For the Benefit of All Digitizing Hearings from the 60s, 70s and 80s Sonnet Ireland Head of Federal Documents University of New Orleans DLC 2011
Earl K. Long Library,University of New OrleansUniversity opened its doors in 1958, located on the southernshore of Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans, La.Library became a depository in 1963 and began receivingdocuments in 196491% selection rateDocuments added to the collection since 1976 are in theonline catalog.
What Were DoingDigitizing hearings and making them freely accessible onlinein the Louisiana Digital Library:Link http://louisdl.louislibraries.orgClick on Collection Name (under Browse Collections By)Click on United States House and Senate Committee Hearingsand Publications(You can also Google us or the hearings)
Why Hearings, in particular?Since depositories can range in the focus of their collections,we wanted to digitize something that would be the mostuseful for the most people.There are hearings on all sorts of topics, making it a goodchoice for digitization.Hearings also make up a fifth of our federal documentscollection.
Why the 60s, 70s and 80s?Since our depository began in the 60s, we do not have muchmaterial before that time.As for the 70s and 80s, weve found that most of thedocuments available online are from the 90s on. We areworking to digitize items that are not already freely availableonline.
The Process: Choosing the Hearings1. Pull hearings from the shelf2. Sort them into two piles: those in the catalog, those not3. Those not in the catalog are returned to the shelf. Thosein the catalog go on to the next step.4. The hearings in the catalog are then checked foravailability online.5. Finally, information is gathered: e.g. item numbers
The Process: Digitizing the Hearings1. The hearings are disassembled: usually cutting along thebinding2. The hearings are then hand-fed into a feeder scanner thatscans both sides at once into pdf format3. Once the document is scanned, we go through each page ofthe scan and fix any errors.4. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) program is run on thedocument, allowing for keyword searching.
The Process: Saving and Uploading1. The document is then saved to the hard drive and uploadedto ContentDM with such details as the SuDoc number, subjectterms, etc.2. After several hearings have been scanned, they are backedup on an external hard drive and burned to a CD.3. The hearings are also backed up by OCLC offsite.4. Once uploaded, the records are modified in the catalog andthe reference URL is added to the record.
The Process: What Comes AfterThroughout this process, we use a spreadsheet to track thedocuments. Once scanned, we try to accumulate about 200documents.At 200, we turn that spreadsheet into a list for offering to ourregional depositories. At this point, we go through theprocedure for offering items up. We also use this as anopportunity to promote our online collection.Whatever is not requested, we discard.
F.A.Q.Why do you pull the hearings from the shelves and go throughthem manually?Our catalog isnt perfect. Sometimes items are listed asmicrofiche when they arent and vice verse. Pulling them fromthe shelves gives us a better idea of what is and isnt in thecatalog. It also gives us a chance to fix those errors in thecatalog.
F.A.Q.Why are you only scanning the documents that are in thecatalog?Since work is being done by others to catalog oldermaterials. Our goal is to go through our collection anddigitize what has been cataloged. Once we finish that, wewill go back to the start of the collection and scaneverything. Whatever hasnt been cataloged by someoneelse, we can catalog ourselves.
F.A.Q.Why all the back-ups?Murphys Law. If our system comes crashing down, thedocuments are backed up in so many ways that access shouldnot be lost.
F.A.Q.How can we use your database?Any way you want. You can add our database into yourresources...or you can even use our reference URL in yourcatalog if you wish. Were doing it for everyone to use!
The FutureWe have currently slowed our digitization, as we arepreparing to move the collection from the third floor of ourlibrary to the first floor.The pace of the project will depend on whether or not wehave a student worker in our department.Once the hearings are complete, we hope to add morehearings to the database through N&Os lists. We may alsoconsider digitizing other parts of our collection.