Since the 1990s the progress of computer technologies has caused an intensive development of digitization according to the following two main aims: to provide online access to a number of materials in order to serve users better and to use surrogates instead of valuable originals thus avoiding unnecessary handling. The greatest advantage the users of digital libraries and archives have received is the possibility to work with the files that can be not only read, but modified in any necessary way over computer networks. The planning of a digital conversion project is based on objectives and factors of the digitization clearly defined. According to Asogwa (2011), these usually include “the suitability of materials to an institution`s mission, the value of the materials in comparison to other materials in the collection, the demand of users or researches for such material, restrictions resulting from the legal status of part of the collections, and accessibility and availability of collections” (p.7). Thus, the selection of the necessary information for digitization would be outlined as it is impossible to digitize everything in the collections.
Digital library project management has a certain standard methodology. Lopatin (2006) considers the funding of the project, its staff collaboration, technical specifications, metadata creation and the whole process of work to be “vital for a successful digitization project” (p. 274). The project management is a series of activities such as setting goals, planning, budgeting, data preparation, archiving and preservation of the selected information, web site designing, metadata creation that result in the creation of a digital library. Furthermore the process of management requires quality control and effective partnership during the workflow.
Policies and strategies are important for digitization and creation of digital libraries and archives. The basic strategy is making digital materials accessible to users, on the one hand, identifying the audience as one of the determining purposes for digitization in general. On the other hand, the curatorial personnel of the library is the major factor in estimating potential digital content. Okwaro (2009) accentuated that digitization policies must also consider “the priorities of information flow and services”(p. 5). According to Jones (2008) the gaining a lot of in-house experience and skills concerning the various aspects of digitisation proved to be “a crucially important principle” (p.103). Jones (2008) emphasized that a certain “balance between digitization and metadata creation” should be followed though with the increasing speed of digitization the hand crafting of metadata became more difficult to fulfil. (p. 105)
Digitization practice cannot be successfully realized without an observance of certain standards in order to build a good digital collection. There are 3 primary standards specified by Jones (2008): “metadata creation, image capture and cross-sectional co-operation” (p. 106). Libraries select and adopt the most relevant metadata standards for their digitization project and best presentation of digital objects. The main aim of image capture is the digitization of the originals into the types of formats suitable for archiving applying the latest technologies. Securing the digital library`s correct …