The successful transmediation of books and documents through digitization requires the synergetic partnership of many professional figures, that have what may sometimes appear as contrasting goals at heart. On one side, there are those who look after the physical objects and strive to preserve them for future generations, and on the other those involved in the digitization of the objects, the information that they contain, and the management of the digital data. These complementary activities are generally considered as separate and when the current literature addresses both fields, it does so strictly within technical reports and guidelines, concentrating on procedures and optimal workflow, standards, and technical metadata. In particular, more often than not, conservation is presented as ancillary to digitization, with the role of the conservator restricted to the preparation of items for scanning, with no input into the digital product, leading to misunderstanding and clashes of interests. Surveying a variety of projects and approaches to the challenging conservation-digitization balance and fostering a dialogue amongst practitioners, this book aims at demonstrating that a dialogue between apparently contrasting fields not only is possible, but it is in fact desirable and fruitful. Only through the synergetic collaboration of all people involved in the digitization process, conservators included, can cultural digital objects that represent more fully the original objects and their materiality be generated, encouraging and enabling new research and widening the horizons of scholarship.

In this unique collection the authors present a wide range of interdisciplinary methods to study, document, and conserve material cultural heritage. The methods used serve as exemplars of best practice with a wide variety of cultural heritage objectshaving been recorded, examined, and visualised. The objects range in date, scale, materials, and state of preservation and sopose different research questions and challenges for digitization, conservation, and ontological representation of knowledge. Heritage science and specialist digital technologies are presented in a way approachable to non-scientists, while a separate technical section provides details of methods and techniques, alongside examples of notable applications of spatial and spectral documentation of material cultural heritage, with selected literature and identification of future research. This book is an outcome of interdisciplinary research and debates conducted by the participants of the COST Action TD1201, Colour and Space in Cultural Heritage, 2012–16 and is an Open Access publication available under a CC BY-NC-ND licence.

What does it mean to digitize a medieval manuscript? This book examines this question by exploring a range of advanced imaging technologies. The author focuses on the relationship between digital technologies and the complex materiality of manuscripts and the human bodies that engage them.The chapters explore imaging technologies, interfaces to present digital surrogates, and limitations to and enhancements through the digital, plus historical photographs. Essential reading for all those involved in manuscript digitization projects in both scholarly and cultural heritage contexts.

The Driver's Guide is a practical guide for repository managers and institutions who want to build their own repository. This title is available in the OAPEN Library - http://www.oapen.org.

What is the current state of digital repositories for research output in the European Union? What should be the next steps to stimulate an infrastructure for digital repositories at a European level? To address these key questions, an inventory study into the current state of digital repositories for research output in the European Union was carried out as part of the DRIVER Project. The study produces a complete inventory of the state of digital repositories in the 27 countries of the European Union as per 2007 and provides a basis to contemplate the next steps in driving forward an interoperable infrastructure at a European level. This title is available in the OAPEN Library - http://www.oapen.org.

The recent announcement that Google will digitize the holdings of several major libraries sent shock waves through the book industry and academe. Google presented this digital repository as a first step towards a long-dreamed-of universal library, but skeptics were quick to raise a number of concerns about the potential for copyright infringement and unanticipated effects on the business of research and publishing. 

Jean-Noël Jeanneney, president of France’s Bibliothèque Nationale, here takes aim at what he sees as a far more troubling aspect of Google’s Library Project: its potential to misrepresent—and even damage—the world’s cultural heritage. In this impassioned work, Jeanneney argues that Google’s unsystematic digitization of books from a few partner libraries and its reliance on works written mostly in English constitute acts of selection that can only extend the dominance of American culture abroad. This danger is made evident by a Google book search the author discusses here—one run on Hugo, Cervantes, Dante, and Goethe that resulted in just one non-English edition, and a German translation of Hugo at that. An archive that can so easily slight the masters of European literature—and whose development is driven by commercial interests—cannot provide the foundation for a universal library. 

