Evanston, Illinois. April 7, 2009.

Research libraries are eagerly embracing the digital world. They are acquiring access to great quantities of electronic materials produced outside their walls and are making digital versions of their own holdings. These projects, as they become more common, are bringing both the broad issues and the nuances of the digitizing process into sharper relief.

Projects based on careful review, analysis, and planning can yield electronic resources that are functional and faithful to the original sources, and that support new kinds of scholarship. A detailed plan of work, regular assessment of progress, closely documented adjustments and corrections, and the retention of other project-related data can strengthen the knowledge base for future efforts. Each success, as well as each failure, will bring us closer to fulfilling the promises of the electronic environment.

The process of deciding what to digitize anticipates all the major stages of project implementation. Digital resources depend on the nature and importance of the original source materials, but also on the nature and quality of the digitizing process itself—on how well relevant information is captured from the original, and then on how the digital data are organized, indexed, delivered to users, and maintained over time. Disciplined efforts to address the themes and questions outlined in this essay will help ensure that new digitizing projects fulfill the expectations of libraries, students, and scholars.

Excerpted from Selecting Research Collections for Digitization, by Dan Hazen, Jeffrey Horrell and Jan Merrill-Oldham of the Council on Library and Information Resources. Published August 1998.