Round 2 for Research Publications (or MIT publications)/text:

Please consult with the Operations Team prior to creating a project spreadsheet/inventory.  You may not be able to answer these questions thoroughly but please come prepared to address these questions and topics:

General

TIMELINE: Approximate timeframe on the project: do you have a schedule, presentation, and/or a deadline in mind?Are there any events dictating the schedule of the project (presentation, anniversary)?

STAFF RESOURCES: The sponsoring group has to allocate staff to inventory the collection. Do you have student hours to contribute to the project? Do you have staff time dedicated to this project? 

SIZE OF PROJECT: How many items need to be digitized, total number items, total page count if possible?

DELIVERY: Will these arrive in one load or by batch? (for storage and process handling) Consider for both the physical and digital items.

WORK TYPE: If you already have digital copies what type of file formats do you currently have?

DATE: Date the physical copy made (useful for predicting paper condition and media problems) Date range of content (relates to copyright, which impacts retention of originals)

INTENDED AUDIENCE: Who is the end user?

Preservation

  1. Are there any rare archives items that require security (locked room, hand delivery) or on-site scanning with libraries personnel present (and space in Archives or Wunsch Lab)?
  2. What equipment is the vendor using (camera, overhead scanner, sheet-fed scanner), and what are their requirements (picklist, etc.)?
  3. Are there duplicates?  How do we decide which is the best copy if duplicates? (See Ann Marie’s wiki page about Energy reports about preferences in choices.)
  4. Binding types and approx. percentages of each type
    1. Bound
    2. Stapled
    3. Spiral Bound
    4. Loose sheets
  5. Sense of condition – as an overview (we will do further assessment)
    1. Page count
    2. Fold out sheets
    3. Photos
    4. Fragile Pages
    5. Reprints, reformatted (these can produce poor-quality images), such as Mimeographs and old photocopies
  6. Disposition of originals - what happens to the original after scanning: storage, circulating stacks, Archives, discard?  (Some options may require items to be rebound, boxes, stapled, foldered, etc.)
    1. Should Archives review before discarding?
    2. Who discards copies? Collections Support Unit

Scanning

  1. Overhead, sheet fed, requirements for scanning
  2. Has any part of this collection been digitized?
    1. If yes, who scanned the items?
    2. Where were they scanned?
    3. Where are the digital copies?
    4. When were the items scanned?
    5. What specifications were used?
      1. Full- text searchable
      2. What dpi?
      3. Color, grayscale, or bitonal?

Metadata

  1. What kinds of “things” do you have in this collection? Examples: events, notebooks, MIT 150 has events, resources and files,  Edgerton has notebooks and pages,  Whirlwind has reports, RLE has reports, sections.
  2. What do you imagine for dissemination or publication streams?  Flickr, youtube, DOME, DSpace, etc…
  3. Content Management system in mind or used (IRIS, Archivist Toolkit, Filemaker, Barton, etc…)  
  4. Cataloger in mind?

Ingest

Items to think about:

Community/Collection location in repository

Location of files and metadata to be load

Blurb for Collection page in repository