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