The Illinois State Library enriches life in Illinois by providing library service to government officials, state employees and the public; advocating open access to information; developing libraries; and promoting reading and literacy. One of the services The Illinois State Library (ISL) provides is the Illinois Digital Archives (IDA), a part of the Find-It! Illinois Web site (http://finditillinois.org).

What is the Illinois Digital Archives?
IDA is designed to be a searchable repository of the Illinois State Library’s digital collections, as well as the digitized collections of other libraries and cultural institutions (including, but not limited to, museums and historical societies) in the state. In addition to the material from the Illinois State Library collection that is being digitized on an ongoing basis, IDA is currently being augmented by digitized collections from other Illinois libraries, such as the Paul V. Galvin Library’s holdings of materials from Chicago's Columbian Exposition of 1893 (Illinois Institute of Technology-Chicago); Elijah P. Lovejoy's Martyrdom Collection, concerning the   early abolitionist newspaper editor in Alton who was killed for his views on slavery (Illinois State Historical Library-Springfield); and a photographic collection of the Illinois & Michigan Canal (Lewis University-Romeoville).

How do digital materials become part of Illinois Digital Archives?
Since 1998, ISL has awarded eighty-six Library Services and Technology Act digital imaging grants (worth over $2,700,000) to libraries in Illinois. This represents the first significant effort to make accessible, through digitization, a body of mainly primary source materials relating to Illinois history. Funding priorities for the grant proposals is for projects that intend to digitize “primary source” materials, as identified below. Only Illinois libraries may apply for the grants, but collaboration with other institutions (such as museums and historical societies) is encouraged. The grants are announced in March of each year and proposals are due by the end of July. These one-year grants are awarded in October.

There are two important requirements of the grant recipients:

• The images and metadata created by the project must be made available in IDA.
• Grant recipients must attend Illinois Digitization Institute training (see below)

If you have any questions regarding this grant program contact Alyce Scott (ascott@ilsos.net), 217-558-2064 or Joe Natale (jnatal@ilsos.net), 217-558-4185 at the Illinois State Library.

In 2001, ISL conducted a primary source survey of the 700 public libraries in the State of Illinois. The purpose of the survey was to collect information about materials and items of community significance in library collections. We have used the survey to analyze primary source material held in libraries in an effort to coordinating statewide preservation and digital imaging efforts.

Keys terms defined in the survey were “community significance,” “primary source material,” and “areas of significance.” The term "community significance" describes materials and items that are essential to maintain a continuing record of the total cultural identity of a community. Loss of these historical and cultural materials would result in an inability to reconstruct a vital element in the memory of the community.

"Primary source material" refers to original historical and cultural material only, not printed material or reproductions of original documents held by other cultural institutions that the library might have purchased for reference purposes. The typesof primary source materials that may be held by the library are as follows:

• Archival material, manuscripts, diaries, personal journals
• Photographic negatives, prints, movie film
• Sheet material: handwritten musical scores, maps, posters, drawings, prints
• Electronic media: video tapes, video disks, computer magnetic tapes, floppy disks
• Sound recordings: Oral histories, tapes

The term "area of significance" means the subject areas in which the primary source material may be categorized, including –but not limited to --- African Americans; Arts and architecture; Civil War; Genealogy; Labor; Local history; Native Americans; Religion and Women. A total of 700 libraries responded to the survey with 349 public libraries responding that they held items meeting the definitions specified in the primary source survey.

How are the digital materials created?
Digital imaging technology has become a more practical method of providing a greater level of citizen access to the intellectual content of primary source materials held in Illinois libraries. However, creation of and access to these digital images presented some formidable challenges. Ensuring consistency in the digitization of materials and metadata to be included in IDA was one of our primary goals. After researching standards and best practices documentation for large digital projects (e.g. The Library of Congress American Memory Project, National Archives and Records Administration, and others) we developed a set of best practices recommendations for the creation of digital images and metadata. We have also partnered with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the Illinois Heritage Association to create the Illinois Digitization Institute (IDI), which offers digitization training for the grant recipients. This training is mandatory for all grant recipients and consists of two days of hands-on experience in digital imaging and lectures on topics including:

• Appropriate treatment for materials
• Project management
• Care and handling of fragile materials
• Copyright and intellectual property issues
• Image scanning and editing
• Storage, description, and retrieval of images
• Indexing and description (metadata)
• Access and delivery via the Internet

The IDI also offers training available to anyone via the series of “Basics and Beyond” workshops (see the schedule at http://images.library.uiuc.edu/projects/IDI/Index.HTM).

