that's that's why we have this check from Very important make sure you did some and last but not least we have that XML metadata record. So that's that's an example of a photograph.
37:35
And then this is what we're doing for newspapers. This is from the Yolo County archives Knights Landing news from 1859. And this is actually a scan from a microfilm collection and you know, so it's a little it's basically all that we could get this is the only surviving copy of this title and you can see what we ended up doing is we're creating a preservation in a quality test for each page.
38:05
And then we're making a bound object a PDF for the axis coffee. And then we have checksums for each file along with our metadata. So you can see that that's kind of how we're structuring it for newspapers.
38:25
So I didn't want to just leave you without specifics and and resources and I will email these out after the webinar. So you have them handy, but I do encourage you all to look at our statement of work. So, you know, you're welcome to copy pull whatever language you like former statement of work. If you're doing your own projects and that gives you a sense of what we're doing. If you end up participating you'll know what kind of deliverables you will get in the end.
38:55
And I just have additional resources a digitization guide for print materials. If you're if you're setting something up and house because just kind of give you guidelines according to the Library of Congress, which is my next resource cited here. And then last Stanford University's file naming recommendations, which are really helpful.
39:19
So once you've done all the scanning and the files are back or you you're ready to move forward it's time to do quality control and this is really essential because this is your your Digital Collection. You want to make sure you did it right and your true, you know, your capture is as true to the original as possible. So when we do quality control, this is what we're doing and we're running.
39:48
It's to make sure the files meet our technical specification. So that's all automated and then it gets more into kind of the human element here of QC where you have to double-check that the files are named correctly that you had a folder named correctly the directory structures, correct? They open up that XML metadata file and make sure that the metadata matches the object and its what we've supplied to the vendor and it's what we're getting back.
40:17
And then we run the checksum to make sure the files are true and and good what we expect them to be. They haven't changed. This is really this really kind of speaks more to at the point of capture, you know, the files are moving from one system to another sometimes it going from, you know, a desktop situation to a server to a drive to another drive and potentially the files could change.
40:47
It really is important to run those checks on when you first get the deliverables and and send back anything. That doesn't check out because it's really not worth your time to continue with quality control of the files or corrupt in some way and you want to assess the image and our sound quality.
41:07
So this is really where like the human element comes in the labor and the labor of love that I like today where you really have to spend time with the object and we do a hundred % it first and then we'll Sample When Justified which so we'll go to 50% go down to 30% It really depends on the nature of the collection if it's a uniform collection uniform formats Condition, it's easier to just sample, of course, but if you end up finding an error, we always go back to a hundred percent because we want to make sure that we aren't missing anything any problems and the vendor needs that feedback.
41:48
Or you know the case of our in-house set up the technician use that feedback. And of course we're checking if if if content is missing is an item's cutoff or cropped or skewed, you know questions like that. And then this is what we asked of Partners. And again, this is this is where you all would come in if you participate and especially if we are sampling ideally you would check a hundred percent.
42:17
Of all files and we're really asking you to check if the quality is adequate for Patron you so you're looking at the access versions online and you know noticing of anything is glaringly like terrible if it's illegible or unlistenable we would want to know but you're not expected necessarily to look at the preservation Masters and assess the highest resolution. It's more about access at this point. And then of course we want you to confirm that the content matches.
42:48
The description so there aren't any surprises and and if there are Surprises, please update the metadata. We asked you to add the description directly in our repository, which is islandora system, but we can also do it through a spreadsheet to if that's easier as a batch.
43:06
So only after we've approved the files you've approved the files. Well the vendor return the original materials to the archive. We want everyone to be happy in the process.
43:21
So this is the kind of the part that people don't really think about but I I think it's really important to plan for storage and preservation. We don't want to lose these precious files all this work that goes into the process. So I just wanted to get a sense.
43:38
I wanted to do a little poll here for those of you who have files and house whether you've acquired them, you know, or you you've created aided the files through your own digitization efforts or your Outsourcing work. So just give me a sense of how you're storing files.
43:56
We're going to launch this poll and it's only going to be again about 10 seconds just to get a sense of Your efforts and your needs here.
44:15
So, how is your organization currently storing files? And please select, you know, all of the options all that apply.
