Kentuckiana Digital Library: A Digital Archive of Kentucky

History

Eric WeigHead, Digital Programs

Special Collections & Digital Programs DivisionUniversity of Kentucky Libraries

In the beginning….. (1998)

• Create a digital archive of rare and unique material documenting the history and heritage of Kentucky.

• Enhance access to unique archival/special collection materials from around the state.

• Form collaborative between the University of Kentucky, the Ky Council on Post-Secondary Education and the Kentucky Virtual Library.

• Utilize archival collections survey prepared by Ky Archivists to target initial digitization efforts.

• Worked with 4 nationally recognized expert digital library consultants from the California Digital Library, Cornell University, the Digital Library Federation, and Duke University.

Mission and Vision Goals

• Allow for local or centralized digitization.• Create and maintain a hi-production digitization

environment to continually add content to the KDL.• Create digital content utilizing well-established best

practices and guidelines within the archival digitization community.

• Establish the KDL as a ‘Trusted Digital Repository’ for Kentucky history, cultivating persistent access to and sustainability of digital content.

Collections: Archival Finding AidsOver 4,000 archival collection descriptions

Collections: Images60,000 digital photographic still images

Belle Brezing in a black gown, 1880s (kukav:2003av1:2003AV1_001 ) Belle Brezing Photographic Collection

"Bad John Wright“, ca. 1911-1930. (kukav:2001av01:0073)Jenkins Ky. Photographic Collection

Photograph of Booth, John Wilkes, ca. 1873-1925. (klgsc:ulrsc012:80.20.0009)

Macauley Theater Collection

Collections: Digital Books260,000 page images, over 1,000 titles (IMLS ‘Beyond the Shelf’ Grant)

First history of Kentucky by John Filson, 1784.

Image from First White Man of the West by Timothy Flint, 1854.

• Institute of Museum and Library Services National Leadership Grant

• Titles were selected from A Bibliography of Kentucky History by J. Winston Coleman.

• Many titles were digitized from 35mm microfilm produced via NEH brittle book preservation projects at the University of Kentucky.

• Industrial strength OCR was used for high-accuracy searchable text production.

• The project team formulated a methodology and workflow for continued production beyond the grant period.

Collections: Digital Newspapers100,000 pages for National Digital Newspaper Program Grant

Bourbon News (Paris, Ky.) Sept. 10, 1901, page 7.

• Twenty year grant program managed by the Library of Congress and funded by the NEH.

• UK/KYVL is one of six awardees in this test-bed phase of the program.

• We capture from 35mm microfilm at 300-400dpi grayscale to create images at 50-80MB per page.

• Master negatives are gathered from stores at the University of Kentucky where they are also duplicated for scanning.

• We are the first site in the world to license specialized software for newspaper digitization from iArchives Inc.

Digital Production Application Framework Manages the Newspaper Digitization Process

Ingest

Output

AutomationManual Process

Collections: Oral Histories238 transcripts online with 50 MP3 audio files.

• The KDL offers full-text searchable transcripts.

• We recently added a digital audio conversion workstation to our digital lab.

• We are beginning to digitize audio and offer online MP3 files along side transcripts.

• 16 bit audio capture at 44.1ghz, WAV master files.

Delivery System for Four National Grant Projects/Programs

• Institute of Museum and Library Services National Leadership Grant ‘Beyond the Shelf’

• NEH/Library of Congress National Digital Newspaper Program

• NEH Appalachia Collections

• NHPRC Lexington Herald-Leader Photographs Database

New Directions

• Add K-12 lesson plans utilizing KDL resources.– This part of the KDL is due to go online in July 2006.– Lessons are generated by graduate assistants in the College of

Education at UK and tailored to KERA standards.• Add digital newspapers.

– Four initial titles are due to go online in July 2006.• Add Herald-Leader Photographs online database.

– 35,000 records go online in July 2006.• Add Bibliography of Kentucky History database.

– Online version will have hyperlinks to digitized texts within the KDL and within the Google Print archive.

– Will go online in July 2006.• Add digital Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps for Ky cities and towns.

– Plan to begin offering these maps online in Fall 2006.• Cross-Collection Searching via Open Archives Initiative Protocol.

– Spring 2007