Of course any database is only as good as its metadata. For those of you who may not have heard this term, let me demystify: it means data about data, in short cataloging information describing the resources in the database. This is one of the most important parts of any digital project because if you make your resources available on the Internet without good metadata, search engines will not be able to locate them. There are many metadata schemas and I will not go into them here (I can hear that sigh of relief), but suffice it to say that you must think about the needs of your end-users to write good metadata. IDA uses the Dublin Core metadata schema to describe the digital resources contained within, but one size may not fit all when it comes to creation of metadata, as you can see in this sample of a complex metadata record from the Spurlock Museum, at the University of Illinois:

What types of digital materials are available in the Illinois Digital Archives?
Currently there are twenty-three historical collections available through IDA, including sound recordings of oral histories, full-text materials (books, pamphlets, documents, manuscripts) and photographs. Only materials in the public domain, or to which the institution holds the copyright (or has acquired permission to digitize from the copyright holder) are included. The reason for this is that digitization of materials and mounting the results on the Internet are considered republishing, in copyright terms, and that is one of the five exclusive rights afforded to copyright owners. The size of the individual collections varies but each collection is a grouping of digital reproductions that form an integral whole. Here is a sampling of the some of the available collections:

• Centralia Regional Library District

Oral histories of local residents on topics ranging from railroads to mining, ethnic groups, agriculture and more.

• Flora Public Library

Postcards created by Charles Overstreet and sent to friends in Flora during his World War II military service; German propaganda acquired by Mr. Overstreet during that time.

• McLean County Historical Society

Photographs and documents from the Bloomington-Normal Black History Project.

• Illinois State University

Correspondence and photographs from University women who served in World War I.

• Illinois State Library

Full-text federal and Illinois state documents; Illinois history materials; World War II posters and documents.

• Illinois State Archives

Manuscript documents, relating to Abraham Lincoln’s legislative career.

Where will I find the Illinois Digital Archives?
IDA is found on the Internet at http://finditillinois.org.  The database is currently undergoing a transformation from our homegrown collection management program to a new system, with an improved search engine, which will yield more accurate search results.

Resources

Books
Besser, Howard and Jennifer Trant. Introduction to Imaging: Issues in Constructing an Image Database. Santa Monica, CA: The Getty Art History Information Program, 1995.

Ester, Michael. Digital Image Collections: Issues and Practice. Washington, D.C.: Commission on Preservation and Access, 1996.

Kenney, Anne R. and Oya Y. Rieger. Moving Theory into Practice: Digital Imaging for Libraries and Archives.
Mountain View, CA: Research Libraries Group, 2000.

Northeast Documents Conservation Center. Handbook for Digital Projects. Andover, MA: NEDCC, 2000. (also available online: http://www.nedcc.org/digital/dighome.htm )

Smith, Abby. Why Digitize? Washington, D.C.: Council on Library and Information Resources, 1999.

Websites
Benchmark for Digital Reproduction of Monographs and Serials (revised January 2002)http://www.diglib.org/standards/bmarkfin.htm

The Costs of Digital Imaging Projects by Stephen Puglia (RLG DigiNews: Vol. 3, No. 5, October 1999)http://www.rlg.org/preserv/diginews/diginews3-5.html#feature

Digital Conversion of Research Library Materials by Stephen Chapman and Anne E. Kenney (Cornell University)
(D-Lib Magazine, October 1996 – old but still useful)
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/october96/cornell/10chapman.html

Digital Formats for Content Reproductions (Library of Congress)
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/formats.html

The Digital Library Toolkit, 3rd edition, 2003
http://www.sun.com/products-n-solutions/edu/whitepapers/
pdf/digital_library_toolkit.pdf

Digital Reproduction Quality: Benchmark Recommendations
http://www.rlg.org/preserv/diginews/diginews5-4.html#featured

A Framework of Guidance for Building Good Digital Collections (National Information Standards Organization)http://www.niso.org/framework/forumframework.html

Getting the Picture: Observations from the Library of Congress on Providing Online Access to Pictorial Images
http://lcweb.loc.gov:8081/ndlint/drafts/libt1999/libt1999.html

Image Quality Calculator (use to determine the best scanning resolution for your digital images)
http://images.library.uiuc.edu/projects/calculator/

Moving Theory into Practice: Digital Imaging Tutorial (Cornell University)http://www.library.cornell.edu/preservation/tutorial/contents.html

RLG Worksheet for Estimating Digital Reformatting Costs
http://www.rlg.org/preserv/RLGWorksheet.pdf

Sizing a Document Management System: Image Size Estimates for All Types of Digitized Documents
http://www.archivebuilders.com/aba003.html

Metadata Websites
Introduction to Metadata (Getty Institute)
http://www.getty.edu/research/institute/standards/intrometadata/index.html

Metadata: Why Should We Care?
http://content.lib.washington.edu/METADATA/

Understanding Metadata (National Information Standards Organization)http://www.niso.org/standards/resources/UnderstandingMetadata.pdf

Copyright
Fishman, Stephen. The Public Domain: How to Find & Use Copyright-Free Writings, Music, Art & More. Berkeley, CA: Nolo Press, 2001.

Copyright (OCLC Digitization & Preservation Online Resource Center)
http://digitalcooperative.oclc.org/copyright/

Crash Course in Copyright (University of Texas)
http://www.utsystem.edu/OGC/IntellectualProperty/cprtindx.htm

When Works Pass Into the Public Domain
http://www.unc.edu/~unclng/public-d.htm

Alyce L. Scott is the  Digital Imaging Program Coordinator, Illinois State Library.