44:25
And don't don't be shy. I mean I think you know, I wanted to put here, you know your phone or something, but it really is more kind of about your organization's.
44:38
Storage capacity and what you're able to do?
44:51
Sorry, could we go back to that hole?
45:00
Can you all see it we're showing the results right now. Can you say you are okay? Okay, I do.
45:06
Yeah, so it looks like Trying to see her about 42 percent.
45:15
You're storing files on a local desktop or laptop. So local computer.
45:23
And Then followed what's the most popular is hard drive and that's that's true for most of our partners as well.
45:31
And then we have we have the cloud which is great. I'm glad people are starting to explore that because the data storage cost online has gotten cheaper.
45:45
So it's great people are trying that out. And I think we have a lot to learn from each other and that without experience too.
45:54
Great. Thank you.
46:04
So we store our files currently on lto tape, which is, you know, a very high density computer data tape and we did we do find that to be relatively affordable because we can store think the latest version can store. Oh gosh.
46:28
I don't have that data handy, but many many terabytes and It's we run those checks funds every year. So what we've been doing is again, we have that technical metadata. All of that metadata is stored with a digital object. And the idea is that the future people could open up those files.
46:52
I can open up the technical metadata and know what those objects are and and know how they were created and what their needs are if they're any file format obsolescence it Shoes for instance. So that's that's important to have the tape and we start all together in a folder so that the metadata is always there with the content as as technology changes will have to migrate those files to the next generation of lto tape and you know as we move to the cloud we want to be sure that the content and the description about the content goes together.
47:34
We have to geographically dispersed copies, but we have a copy in Sacramento at the State library and a copy in Ohio, you know, it caves in the mountain and the idea being that if a file fails or if the tape fails we can always go to that other copy and replace the bad copies and we do check some validation annually.
48:03
We restore the files or something fails and then of course, we have to continuously migrate to the next format.
48:10
So at this point and we started on lto 5 and we're now moving to 8 which just came out this year and that's an inevitability as you all know, you have to continuously think about how your files are stored and how old they are and how how old's the drive you want to be sure that the files are are safe and active and so these are just basic tips that we tell partners and we do find that most people are getting copies that wasn't a requirement initially but most people are keeping the copies, which is great and we are not recommending the optical discs at this point because of just the issues of the discs themselves are very fragile their easily scratched and it is harder to find disk drives the These days so really just stick with hard drives at this point label and organize the hard drives use that painters tape that artists tape again to give your hard drive a unique identifier and then I would duplicate the files on a second drive or upload to the cloud as some of you all are doing. So, that's great. But you want to be sure you have two copies at least and if you have access to server storage, that's ideal.
49:33
If you do have a real kind of hard drive back up and house, that's that's great that's networked. But I know a lot of people don't have access to that kind of storage, but I just want to mention that to you. If you have it, then that's great. That's another backup and there are free tools out there to check check some we recommend six City.
49:54
We also have an in-house script that we have up on our GitHub that you're welcome to use open source, very easy to use it creates and Checks checks on so please feel free to use those tools and definitely check the checksums every year and access the files every year just to make sure the hard drive is okay specifically, but then even went on the cloud you want to be sure those files are okay and they're fixed and this is another suggestion just to add a text file on the hard drives.
50:27
That's an inventory of the files and update update that Text file as well. So for instance, we have a manifest of all of our files on our lto tape and that includes, you know, a list of every single file and every single tape including the checksum files. So, you know constantly has to be updated but it's important to know what you have and again, here's some resources because we don't have that much time together. So I just wanted to be sure that you can consult those really excellent guys.
51:02
out there So access this is kind of like the purpose of preservation and digitization. They're just so many rewards to connect with your communities connect with your users. Of course, we are online. So this is just a glimpse of our our website. This website just came out last year.
51:30
We were uploading everything and we still are uploading everything to be in At archives at this is our public portal at this point our public face, and we're starting to develop beings and Exhibits and we're pushing our metadata. We've always been doing this as the beginning out to worldcat calisphere the digital Public Library of America and the whole movie registry just to broaden exposure reach as many users as we can.