As a leading librarian, Jeanneney remains enthusiastic about the archival potential of the Web. But he argues that the short-term thinking characterized by Google’s digital repository must be countered by long-term planning on the part of cultural and governmental institutions worldwide—a serious effort to create a truly comprehensive library, one based on the politics of inclusion and multiculturalism. 

When it comes to personal collections, we live in exciting times. Individuals are living their lives in ways that are increasingly mediated by digital technologies — digital photos and video footage, music, the social web, e-mail,and other day-to-day interactions. Although this mediation presents many technical challenges for long-term preservation, it also provides unprecedented opportunities for documenting the lives of individuals.

Ten authors — Robert Capra, Adrian Cunningham, Tom Hyry, Leslie Johnston, Christopher (Cal) Lee, Sue McKemmish, Cathy Marshall, Rachel Onuf, Kristina Spurgin, and Susan Thomas — share their expertise on the various aspects of the management of digital information in I, Digital: Personal Collections in the Digital Era.

The volume is divided in three parts:

Part 1 is devoted to conceptual foundations and motivations.

Part 2 focuses on particular types, genres, and forms of personal traces; areas of further study; and new opportunities for appraisal and collection.

Part 3 addresses strategies and practices of professionals who work in memory institutions.

Chapters explore issues,challenges, and opportunities in the management of personal digital collections, focusing primarily on born-digital materials generated and kept by individuals.

Contributions to I, Digital represent the depth in thinking about how cultural institutions can grapple with new forms of documentation, and how individuals manage--and could better manage--digital information that is part of contemporary life.

For decades, lesbian feminists across the United States and Canada have created information to build movements and survive in a world that doesn't want them. In Information Activism Cait McKinney traces how these women developed communication networks, databases, and digital archives that formed the foundation for their work. Often learning on the fly and using everything from index cards to computers, these activists brought people and their visions of justice together to organize, store, and provide access to information. Focusing on the transition from paper to digital-based archival techniques from the 1970s to the present, McKinney shows how media technologies animate the collective and unspectacular labor that sustains social movements, including their antiracist and trans-inclusive endeavors. By bringing sexuality studies to bear on media history, McKinney demonstrates how groups with precarious access to control over information create their own innovative and resourceful techniques for generating and sharing knowledge.

Digital records pose many challenges for archives, libraries, and museums; and behind them all lurks the shadow of trust. How can donors know that your repository will take good care of their digital files? How can people verify that the records they wish to use are authentic? How can they have confidence in being able to access obsolete file formats far into the future? These are difficult questions, but whatever the size or mission of your archives, you can move it closer to answering them and to being a trusted digital repository. Meeting the gold standard—ISO 16363 Audit and Certification of Trustworthy Digital Repositories—may seem like a far-off goal, but Module 8: Becoming a Trusted Digital Repository demystifies this complex standard. Module 8 demonstrates specific ways that your archives, library, or museum can identify gaps, improve digital operations, and plan for future enhancements so that you can indeed help it become a trusted digital repository.

Near the forefront of any examination of disciplinary pursuits in the academy today, among the many important issues being addressed is the role of computing and its integration into, and perhaps revolutionizing of, central methodological approaches. The series New Technologies in Medieval and Renaissance Studies addresses this context from both broad and narrow perspectives, with anticipated discussions rooted in areas including literature, art history, musicology, and culture in the medieval and Renaissance periods.

The first volume of the series, New Technologies and Renaissance Studies, presents a collection of contributions to one ongoing forum for the dialogue which lies at the heart of the book series, the annual "conference within a conference" of the same name which takes place during the Renaissance Society of America gathering, dedicated specifically to the intersection of computational methods and Renaissance studies. Papers in this volume exemplify those fruitful and productive exchanges, from their inception at the 2001 meeting in Chicago to the 2005 meeting in Cambridge.

