Tag: digitization

Categories
Digital Colorado

CLIR: Digitizing Hidden Special Collections and Archives Grant Available.

Council on Library and Information Resources: Digitizing Hidden Special Collections and Archives

Digitizing Hidden Special Collections and Archives, a program of the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR), is intended to help digitize and provide access to collections of rare or unique content in cultural heritage institutions. The program supports projects that make digitized sources easily discoverable and accessible alongside related materials, including materials held by other collecting institutions as well as those held within the home institution. Collections proposed for digitization may be in any format or relevant to any subject. Grants, ranging from a minimum of $50,000 to a maximum of $250,000 in the case of a single-institution project or $500,000 for a collaborative project, will be provided to colleges and universities, research centers, museums, libraries, historical societies, cultural associations, and select government units. Online initial proposals must be submitted by April 3, 2019; final proposals are due September 17, 2019. Visit the CLIR website to review the program guidelines and application process.

Categories
Colorado Historic Newspapers

Newspaper Digitization: New and Lower Prices!

The Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection (CHNC) has recently lowered its pricing for digitizing newspapers and adding it to the free-to-use online collection.  Currently CHNC has over 900,000 pages of historic newspapers from over 200 titles representing 54 of the 64 Colorado counties; with more always on the way.  The new prices for the following processes are:

  1. Digitization of newspapers on existing microfilm – .85 cents per page
  2. Microfilming of original newspapers and digitization of that film- $1.10 per page
  3. Digitization from original newspapers- $1.60 per page
This is a .15 cent reduction in prices to include historic newspaper content in CHNC. Same great service just lower prices.  For this price you get:
  • Estimates that are customized to fit your budget and your timeline
  • Digitization of your chosen titles and years
  • Processing of those digitized files that includes article segmentation, creation of METS/ALTO metadata (international standard) and OCR conversion.
Please contact me at ljeremias@coloradovirtuallibrary.org  if you have any questions about our process, our new pricing or a potential project.
Categories
Touring Colorado's Collections

Touring Colorado’s Collections: A Partnership in Eagle County

Dotsero restaurant. Courtesy Eagle County Historical Society.
Leadville stage at Red Cliff. Courtesy Eagle County Historical Society.

Providing online access to a community’s history can be a difficult process.  Local history can be represented by artifacts, documents and photographs that can be scattered across different institution types. However, collaborations across institutions can make the process of bringing community history together easier.  

The Eagle Valley Library District and the Eagle County Historical Society is a wonderful example of this type of partnership.  The two institutions work together to collect and preserve thousands of documents, photographs and artifacts that tell the history of Eagle County and areas on the Western Slope.  The historical society works with the community to collect and the library works to document the collection and make it accessible.   

Eagle County High School. Courtesy, Eagle County Historical Society

Currently over 4,600 images held by the two institutions are available in the Eagle Valley Library District’s online digital archive.  The library supports the museum’s collection database and many of their preservation needs.   In turn the historical society supports the community’s local authors through publishing, operates a museum, offers community events and is responsible for many of the interpretive signs in the valley.

Moving forward, both institutions would like to make more items available through their shared digital archive thereby increasing access to their collections and the rich history of the Eagle Valley and County.  So please check back often and see their wonderful progress.  

Categories
Digital Colorado

New Granting Program Available to Preserve at Risk Recordings

The Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) has just announced that they have been awarded $2,725,000  by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for a regranting program to digitize “at risk” audio and audiovisual materials of high scholarly value.

In order to develop the new regranting program, CLIR  is partnering with the Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC).  In January 2017, the two organizations will begin the program with a call for pilot proposals, focusing only on the reformatting of magnetic audio media to be digitized through NEDCC’s new audio preservation services.  During this pilot phase, CLIR will award a total $150,000, in awards ranging from $5,000 to $25,000, to cover direct costs of audio reformatting services provided by NEDCC. This pilot phase will help to develop guidelines and criteria for the new regranting program.

After the initial pilot phase CLIR will:

  • Launch 3 open competitions: June 2017, Dec. 2017 and May 2018
  • Award $2.15 million over 2 years
  • Award grants ranging from $10,000 to $50,000
  • Open the project to cover direct costs of preservation reformatting of audio and audiovisual content by eligible institutions working independently or with qualified service providers

CLIR will use the following criteria to evaluate projects:

  • Scholarly or public impact of proposed projects
  • Urgency of undertaking those projects
  • Viability of applicants’ plans for long-term preservation
  • Overall cost-effectiveness of the proposals

Much of our 20th and 21st century history has been captured on audio and audiovisual recordings.  The cultural heritage institutions that hold this material are at risk of losing it due to the fragility of this media.  With this new program CLIR hopes to help institutions address issues of audio and audiovisual reformatting and preservation within their collections.

More information about the program, including institutional requirements and pilot program application content, can be found here.