DPLAfest 2016

Developing and maintaining suitable curriculum for all aspects of digitization is a challenge for all DPLA Service Hubs. Thanks to the Public Library Partnerships Project (PLPP), a solid digitization curriculum is now available for all Hubs to use when training new partners. With guidance from Franky Abbott of the DPLA staff, program manager for the project, and funds from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, four DPLA Service Hubs recruited public librarians and supported them through full-day training, selection of materials, digitization, and metadata assignment for their first digital collection, along with creation of thematic regional and national exhibitions. Participating staff came from Digital Commonwealth (MA), Minnesota Digital Library, Digital Library of Georgia, and the Mountain West Digital Library participated, along with staff at the Montana Memory Project, a major regional repository in MWDL.

The curriculum modules, available at http://dp.la/info/about/projects/public-library-partnerships/, cover six phases of digitization:

--Planning for Digitization

--Selecting Content for a Digitization Project

--Understanding Copyright

--Using Metadata to Describe Digital Content

--Digital Reformatting and File Management

--Promoting Use of Your Digital Content

The presenters will discuss the iterative, feedback-based process of curriculum development. During the course of the project, the in-person curriculum was refined to address challenging concepts. For the creation of the self-guided online modules, different approaches and practices at the four Hubs were harmonized, and they worked together to create strong coverage of the entire digitization workflow. They will also discuss the lessons learned in working with more than 45 new public library partners and reflect on how the curriculum modules are being used for training a variety of types of cultural heritage professionals in the DPLA hubs network.