52:01
And so that that can lead to Online exhibits on this other portals as well, which is kind of another another bonus and I just wanted to give you some examples of how some people are building exhibits out of their collections, which I think is kind of the biggest I guess the most popular activity for online collections. This is an example of is it posted by a Mecca from the center for Sacramento history?
52:34
And they're linking to this from their own website.
52:39
And then this is another example of an online exhibit hosted by scalar, which is a open-source exhibit software developed by the University of Southern California. We're actually starting to explore scalar this year and we're hoping to work with Partners to the to put together exhibits on different themes in this is just this is an example from the University of California, Los Angeles.
53:09
Has ethnomusicology archives and they had kind of an interactive component where they asked for a community submission. So it's just kind of a great example of what what you can do once collections are available.
53:23
And then last is the California state archives online exhibit example. This is actually hosted by Google arts and culture which is kind of a nice it has a nice kind of clean design, which I like and we're hoping that we can do we can have more Partnerships with Google to do more exhibits like this.
53:44
this and then another example is callous here, which I'm sure many of you are familiar with and especially now there's just such a hunger for teaching resources online teaching resources and Callister has a particular portal for educators and those primary source sets.
54:15
I built from the various exhibits. So there's just a lot of opportunity.
54:21
I think when nice Advantage for for our partners is as we're pushing metadata out to calisphere and then you know onto the digital Public Library of America potentially California histories can be integrated into these or I should say local history can be integrated larger kind of Statewide National stories that are being told on these other Other platforms so it's a nice way to not only get your collections out there, but then collaborate with others.
54:56
so this is only just like some examples of other Outreach models beyond beyond exhibits the LA s subject archives Bazaar is is quite an event quite popular as you can see by this photograph is a lot of people come out to archives fairs or crawls and it's just, you know, I've seen people set up little iPads or a computer so that people can see They're digital collections, or they can still have maybe a bunch of oral histories up and a listening station and there's lots of ways you can do it, but it's a kind of a nice way to get out there. And of course meet your your neighbor archives and libraries.
55:46
The community history map is another example that I love that came out as a Oakland history room collaboration with the East Bay.
55:58
Getting these big yesterday is the name of the organization and what they ended up doing was taking items from the history room and putting them on a history map. And it was like a walking tour of Oakland, which is really really great. And if you if you follow that link, you'll see it's like quite colorful engaging home movie day is on another kind of more like a community digitizing kind of a personal digital archiving initiative.
56:28
Access and digitizing where people bring in home movies and some of that's actually do scanning at the event and it's an opportunity for families to bring in their home movies share them with each other with the community get preservation conservation advice transfer advice for their incredibly precious films, you know, unique one-of-a-kind home movies and then and then share them and it's just a really lovely kind of community event.
56:59
And I've Just Seen kind of people kind of feed into the whole movie Day by showing collections are home movies, they've digitized and then it ends up becoming like imma call for Content which is similar to the memory lab idea to which I also have a link up as kind of another means to promote Community archiving and digitizing and connect your collections with the community.
57:24
So the theater open Labs where people can come And after training and scan their collections on their own and with the family's permission the institution or the hosting organisation would get copies of those files and California revealed starting to build out a program to support those memory labs and that's going to happen this next year. Which or I should say next next year 2020 2021. That'll be a new little grant program.
57:57
We're going to Have but the currently we have a a mini grant program for community outreach and that's that link right there will kind of this again.
58:09
That's a spring Grant and that'll help support initiatives like these and then there are other examples on that on that page kind of other ideas, like curriculum development or artist commission's or living history events, and there's a lot of different ways you can get Eyes are Collections and and have people engage with your content which we encourage.
58:35
So very quickly. I just wanted to go over our timeline for next year in case those of you want to participate and you feel ready to assess inventory dive in and start selecting items for digitization. We tend to frame this program. At least this this part of the process of nomination time as a summer project currently the applications open now.
59:05
So you're well, you know, you're you're able to apply tonight. If you'd like. Our form is up and we can sign you up for an account. If you want to nominate directly and islandora, or we have a spreadsheet form available which can usually be easier. Especially if you have that inventory in a spreadsheet, you can just map to our spreadsheet or we can take the spreadsheet and map it or you know, import it into islandora. So either way will work and we are.
