Part 1

A. Overview

In 1997, when NEH project PA-22924-97 was awarded, the Denver Public Library’s Photodigitization project was entering a new phase.  Through prior grants from NEH and the Boettcher Foundation, the initial planning, selection of equipment, and development of cataloging and scanning standards had been completed.  Based on the success of these grants, the Library was successful in obtaining funds from several local, state, and federal grant agencies.

The Denver Public Library was faced with the challenge of quickly expanding its project to meet the demands of several new grants. Each of the grants had to be reviewed to determine areas of overlap and to ensure that the goals of each project were complementary.  The Library had to devise processing schedules to allow for the scanning and cataloging of more than 50,000 images.

The number of scanning stations and workstations available for catalogers limited production.  Because the processing phase was rather lengthy (materials might be inaccessible for a period of several months) too many items could not be prepared at one time. The Library had also learned the value of working at a pace in which procedures could be evaluated and improved rather than blindly repeated.

At the same time, technological options for widely disseminating our digital database had improved.  In our early grants, we were able to make the collection available at workstations within the Western History/Genealogy Department.  In the second round of grant proposals, we suggested several alternatives to making the collection accessible to a wider audience.  By the time the grants were funded, the internet had emerged as a viable and sustainable option we wanted to explore.

For these reasons, upon receipt of the NEH grant, the Library negotiated to delay the start date of the project for 12 months. While we were scanning and cataloging material for other grants, we were also making plans for a web site, to upgrade the digitizing lab so that we could process a wider variety of originals, and to set up a lab in which high-quality reproductions could be made for the public. 

The total life of this project PA-22924-97 spans more than 5 years.  During this period, the activities and accomplishments of several grants have been intertwined and inseparable. This report, while focusing on the issues and accomplishments related to the NEH grant, will draw upon these other experiences.