Things to remember

This is a checklist of things to remember before and after the publication. Most elements contain things that should be thought from the very beginning. If you have forgotten about the copyrights, capturing text or securing master copy until you are ready to publish you should look at how can you deal with the whole process of the digitisation.

The list is divided into two parts: things to check before and after the publication. Some of the tasks are repeated on both lists. In case of small institutions where there is only one person responsible for the whole process of digitization, checking things for the second time is not needed. If the responsibilities are divided between several people or a number of separate teams, make sure that everything is checked.

Before

Intellectual Property Rights

The basic issue to check not only before publishing, but mostly before choosing the objects for digitization. Making a digital version of the object may be restricted by copyrights. The Intellectual Property Rights does not say that a librarian cannot digitize a book, problem comes while making the digital object publicly available.

In case of objects existing in the Public Domain, it cannot be forgotten that their digital copies are also objects in the Public Domain.

For objects born digital, there can appear a problem of confering a proper licence. While choosing, objects character and the original intention of work's author should be taken into account.

Metadata schema

Metadata must be prepared for the appropriate schema and in accordance with the rules of use. Make sure that the digital library supports the metadata schema in your prepared metadata. Metadata schemas may be different, for example, if existing metadata have been imported from another system. If the digital library do not support this metadata schema, a directl mapping will be needed. It can be done by a digital library software, external tools or by hand.

Image quality

Images should be done with a proper equipment and have the appropriate parameters. Images quality must be good enough not only to prepare a web delivery version, but also to make the OCR and for the long-term preservation. Checking the quality of the images may be necessary in case of outsourcing the process of scanning.

Capturing text

This is about the accessibility. To take advantage of all the benefits offered by digital documents images with text, they must be published with the digital text. If the text was automatically captured using the OCR software, check its results.

Digital text

There are several file formats for storing the image along with the digital text. Make sure the format you have selected is supported by the digital library software e.g. Google.

Web delivery version

A web delivery version of is placed in the digital library and presented to the user. Please check the parameters of the file such as: image quality, resolution, size and format. These parameters are interdependent and you should verify that none of them deviates from the norms, which could prevent the user from accessing the resource.

Web delivery – Quality

Digital object must have a sufficient resolution, for example to make the text readable. On the other hand, the resolution can not be too large, because this will adversely affect the file size. The high level of file compression can also reduce the number the details of the object.

Web delivery – size

Too large file can prevent users from displaying/downloading. Of course the higher level of detail, the better, but remember to strike a balance between quality and size.

Web delivery – Format

A web delivery file format must be supported by the digital library software. Some users may have problems with viewing the object if it will need the additional software.

Web delivery – paging, streaming

Some file formats allow to display the data before the entire file has been transmitted. For PDF and DjVu formats a particular page can be downloaded and displayed. For audio and video files, streaming can be used. For big images such as maps, you can use the Zoomify format.

Master copy

Master copy is important and it should be preserved. Do not delete the Master copy after the creation of web delivery versions.

Software

Sharing the resources in the digital library usually requires a special application and user account. Make sure you possess the required rights to perform the entire process of publication and the required rights to make it available to the public.

After

Viewing

After the publication, the object should be visible in the digital library. Check whether is it possible to display the content of the object on your computer. Your computer may already have installed the software required to display the object. So you can also check how the object is displayed on an average PC, for example, in library.

License

User must know the terms of use of the object. Information about the license must be in clear manner provided together with the object.

Local search

Check whether the object can be found on the digital library website by searching for the metadata description. Use simple and advanced search forms, for example, giving the title or author of the work.

Full text search

If the digital object which was published, has a digital text, see if you can find it with the full-text search. Simply copy the text and use the search form. You can not always find the content immediately after the publication. It depends on the digital library software and the file size after.

Search engines

The digital object can be found by using search engines only if the digital library is available publicly. It will not be visible immediately after the publication, it will take some time for robots to find and index pages with the new object.

Aggregators

Aggregators increase the visibility of resources on the Internet and direct users to the digital library. Check whether the object is visible in these services and whether all the data, for example links, metadata, are correct. Remember, the information about the new object does not appear immediately after the publication.

Restricted access

If copyright allows access to the content only within the library, make sure that the publication is not available publicly.