C. Sharing experience with other institutions

During the early phases of our program, there was very little information available about standards and best practices for digitization projects.  The Denver Public Library was contacted by numerous institutions seeking information and advice. In order to share our experiences, we provided tours, telephone and email consultations, and spoke at professional conferences and workshops.  In 1996, when the final report for our first NEH grant was complete, we printed extra copies to send to organizations upon request.

Currently, there are numerous articles, web sites and books available about planning and implementing digital projects.  Even though several groups have published guidelines and best practices, the Library continues to receive requests for information about our program.  In particular, there is a desire for evaluation data and sharing real-life issues and problems we have encountered.

For this reason, in addition to summarizing the activities of project PA-22924-97, this report attempts to provide useful evaluation material for other institutions.  In order to make the information available to other institutions, the report is mounted on the Library’s web site along with an on-line tour of the digitization lab.