A Guide to English: Digital Stewardship

"Digital Curation Projects Made Easy: A Step-By-Step Guide for Libraries, Archives, and Museums outlines simple steps for accomplishing practical digitization and digital preservation projects for those with little experience, time, and/or resources. Following a general introduction, instructions for completing these commonplace digital curation projects are covered: Photograph collections. Newspaper collection. Rare books. Art Collections. Oral Histories. Digital curation does not need to be reserved for big budgets or world-famous collections. In fact, a large part of digitization and digital preservation consists of practical projects that are done every day without much fanfare in libraries and archives around the world." - from the publisher

"This reworked guidebook shares how to build a digital collection from scratch, or simply understand the conceptual and technical challenges of constructing a digital library. It demonstrates how resources are created, distributed, and accessed, and how librarians can keep up with the latest technologies for successfully completing these tasks. It demystifies core technologies and workflows and covers a range of aspects from planning to implementation and assessment." - from the publisher

"Today's libraries are taking advantage of cutting-edge technologies such as flat panel displays using touch, sound, and hands-free motions to design amazing exhibits using everything from simple computer hardware to advanced technologies such as the Microsoft Kinect. Libraries of all types are striving to add new interactive experiences for their patrons through exciting digital exhibits, both online and off. Digital Collections and Exhibits takes away the mystery of designing stunning digital exhibits to spotlight library treasures by walking the reader through implementation projects that are sure to astound and impress. This collection of easy-to-follow instructions will give readers the knowledge and confidence to create and design their very own extraordinary digital exhibits. Readers will learn: How to Create a Digital Exhibit Using Omeka.net How to Create a Hands-Free Digital Exhibit Showcase with Microsoft Kinect How to Create a Digital Exhibit Using Open Exhibits How to Create 3D Objects and Add them to Online Exhibits." - from the publisher

"The range of metadata needed to run a digital library and preserve its collections in the long term is much more extensive and complicated than anything in its traditional counterpart. It includes the same 'descriptive' information which guides users to the resources they require but must supplement this with comprehensive 'administrative' metadata: this encompasses technical details of the files that make up its collections, the documentation of complex intellectual property rights and the extensive set needed to support its preservation in the long-term. To accommodate all of this requires the use of multiple metadata standards, all of which have to be brought together into a single integrated whole. Metadata in the Digital Library is a complete guide to building a digital library metadata strategy from scratch, using established metadata standards bound together by the markup language XML. The book introduces the reader to the theory of metadata and shows how it can be applied in practice. It lays out the basic principles that should underlie any metadata strategy, including its relation to such fundamentals as the digital curation lifecycle, and demonstrates how they should be put into effect. It introduces the XML language and the key standards for each type of metadata, including Dublin Core and MODS for descriptive metadata and PREMIS for its administrative and preservation counterpart. Finally, the book shows how these can all be integrated using the packaging standard METS. Two case studies from the Warburg Institute in London show how the strategy can be implemented in a working environment. The strategy laid out in this book will ensure that a digital library's metadata will support all of its operations, be fully interoperable with others and enable its long-term preservation. It assumes no prior knowledge of metadata, XML or any of the standards that it covers. It provides both an introduction to best practices in digital library metadata and a manual for their practical implementation." - from the publisher

"WordPress is not only the most popular blogging software in the world, but it is also a powerful content management system that runs more than 23 percent of all websites. The current version alone has been downloaded almost 20 million times, and the WordPress community has built more than 38,000 plugins to extend and enhance the system. Libraries are using this technology to create community-oriented websites, blogs, subject guides, digital archives, and more. This hands-on, practical book walks readers through the entire process of setting up a WordPress website for their library, provides tips and best practices for using themes and library-oriented plug-ins, and contains information on how to use WordPress to create nontraditional library websites. No matter your library's size or resources, this all-in-one practical manual will show you how to improve your website by building it in WordPress through projects such as: How to Install and Use Common Plugins How to Install and Customize a Theme How to Build an Exhibit to Display an Image Collection How to Analyze and Manage Your Content in WordPress How to Create Re-Usable Chunks of Text With Shortcodes How to Build a Professional Library Website."

"Whether you're a budding blogger or seasoned web designer, WordPress is a brilliant tool for creating websites--once you know how to tap into its impressive features. The latest edition of this jargon-free Missing Manual shows you how to use WordPress's themes, widgets, and plug-ins to build just about any kind of site. The important stuff you need to know: Set up WordPress. Configure WordPress on your web host or get it running on your home computer. Create your site. Get hands-on instructions for building all types of websites, from blogs to business sites with ecommerce features. Jazz it up. Add picture galleries, slideshows, video clips, music players, and podcasts. Add features. Select from thousands of plug-ins to enhance your site's capabilities, from contact forms to a basic shopping cart. Build a truly unique site. Customize a WordPress theme to create a site that looks exactly the way you want. Attract an audience. Use SEO, site statistics, and social sharing to reach more people. Stay safe. Use backup and staging tools to protect your content and avoid catastrophe." - from the publisher

Librarian's note: Learning how to design a Wordpress template is a great prerequisite for learning other platforms like Omeka, because the file structures are virtually the same.

"The role of archives and libraries in our digital age is one of the most pressing concerns of humanists, scholars, and citizens worldwide. Questions of what to keep and how to keep it touch the very core of who we are as individuals, cultures, nations, and humankind. Now, more than ever, the accessibility of curated historical information, the sharing of resources, and the uses of digitization raise questions central to democratic societies. This edited book brings together specialists from academia, public libraries, governmental agencies, and non-profit archives to pursue common questions about value across the institutional boundaries that typically separate us." -- Provided by publisher

"This book recounts the history of the controversial Google Books project and the ongoing quest for a universal digital library. Libraries have long talked about providing comprehensive access to information for everyone. But when Google announced in 2004 that it planned to digitize books to make the world's knowledge accessible to all, questions were raised about the roles and responsibilities of libraries, the rights of authors and publishers, and whether a powerful corporation should be the conveyor of such a fundamental public good. This book traces both the history of Google's book digitization project and its implications for the future. The authors draw on in-depth interviews with those who both embraced and resisted Google's plans, from librarians and technologists to university leaders, tech executives, and the heads of leading publishing houses. They look at earlier digital initiatives to provide open access to knowledge, and describe how Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page made the case for a universal digital library and drew on their company's considerable financial resources to make it a reality. The authors also examine how librarians and scholars organized a legal response to Google, and reveal the missed opportunities when a settlement with the tech giant failed. This book sheds light on the transformational effects of the Google Books project on scholarship and discusses how we can continue to think imaginatively and collaboratively about expanding the digital availability of knowledge." - from the publisher