Executive Summary

The Denver Public Library has completed grant project PA-22924-97 to digitize and catalog 9,000 photographs from its Western History Collection and 7,000 photographs from the collections at the Colorado Historical Society.  Funding for this work was provided by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Bruce and Virginia Rockwell.  Additional funds were provided by the Denver Public Library.

This project is the second NEH preservation/digitization grant awarded to the Denver Public Library.  In the first grant, completed in 1996, the Library set out to develop its standards, set up its digitization lab and cataloging workshop, demonstrate a proof of concept, and share information with other institutions. 

In this second, even more challenging grant, the Library has achieved the following goals:

·        The digitization lab was expanded to allow for the scanning of large format and bound materials.

·        Cataloging procedures continued to be adapted to meet researcher needs and the challenges presented by a more diverse set of materials.

·        Processing and administrative staff was reorganized to reflect the needs of a long-term, sustainable program rather than short-term project.

·        Selection of items was fine-tuned to reflect emerging information about copyright, digitization and distribution of information over the internet.

·        A partnership was developed with the Colorado Historical Society.

·        The targeted collections of photographs were sleeved and stored in safe, archival materials.  These collections, after processing, were placed in secure, environmentally controlled storage.

·        A library catalog record was made for each photograph.  These catalog records are available to the public through OCLC, the Library’s on-line system (CARL), and through a Z39.50 link from the Colorado Digitization Project’s Heritage site.

·        An uncompressed, high resolution digital image was made from each photograph and stored on CD-ROM.  From this master image, lower resolution images were derived for distribution to the public on the Intranet that serves the Denver Public Library and Colorado History Museum and over the internet.

·        The Library continued to share the knowledge and experience developed during this project with other institutions, interested library and museum professional groups, and the general public.