Demonstration Proposal (April 2005)

UC HIGH VOLUME BOOK DIGITIZATION

DEMONSTRATION PROJECT

Project Parameters

(27 Apr 05)

Purpose: In a Fall 2004 report to SOPAG on robotic book scanning systems, it was observed that outsourcing book scanning might present an attractive alternative to building a high volume book scanning facility in UC, even for a relatively large project of 1000 books/month for 36 months. The goal of this demonstration project is to test that observation by getting answers to several production questions related to outsourcing:

  • complexity and cost of assembling shipments;
  • achievement of technical specifications for information capture, metadata, and delivery of the digital files;
  • ability to meet requirements for transport, safety of the collection, and production schedules;
  • confirmation of unit costs for a large project to scan materials similar to the materials scanned in the demonstration;
  • comparison of the performances of the participating service providers.

Subject: Californiana in the public domain. (MELVYL search: su: California history; format: books; dates: 1851-1900; language: english. # hits: UC northern libs, 954; UC southern libs, 658; California State Library, 729; NRLF only, 126; SRLF only, 54.)

Justification:

  1. dates with significant brittle paper problems which can restrict access to originals;
  2. meets needs of faculty, students and scholars within and beyond the UC community;
  3. subject widely collected by UC and CSL;
  4. contributes to CDL Online Archives of California and to UC prestige;
  5. dates avoid copyright issues;
  6. contributes to critical mass of digital materials in the subject (because the published output is relatively small), thereby increasing the value of the information online and of the demonstration project;
  7. will enjoy a commitment from UC to its long-term accessibility;
  8. can be captured and served adequately in digital form (to be proven).

Plan of work (and units responsible):

  1. Work with bibliographers to select 300 monographic volumes to represent typical printing and binding of the period; deselect complex capture problems for this demonstration project (PRES).
  2. Contract with three competitively priced service providers, one with a robotic page turner and two using staff to manually turn pages: Information Conservation Inc. using a Kirtas robot located in Hayward, CA; Apex CoVantage, using staff located in India; and Internet Archive, using staff located in San Francisco. (PRES)
  3. Provide service providers with technical specifications for the product (DPG and DIL):
  • preservation files (8 bit gray scale TIFF);
  • derivatives to optimize delivery and display (PDF);
  • metadata;
  • delivery media and schedule.
  1. Ship volumes to service providers; receive, inspect, and process them for reshelving on return (PRES)
  2. Verify completeness and accuracy of digital files (DPG).
  3. Assemble files into digital objects, link from bib records to these digital objects, and mount the books on a UCB public server (DPG).
  4. Submit digital objects to OAC and the CDL digital preservation repository (DPG).
  5. Write up findings and financial report for SOPAG (PRES).

Schedule: 6 months from approval of project plan to completion of report, depending on schedule of scanning service providers. Possible exception: submission of digital objects to OAC and CDL digital preservation repository (step 7 of Plan of work).

Budget estimates:

Processing to/from vendor

(120 hrs @ $30/hr) 3,600

Scanning

ICI

100 vols @ 300 pages @ $.19/page 5,700 ICI cost/vol: $57

Shipping incl.

Apex CoVantage

100 vols @ 300 pages @ $.21/page 6,300 Apex cost/vol: $82

Set up @ $6/vol. 600

Shipping 1,320

Internet Archive

100 vols @ 300 pages @ $.10/page 3,000 IA cost/vol: $30

Shipping incl.

Digital publishing (120 hrs @ $40/hr) 4,800

Submission to OAC/DPR

(15 hrs @ $25/hr) 375

Misc. expenses (eg, delivery media) 1,500

Total $27,195

26apr05.doc