59:35
Acting up to 200 nominations now that's individual objects. And we really leave it up to you to Define. What an object is. So in the case of folders, which I mentioned if you have a bunch of loose clippings or photographs and a folder you would count that as an object. It doesn't really matter. How many pages are in that folder. We would just take it as your as you've arranged it if that makes sense from a user's perspective.
1:00:05
Detective to that if that works from an archivist users perspective. It should be fine.
1:00:14
And the other exception I should say to the 200 is newspapers. So ideally we want to digitize a full run. So you would just submit the title of the newspaper run and again, it doesn't matter how many pages we would just want to do as much as we can. You could count that as one and then you can nominate a hundred and ninety-nine film reels if you want.
1:00:43
Just want to know you know, kind of what's most important you let us know and technically we can only award up to 200 nominations, but this isn't meant to discourage you from nominating more than that. If you are on a roll and you have an inventory of those 500 items or more just feel free to nominate as much as you'd like and then we'll just add it to the queue because there's always next year and it's good to have it on our radar.
1:01:13
So we can plan for that next year with our with our budgeting. So I we say up to 200. We try to make this manageable that you're encouraged to nominate more if you'd like.
1:01:26
So we tend to send award letters out in the fall before the holidays so that you have time to press your materials get them ready for shipping to us and Sacramento its State Library it so we give you a little bit of time and we tend to give you deadlines that are kind of based on our own digitization schedule.
1:01:48
So we usually ask for batches and it really depends on the formats in the conditions. We try to figure out that schedule and then we'll add the date to your award letter and you have some time to then prep and ship everything to us. We start sending the materials out to the vendor. So at this point we've already sent our statement of work to the vendors and we have you know their bid and him we know what we're going to do what we plan to do based on the award.
1:02:20
Is that we sent and that's our plan for the year and will start to send materials to the vendors again in batches. It's really kind of first come first serve depending on our Shipping schedule and what we end up doing is you know, upon check-in is we double check everything you've sent us using your inventory your shipping letter and we double check the metadata will double check condition notes. I mean we are depending on you.
1:02:50
you to give us as much information as you have but we're also kind of double-checking to before we send everything off to the vendor to account for every piece every film reel every every piece of metadata will standardize and send that on to the vendor and the vendor has about a six-month period of digitization again, they're returning files to us in batches as they're receiving the collection and by Spring work you seeing And uploading but access files for partners to then help us with the QC process and you know, you can see that what ends up happening every year as we're processing and Q seeing simultaneously. So those two activities are are constantly happening throughout the year.
1:03:40
And as we approve the files as you approve the files you can then order copies of the files that if you like and we'll get copies on lto sign off on the work and then The Originals come back to you ideally by the end of the summer. So it's like a full year cycle, but that's assuming that there is no rework and that everything is you know simple which doesn't always happen. So we say August is the ideal, but that that doesn't always happen.
1:04:15
So just to give you a sense of kind of the time it takes for this to happen and then We also want you all to start thinking about the fall next year and planning community outreach events and promoting your online collections because that really is an important step of of this work is letting people know what you have available and and connecting with people.
1:04:42
So that's pretty much the end. We have a little bit of time for questions and comments. We have about 25 minutes or so, which is great. Thank you for hanging in there. We usually you know, these webinars are usually an hour, but I wanted to give us time for questions and comments because I really miss the interactivity of our workshops, and I'm curious.
1:05:11
if you all have specific questions about out our workflow or general questions about the process Pamela we had one question come in when you were talking about the scanning process and someone asked could you tell us something about adding the object ID to this? Can I assume the one with the ID is the preservation copy?
1:05:47
The weather identifier so when you're doing the scanning you would add that identifier to the actual file name.
1:05:55
When you're doing the standing and then another step that we take is we embed that file with that identifier as well as the title and the institution name. So in the end you would have a file that's the actual in file is named with that identifier. And then you would have that information embedded and of course that identifiers in the metadata as well.
1:06:23
So that's all that really is kind of like The name tag for the object is the identifier. 
1:06:32
And you would do that for all of the files so I can go back to that particular. There's two particular examples.
1:06:41
Where we had a photograph you can see that's a identifier is the foundation.
1:06:50
For all of the files and we end up adding, you know access as a label for the access copy metadata for the metadata and PRS b stands for the preservation master.
