2007 Best Practices Exchange: Digitization Programs

At the 2007 Best Practices Exchange, I had the pleasure of presenting in a session with Betty Jones from the Government Printing Office. Both of our presentations discussed the establishment of a Program for digitized government publications and documents. I offer brief summaries of both presentations below:

How to Support State Agency Digitization Efforts
I offered my vision for a joint digitization program between the State Library and State Archives of North Carolina. This program would involve assisting and supporting North Carolina state agencies in their efforts to digitize government documents and publications.

For a more in-depth description of my vision, I encourage you to view my presentation which is available at: http://www.bpexchange.org/2007/materials/bpe2007digitization.ppt

Digitization of a Large and Disperse Collection: Legacy Publications Held in Federal Depository Libraries
Betty Jones from the GPO described the challenges of developing a project plan for the digitization of an historical collection of Federal publications when none of those publications were maintained in-house. The GPO does not keep any of the government documents they distribute; in order to create a digitized collection, they had to solicit the aid of Federal Depository Libraries throughout the country.

1) The Joint Committee on Printing (JCP) authorized a pilot test for the GPO to experiment with the feasibility of digitization.

2) First, the GPO contacted Federal Depository Libraries and asked for original federal documents to scan and keep permanently. If the Depository Library needed back their copy of the document, they could loan it to the GPO with the understanding that there was no set time-table for its return.

3) The GPO has digitized 2,000 titles as part of the pilot test. They are awaiting approval to take this beyond the testing phase.

4) Currently, there is an agreement being drafted between the GPO, the Library of Congress, and NARA to ensure that none of these institutions are digitizing the same titles and therefore unnecessarily duplicating effort.

To view a list of digitized Federal Documents Collections, visit: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/legacy/registry/