VIRGINIA HERITAGE TASK FORCE (VHTF)

Present: John Jaffe (SBC), Susan Catlett (VCU), Jay Gaidmore (LOV), Tonia Graves (ODU), Gail Greve (CWF), Jodi Koste, (VCU), Gail McMillan (VT), Eileen Parris (VHS), Susan Riggs, (W&M), Ute Schechter (W&M), Robert Vay (GMU)

Koste suggested and those present agreed with her recommendation that UVa (Gaynor) maintain the web pages for the Virginia Heritage Project and Virginia Tech (McMillan) will consolidate the present web pages and maintain them for the overarching VIVA Special Collections.

The rest of the meeting was spent discussing various aspects of our upcoming grant application to digitize materials described in the Virginia Heritage database. The majority of our time was spent trying to find a theme that would describe and encompass materials from all our libraries to digitize. The NEH application deadline is July 1 and we will not make this one. We'll try first for IMLS Preservation and Digitization (Feb. 1) and NHPRC (Oct. 1). Will there be another NDDIPP?

After much discussion we came up with the topic: The Struggle for Freedom in Virginia. This will be a virtual collection of digitized primary source materials from our dispersed Special Collections. This theme includes everything from the American Revolution to African Americans and minorities, women and education, etc.

We want to select materials to digitize based not only on what we think our users want, but on what our user communities want available online. We agreed that by JUNE 16th (or our next meeting) we would have gathered input from teachers (K-12 and college/university level) as well as researchers and scholars about what they could use in their work.

We want to improve the use of our resources by providing digitized materials that instructors can use in their classrooms and for their research. Teacher education programs focus on VA's Standards of Learning as well as any use of Virginia history.

We probably won't digitize entire collections, but would select materials relevant to the theme. The sorts of materials they might be able to use if available online include:

Manuscripts and memoirs
Remembering and narratives
Documents
Rights of people
Commemorative events

Types of primary source materials might we digitize

Images
Text documents including transcripts
Audiotapes
Videotapes

May scan publications relevant to the theme: out of copyright (pre-1923) or with permission

Questions to ask about what should be digitized in our collections:

What would you like digitized from VH db?
What would you like digitized from the Special Collections in VA?
What should we digitize that would appeal to a national audience and support your research and scholarship?
What should we digitize that would be useful in your teaching and instruction and might also be of use to teachers nationwide?
How can we meet your needs?
Priorities?
A little bit at great detail or a lot at a higher level?
Full text searching?

Other grant-related issues:

• Virginia Tech will offer online storage for institutions that need it.
  • Include link to/from VH database
  • External entities declared in the VH EAD FA are already searched and retrieved from non-UVa institutions (distributed search engine, OAI compliant)
• Centralized or regional digitization services?
  • Is purchasing equipment (e.g., book scanner) possible with grant funds?
• Teacher institutes for CE credits
• Request funding for personnel
• Grant budget:
  • Matching support from each institution
  • VIVA support VH (i.e., EAD DB) maintenance and a technician.
• Recommend standards and best practices
  • Develop statewide standards for metatada, digitization (not just text and still images)
    • Training to teach about this
• Standards for digitizing at each institution
  • policies and practices—perhaps a minimum that some institutions may exceed
  • Daigle and Vay will collect what's known about the different access, digitization, and preservation standards. Experts at UVa will hold an information session for us. We will take this information to our institutions so that we have cross-institution understanding of standards and best practices that will lead to commitments for the grant.

Gaynor's contact at NEH: Barbara Paul (McMillan will ask him about contacting BP.)

People who might guide or support our project/grant:

Bill Obracta, VFH Ed dept head
Prof. Scot Nelson at CWM
Education faculty at CWM

Many VIVA Special Collections have CDs and web sites with helpful SOL information and sample online documents (e.g., Virginia Historical Society and Colonial Williamsburg). Send links to gailmac@vt.edu

We represent a good cross section of Virginia demographics: VCU—poor SOL scores, GMU—wealthy, Virginia Tech—rural. Not all institutions may participate in this grant. We may start with a few and expand over time as practices and workflow evolve, as we did with the NEH VHP grant.

Next meeting will be about mid-June at UVa at Bradley's convenience for standards information session.

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http://spec.lib.vt.edu/viva/VHP/minutes/20040416.html
Created 05/26/04 by Mark B. Gerus