1:07:10
Okay, and if that person had a follow-up they can go ahead and you can ask that now and we did have another question come in great. How do you handle digitizing a huge collection of bound newspapers? We have a huge collection, which is very old and musty. Hmm. That sounds familiar. Oui oui.
1:07:35
Well The Binding is definitely a question. So we prefer not to diss bound we prefer not to do any, you know, we are not damaged or you know change the object in any way of course and just finding, you know, they're definitely I wouldn't call it damaged but it's you know, it's changing the object and I know some people are uncomfortable by that especially if it's tightly bound.
1:08:04
So when people are nominating not newspapers, we asked about the nature of the binding and can open a hundred and eighty degrees. We can accommodate bound materials using a book cradle. But but it might have to be just found it really depends on if you know if you can see the text if it's in the gutter and you're you know want to avoid that bend of the text because then the OCR can't pick it up.
1:08:35
You know, we'll have to just find but in that case, you know, if there's any kind of repair or treatment needed we always ask for permission obviously and there could be additional cost to so we might we might need to ask for your permission to approve those additional costs that the institution would have to cover but we really try to avoid this binding if we can and as for much.
1:09:04
Mustiness I think that that's a good thing for to note in terms of it being a preservation priority because it's it is actively deteriorating if it's brittle falling apart. We would want to know that when you nominate the item not only because it kind of bumps it up in terms of like a higher priority for preservation.
1:09:26
That means it it might need extra care and handling in the process and we would want to Aware of that in the vendor would want to be aware of that. It does affect cost. So we would want to know all of kind of the conditions of the material. So that's why it's important when you're doing that initial inventory to let us know what the conditions like helps with triage and then it helps it helps you plan for future handling and digitization.
1:10:00
Okay, and another question from what I understand once the files are digitized California revealed has a hundred percent copy and the partner would have a hundred percent copy as for the copy that California revealed has on their server does the partner have access to the server to screen the content to their own website. Hmm.
1:10:22
So what we end up doing is we store the files. Yes. So you're correct. The partner everyone all parties get copies of the files. We're storing the preservation Masters the object on offline actually on data tape. So we don't touch the preservation Masters the only copy that's available technically online. Is that access copy that streaming cost?
1:10:52
So what we end up doing is we upload that access copy to the internet archive which by the way is totally free and you would get copy, you know you get access to that collection. So you can upload other objects. If you like Beyond California revealed you can do that.
1:11:10
And once you have access to the back end of that online collection, you can download access copies from the internet archive directly if you like That that really is like the only access point otherwise for preservation Masters you would have ideally you would keep copies of that those Masters and then it's in case you did need a backup or something happen. If you needed a copy from us, we can pull copies from the lto tape.
1:11:47
Okay, I think this is a little bit of a follow-up from that same person is all the content automatically available on the California revealed site or is there a way to scaffold access?
1:11:59
Everything is available.
1:12:01
So To that end, you know when you're making when you're putting together your list of nominations, you're automatically asking that question is this okay to make it accessible. So I mean we do come across the prizes and there have been cases where due to privacy concerns people have wanted to take items down. We've actually never had a copyright claim.
1:12:31
So I think that's Couraging over the past 10 years and we were reaching about 60,000 objects. We've had no rights issues. It's more just a privacy concern. So or you know, yeah like a surprise something maybe Miss identified. It's not what you thought it would be and it's maybe not even California history or you just don't want to make it available. We can take we can take stuff down that's not a problem. If there's ever an issue we can take it down but in general we don't.
1:13:03
Don't limit access at the beginning. We want it to be open and that's the intention of the project be our aim is to digitize as well as make it available.
1:13:17
Okay, we have some audio and video tapes with the labels have fallen off or there is very little information about what is on the tape. We cannot play the tapes because we do not have the equipment. How do we find out what is on them to be able to nominate them?
1:13:36
Well, we discourage playback as much as you may be tempted to just because the tape mechanisms could be deteriorating and you really risk damaging the tape and we just don't want that to happen.
1:13:54
I mean, we really want Attempt to play back to happen when we're actually digitizing. So we end up accepting a lot of unknowns in this program. Like, you know, we say these fields are required. We want a title.
