Archives and the Digital Library

Technological advances and innovative perspectives constantly evolve the notion of what makes up a digital library. Archives and the Digital Library provides an insightful snapshot of the current state of archiving in the digital realm. Respected experts in library and information science present the latest research results and illuminating case studies to provide a comprehensive glimpse at the theory, technological advances, and unique approaches to digital information management as it now stands. The book focuses on digitally reformatted surrogates of non-digital textual and graphic materials from archival collections, exploring the roles archivists can play in broadening the scope of digitization efforts through creatively developing policies, procedures, and tools to effectively manage digital content.

Many of the important advances in digitization of materials have little to do with the efforts of archivists. Archives and the Digital Library concentrates specifically on the developments in the world of archives and the digitization of the unique content of information resources archivists deal with on a constant basis. This resource reviews the current issues and challenges, effective user assessment techniques, various digital resources projects, collaboration strategies, and helpful best practices. The book is extensively referenced and includes helpful illustrative figures.

Topics in Archives and the Digital Library include:



a case study of LSTA-grant funded California Local History Digital Resources Project

expanding the scope of traditional archival digitations projects beyond the limits of a single institution

a case study of the California Cultures Project

the top ten themes in usability issues

case studies of usability studies, focus groups, interviews, ethnographic studies, and web log analysis

developing a reciprocal partnership with a digital library

the technical challenges in harvesting and managing Web archives

metadata strategies to provide descriptive, technical, and preservation related information about archived Web sites

long-term preservation of digital materials

building a trusted digital repository

collaboration in developing and supporting the technical and organizational infrastructure for sustainability in both academic and state government

the Archivists' Toolkit software application



Archives and the Digital Library is timely, important reading for archivists, librarians, library administrators, library information educators, archival educators, and students.