Digitizing Your Community's History: The Innovative Librarian's Guide

by Alex Hoffman

Overview

Follow the blueprint in this book to launch a library DIY community history digitization program—one that provides the access and fosters engagement with patrons to sustain the program over time.

Internet technologies have enabled anyone to tell their story—and to find out their own unknown story. Libraries are seeing increased interest in community and family history and in genealogy, as well as heightened demand for access to personal and community history materials in digital format. The opportunity exists for libraries to benefit their communities by providing these in-demand, digitized historical materials optimized for researchers at the individual level.

Digitizing Your Community's History: The Innovative Librarian's Guide provides you with step-by-step directions for launching a DIY digitization program for personal and community historical materials. It covers the process of setting up a digitization program, training customers to use the equipment, best practices for storing digitized material, and tips for engaging the community in local history, such as ideas for exhibiting materials and programs for genealogy and family history. Just as importantly, the author addresses how to explain the benefits of programs like these to library stakeholders and supplies recommendations on sustaining library community history programs through access and engagement. The book also provides supplemental materials that include templates and programming ideas, lists of recommended software and apps, and recommended specifications for equipment and for file storage.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781440842405
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	05/16/2016
Series:	Innovative Librarian's Guide
Pages:	150
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Alex Hoffman is the digital media supervisor at the Arlington Heights Memorial Library in suburban Chicago.

Table of Contents

Introduction vii

Chapter 1 The Basics 1

Chapter 2 Getting Started 11

Chapter 3 What to Digitize 21

Chapter 4 The Equipment 39

Chapter 5 The Digitization Process 61

Chapter 6 Storage and Backups 87

Chapter 7 Tech Instruction 105

Chapter 8 Programs, Display, and Access 113

Chapter 9 The Future of Digitization 119

Chapter 10 Review 123

Bibliography 129

Index 133

Editorial Reviews

A valuable tool for deciding what, if anything, should be digitized in a reader's community, and providing a plethora of useful information on how to divide the process into manageable pieces, this book is a wise investment for libraries looking to preserve the past for future generations.” —VOYA

From the Publisher