1:14:08
We want to create our we want a date that really is the ideal, but we accept unknown as a placeholder until after digitization and that's really when I guess the real work comes into play so You know, I do encourage you to submit your Mysteries because we are used to Mysteries will take them if there's some sort of connection, you know, think about context for that object. If there is some sort of connection to State local Regional history, you know pick your best guess we'll still take it. You know, we were okay with blank situations like it's happened.
1:14:49
You just do what you can I mean we Because we started off as an audio-visual preservation project. We're so used to that situation where you know labels dry out and you open up a box and I'll just be like a can of a box of cans and then a pile of labels like and then you have to kind of piece them together, you know, if you can but you know, that's we're really were used to that and with Magnetic media.
1:15:17
There's you really can't do anything about it, you know, all you have is that tape With stone.
1:15:23
The nice thing about film Motion Picture film is that if you get a light box and a loop you can actually, you know unwind it and look at the first few frames and maybe identify the film that way but with with Magnetic media, you're definitely left with kind of unknowns you just have to live with What is your view on mass digitization versus curated this digitization?
1:15:58
It's an interesting question because I think some people would call California revealed and Mass digitization project. But at the same time we're depending on you know, the the partners to curate and and carefully select what's most important to them.
1:16:14
I think ideally The Arc of this dream is to digitize on a series level on the collection level and save everything but I don't think that's realistic given our limited resources and just the demand, you know, everyone has Collections and need and there's we're talking about millions and millions and millions of objects and the costs are quite high for digitization.
1:16:42
So I see why you know mass digitization and Theory it sounds like a great idea. But but practically speaking I just I feel like selection is inevitable.
1:17:00
So the copyright question. Oh good. If you have materials from an author and a typescript or handwritten form of an article that was later published. How does that work with copyright?
1:17:17
And we're digitizing.
1:17:20
A handwritten note that was later published. That's the question. Yeah, I believe that's it. Yeah. Yeah. I think you'd have to go to the publisher and see when when it was copyrighted by the publisher and then kind of work backwards.
1:17:37
If you have the Creator's, you know contact information. I don't know how old this item is.
1:17:45
But if you have access to gaining permission from the original author to digitize and make it available that can override the Publishers rights, but really I think traditionally it goes to the publisher and they usually have copyright for so many years and Cub, right of course is its own webinar and and I didn't get into the nitty-gritty of copyright, but the generally when something is published you have to defer to the publishing rights, and that's a reason why we tend to Lean toward unpublished archival collections because we don't usually have to deal with that. I mean newspapers have really challenged so many ways because we're having to go to microfilm Publishers now and consider consider that right as well as like filming a newspaper run makes it kind of another right situation.
1:18:52
So it's we're working with published materials, but for the most part we try to Steer away from them only because of this issue.
1:19:06
Can scrapbooks with community history photos and information be nominated for scanning? Yes. I love scrapbooks. Yes, please and scrapbooks are fun because there's so many pieces and and they're just so special. So we tend to do those in-house with our in-house camera. And in that case, you know, we would treat the Scrapbook all the pages. All the pieces is one object.
1:19:34
And we would work really closely with you to let us know how you want to represent that object. And all of its pieces is what we're trying to do.
1:19:44
If you if you go online you'll see that we're trying to kind of replicate the user experience of you know, handling the physical material as close as we can get and the scrapbooks are challenging because there are you know, it's interactive, you know, there's lots of layers you might want to unfold some Thing and then look at look at that piece carefully.
1:20:07
So what ends up happening is we make this down object, but will sometimes capture the layout will capture the you know, when you first open the book as you're actually experiencing it and then we would do we dive into each little piece so that you can explore each piece and then turn the next page and then go through that process again, but we work with the partners to figure Our out how you want to experience that object because each scrapbook is so unique and in many cases, they're very fragile because they're made up of all sorts of different types of materials and there's glue and for them. Yeah, I can get complicated. But but they're so wonderful. So please nominate scrapbooks. Yeah, and that person followed up to say that the Scrapbook in question was created by the County Farm Bureau home Department.
1:21:04
Ring to small farming communities in the 1930s. That's amazing. That sounds great.
