Project Management for Developing Digital Collections

1
Project Management for Developing Digital
Collections

• An Overview

LIBR559G Developing Digital Collections Mark
Jordan, 2004-07-19
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
License.
2
Related Topics

• Project operations
• Proposal writing
• Mainstreaming digitization

3
The Process

• Develop goals and rationale for the project
• Determine technical specifications
• Plan implementation
• Develop budget
• Execute the project
• Evaluate the project

4
Staffing

• Project manager
• Selector
• Conservator
• Cataloguer
• Scanning tech
• Quality control tech

• Data entry tech
• Programmer/CMS tech
• Systems admin
• User interface designer

Stephen Chapman, Considerations for Project
Management in Handbook for Digital Projects A
Mangement Tool for Preservation and Access. Ed.
Maxine K. Sitts. Northeast Document
Conservation Center, 2000.
5
Project Documentation

• Necessary for efficient project operations
• Vital for consistency
• Allows institution to develop expertise
• Allows for more efficient planning and budgeting
  in future

6
Digital Assets Management

• Do you have an institutional plan?
• Retrievability
• Long-term maintenance / preservation strategy
• Administrative metadata underlies DAM

7
Goals and Rationale

• Institutional mandate
• See earlier discussion of selection for
  digitization
• Access, access, access
• Preservation?
• Other rationale

8
Technical Specifications

• Objects
• Metadata
• Search and retrieval
• Digital Assets Management

9
Planning Implementation

• Who will do the work?
• In house
• Vendors
• Workflow / procedures
• Determining necessary resources
• Documentation
• Training

10
Outsourcing

• Example vendors
• OCLC
• E-BookServices
• customerinfinity.com
• Discount Document Scanning
• Academic Imaging Associates
• Request for Information / Proposals
• Guide
• Sample

11
Project Operations

• Will have impact on determining costs
• Workflow must serve as basis for budgeting staff
  costs
• In house operations require
• Hardware
• Physical space
• Non-digitization/conversion aspects

12
Budgeting

• Extremely difficult to generalize
• Every project is different
• Must be based on similar projects or on samples

13
Cost Variability
Projects funded by the Central New York Library
Resources Council
Cost Comparisons for Digitization Projects.
Prepared for the CLRC Automation Committee,
September, 2002. http//clrc.org/lstadigital/CostC
omparDigitizProjRev.pdf
14
Cost Components

• 1/3 cost is conversion (i.e., scanning)
• Slightly less than 1/3 cost is metadata creation
• Slightly more than 1/3 cost is administration and
  quality control

Puglia, Steven. The Costs of Digital Imaging
Projects RLG DigiNews 3.5 (1999) http//www.rlg.
org/preserv/diginews/diginews3-5.htmlfeature
15
Monitoring

• Staff supervision
• Are we on track?
• Time
• Cost
• How do we tell?
• Reporting
• Quality Control

16
Project Evaluation

• Ongoing evaluation
• Project evaluation
• Can we do it better or cheaper?
• Product evaluation
• Who is using our product?
• How are they using it?
• Logs/emetrics
• Surveys
• "Rate this resource

17
SFU Cartoons Collection Logs

• Number of searches / clicks on subject headings
  per day
• 120
• Keywords searched more than 80 times
• Canada (126), Trudeau (113), Canadian (109),
  money (89), Quebec (89), Gordon (81)
• Searches that return no hits
• 39
• Searches comprised of a single keyword
• 72

18
Multi-Institution Projects

• Defining roles and deliverables is essential
• Example Our Roots
• Funded by CCOP
• U of Calgary, U Laval lead partners
• Regional nodes
• Partners

19
Tonights Highlights

• A clear project plan is essential
• Budgeting is difficult because each project is
  (sufficiently) unique
• Thorough documentation is vital
• Monitoring your project adequately is vital