Near the forefront of any examination of disciplinary pursuits in the academy today, among the many important issues being addressed is the role of computing and its integration into, and perhaps revolutionizing of, central methodological approaches. The series New Technologies in Medieval and Renaissance Studies addresses this context from both broad and narrow perspectives, with anticipated discussions rooted in areas including literature, art history, musicology, and culture in the medieval and Renaissance periods.

In the fourth volume of the New Technologies in Medieval and Renaissance Studies series, volume editors Tassie Gniady, Kris McAbee, and Jessica Murphy bring together some of the best work from the New Technologies in Medieval and Renaissance Studies panels at the Renaissance Society of America (RSA) annual meetings for the years 2004–2010. These essays demonstrate a dedication to grounding the use of “newest” practices in the theories of the early modern period. At the same time, the essays are interested in the moment—the needs of scholars then, the theories of media that informed current understanding, and the tools used to conduct studies.

These essays explore problems with digital approaches to analog objects and offer digital methods to study networks of production, dissemination, and collection. Further, they reflect on the limitations of those methods and speak to a central truth of digital projects: unlike traditional scholarship, digital scholarship is often the result of collective networks of not only disciplinary scholars but also of library professionals and other technical and professional staff as well as students.
 

About Rights in the Digital Era:

MODULE 4
Understanding Copyright Law
Heather Briston
Describes the main principles of copyright law and outlines strategies for addressing common issues, special topics, and digital projects.

MODULE 5
Balancing Access and Privacy in Manuscript Collections
Menzi L. Behrnd-Klodt
Introduces basic access and privacy laws, concepts, definitions, and professional ethical standards affecting manuscript materials and private and family papers.

MODULE 6
Balancing Access and Privacy in the Records of Organizations
Menzi L. Behrnd-Klodt
Introduces basic access and privacy laws, concepts, definitions, and professional ethical standards affecting the management of records created by organizations, businesses, agencies, and other entities.

MODULE 7
Managing Rights and Permissions
Aprille C. McKay
Provides practical guidance to help archivists transfer, clear, manage, and track rights information in analog and digital archives.

About Trends in Archives Practice:

This open-ended series by the Society of American Archivists features brief, authoritative treatments—written and edited by top-level professionals—that fill significant gaps in archival literature. The goal of this modular approach is to build agile, user-centered resources. Modules treat discrete topics relating to the practical management of archives and manuscript collections in the digital age. Select modules are clustered together by topic (as they are here) and are available in print or electronic format. Each module also is available separately in electronic format so that readers can mix and match modules that best satisfy their needs and interests. Stay on trend with Trends in Archives Practice!

From statistical databases to story archives, from fan sites to the real-time reactions of Twitter-empowered athletes, the digital communication revolution has changed the way sports fans relate to their favorite teams. In this volume, contributors from Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States analyze the parallel transformation in the field of sport history, showing the ways powerful digital tools raise vital philosophical, epistemological, ontological, methodological, and ethical questions for scholars and students alike.

Chapters consider how the philosophical and theoretical understanding of the meaning of history influence a willingness to engage with digital history, and conceptualize the relationship between history making and the digital era. As the writers show, digital media's mostly untapped potential for studying the recent past via blogs, chat rooms, gambling sites, and the like forge a symbiosis between sports and the internet, and offer historians new vistas to explore and utilize.

Sport History in the Digital Era also shows how the best digital history goes beyond a static cache of curated documents. Instead, it becomes a truly public history that serves as a dynamic site of enquiry and discussion. In such places, scholars enter into a give-and-take with individuals while inviting the audience to grapple with, rather than passively absorb, the evidence being offered.

Timely and provocative, Sport History in the Digital Era affirms how the information revolution has transformed sport and sport history--and shows the road ahead.

Contributors include Douglas Booth, Mike Cronin, Martin Johnes, Matthew Klugman, Geoffery Z. Kohe, Tara Magdalinski, Fiona McLachlan, Bob Nicholson, Rebecca Olive, Gary Osmond, Murray G. Phillips, Stephen Robertson, Synthia Sydnor, Holly Thorpe, and Wayne Wilson.