1:21:12
Yeah, I love scrapbooks. They're kind of like the home movie of print materials. They're just they're so special. Uh-huh. Are you encouraging nomination of local television programming much of this locally produced programming is as lost or at risk. Yes. Definitely. We've done a lot of news film collection.
1:21:34
So that's been most of our experience and in that case you do, you know, Need the permission. Ideally, you need the permission of the original production company or television station.
1:21:49
And if the television station doesn't exist, that's a whole other challenge similar to kind of the how newspapers can change Publishers hands similarly similarly, but we've had partners that have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of feet of news film and the real challenge is is selection. I mean identification has won one challenge, but then deciding what you want to do. So and we've had different discussions. We've had a partner who goes by, you know, big names or events. They know usually moves films or use some collections or organized by date. So that's that's one way of deciding what you want to do and then others have gone with like their oldest.
1:22:42
Programs so we've yeah, they're different ways of selecting like what you want to start with but you definitely have to select because those collections tend to be enormous. Yes there definitely at risk. We've done a lot of Television Productions that were captured on film, you know that were originally broadcast the captured on film then of course we've done video as well.
1:23:11
To open real video. So yes, we're happy to take local television programs.
1:23:19
And then do you digitize laser discs and LPS?
1:23:25
We have done LPS laser. Just we haven't done we haven't so this would kind of fall more into.
1:23:36
maybe our digital collections stream where we're taking existing digital collections laser just they're challenging because there's this interactive component and we're getting into like born digital media territory, which we don't get a lot of we tend to focus more on the analog in terms of like migrating and digitization, but but I do recognize that Yeah, I can imagine there. There's interesting content on laser discs that we've never we've never gotten that but I wouldn't discourage you from nominating a LaserDisc if it's if it's Unique or rare. 
1:24:20
And that's all the questions I'm seeing. Okay. Answer to everybody's questions are good question. Yeah. Those are very interesting. And of course, I know you given your contact information and your yeah, the people contacting you. Oh wait, let's see.
1:24:40
We have someone indicating that he has one more question. Of course, I'll give it my second type. We have five minutes. So I'm happy to stay and and if anyone has comments too kind of about the challenges of digitization and how you've overcome them. I think we can all learn from each other's experience. And that's that's what I'm missing from. The workshop is having more discussions, so I'm happy too.
1:25:09
Field any comments, too?
1:25:13
Okay, here we go. If you have microfilm reels how is that digitized?
1:25:20
In terms of exhibitions. So what we end up doing is the digitization vendor will scan the whole reel and then and we're also approximating what's on that real because we we have readers and and we can go to that level of detail.
1:25:41
Actually if you have a reader and you can help us with identifying the number of issues and Pages that's really helpful, but we don't expect you to Go to that level just because it's a time-consuming. But what ends up happening is the vendor will scan the whole reel and then post-production. They'll pull those files into their software and it's all automatically and of cropping the pages and then part of their cue a part of the vendors QA is identifying the dates for each issue on the newsreel and then they'll add that metadata for us.
1:26:20
To distinguish the objects and they'll then create objects. They'll parsing an individual objects from that real.
1:26:29
So in the end we'll end up with hundreds of issues for that so that real And so there's a little bit of back and forth to answer your question. Like what would end up happening is you would nominate that real has its own object with that date range the title and the date range and then we would ask the vendor here. We give them a range of identifiers and ask them to match the issue date with each identifier. And then in the end they would create these individual individual. 
1:27:05
Checks for each issue and we would get the metadata for each issue.
1:27:17
So I think that's our last question. Okay.
1:27:23
Well, those are great questions.
1:27:25
I'm really glad to hear about collections out there and I look forward to meeting you all and Well, I guess online for now, but I hope to meet you in person at your collections, and and I hope everyone will participate if not this year maybe next year.
1:27:48
Thank you so much Pamela. That was really excellent. Very interesting. Thank you. Mary is thank you all for coming.
1:27:56
And so for our audience everyone who registered and attended today's webinar will receive a follow-up email tomorrow that includes a link to the archived recording of This webinar as well as a link to a certificate of attendance. We also have a short survey. You'll see after you close out of the webinar. If you can please take a few minutes to fill that out helps us in planning future training.
RE-GENERATE TRANSCRIPT
SAVE EDITS