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:
- dates with significant brittle paper problems which can restrict access to originals;
- meets needs of faculty, students and scholars within and beyond the UC community;
- subject widely collected by UC and CSL;
- contributes to CDL Online Archives of California and to UC prestige;
- dates avoid copyright issues;
- 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;
- will enjoy a commitment from UC to its long-term accessibility;
- can be captured and served adequately in digital form (to be proven).
Plan of work (and units responsible):
- 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).
- 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)
- 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.
- Ship volumes to service providers; receive, inspect, and process them for reshelving on return (PRES)
- Verify completeness and accuracy of digital files (DPG).
- Assemble files into digital objects, link from bib records to these digital objects, and mount the books on a UCB public server (DPG).
- Submit digital objects to OAC and the CDL digital preservation repository (DPG).
- 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