DESCRIPTION OF
POTENTIAL TEXT DIGITIZATION PROJECT

Selector:	
Bob Scott

Holding Library:	 
	Butler Stacks/Milstein/Barnard
      Collection Title (Please Provide a Name for this Project): 
	MONOGRAPHIC LITERATURE FOR STUDY OF GREEK AND ROMAN 	WORLD (PILOT FOR LARGER MONOGRAPHIC PROJECT)
1.	Nature of Digitization Project 
a.	Briefly describe the materials to be digitized, including their subject or discipline-related content, chronological or geographical coverage, languages and character sets, etc. 
Prof. Roger Bagnall proposes that the Libraries explore ways to use digitization to make the key monographic literature of specific fields more readily available (and in searchable form) to the community of graduate and undergraduate users. The unavailability of  such key titles is, he notes, a frequent complaint on the part of students and a problem well worth addressing.  The best model, he suggests, rather than creating a separate local database might be to work with the ACLS History Ebooks to create more comprehensive sets of materials in selected areas that could be served up from that database. Proposing Classics as a pilot for this undertaking, he suggests that good undergraduate reading lists such as that   of William Harris’s for Roman History could be used as a starting point  (http://www.columbia.edu/cu/history/pdf/anc/w1020.pdf_1.pdf ).  He suggests, moreover, that the History Ebook project should  be encouraged to expand its efforts to other disciplines, for example, literature.
b.	[Optional: Indicate whether the project assumes external funding or should be considered for accomplishing in-house with existing staff resources; indicate too whether the project might be considered a demonstration project for the purposes of attracting funding for a larger project.]
c.	Describe the priority this project has relative to other possible projects in your area by selecting one of the following options:
___ Immediate  ___ Short-Term  __X__ Medium-Term  ___ Long-Term
2.	Scope of Digitization
a.	Specify the types/genres and amount of material to be digitized (e.g., 10 volumes amounting to ca. 1800 pages of text, ca. 100 volumes amounting to ca. 30,000 pages of text with many black and white illustrations,  2 folio volumes of ca. 400 pages with ca. 150 oversized color images)
Assuming that we were beginning with a focused subject list, we might be talking about as few as 20 or 30 volumes, but the project could obviously scale up to a much  larger size.
b.	For textual materials, indicate whether they will be also need to be OCRed and presented as searchable text, or whether page images only are needed.
OCR required
c.	[Optional :For other materials, please indicate any requirements or assumptions about the quality of scans, derivatives, indexing, etc.]
3.	Value to Columbia Libraries Collections
a.	How would this project strengthen, complement or otherwise relate to existing paper (etc.) or digital collections at CUL?   
The digitization of monographic literature identified as key by faculty and used frequently by them in the teaching of undergraduates and training of graduate students would hopefully not only address the problems of access indicated above, but also help to make our existing online monographic collections a more central part of the teaching and research process, bringing it more into line with the way in which journal collections such as JSTOR are currently being used.
b.	Does this material relate to the collection development policies of the holding library or the Libraries as a whole?
Yes.
c.	Are there other comparable or related digital collections already available publicly?
NetLibrary but particularly the History E-Book project, which this initiative would seek to enhance and move toward becoming the kind of vital resource for monographic literature that JSTOR has proven to be in the area of scholarly periodical literature.  
4.	Value to Columbia Research & Teaching 
a.	How would this project serve current, recognized research, study or curricular needs of Columbia?
It would be growing directly out of the curriculum.
b.	Which Columbia faculty members work in the area covered by this project?   Have they indicated they would make use of these materials, or materials of this type, in digitized form? 
Roger Bagnall, Richard Billows, Alan Cameron, James Coulter, Raffaella Cribore, Eleanor Dickey, Kathy Eden, Helene Foley, Carmela Franklin, Dan Georgakas, William Harris, Natalie Kampen, Bruce King, Clemente Marconi, Kristina Milnor, Suzanne Said, Elizabeth Scharffenberger, Deborah Steiner, Leonardo Taran, James Zetsel
5.	Partnerships
a.	Are there other Columbia groups that we can or should partner with in this type of project?
Faculty in the subject area
b.	Are there other institutions that are particularly strong in these or related materials that we can or should partner with?
The History E-Books project
6.	Scope of Cataloging 
a.	Have these materials been cataloged, described in a finding aid, or have another kind of metadata? Please describe and include links to cataloging or finding aids if available.
Yes
b.	[Optional:  If not, please give details of type and amount of cataloging / description being proposed within the context of this grant and how it would be accomplished.]
7.	Rights / Permissions
a.	Identify copyright issues and other potential restrictions. Are these materials in the public domain? Does Columbia hold rights for copying and dissemination?  (If you are not sure of the answers to the preceding, what percentage of the material was published prior to 1923?  What percentage between 1923 and 1963?)
A good part of this material will still be under copyright.  Working through the E-Books project, with the a set of procedures for procuring rights to academic titles and the promise of a more regular revenue stream for publishers seems a potentially promising way of dealing with this issue.
b.	[Optional: Describe approach to resolving or managing these restrictions within the context of the project.]
8.	Physical Condition 
a.	Are the physical items intact, in good condition, and playable (where appropriate, e.g. videotapes)? 
As a rule, this material should be in good condition.
b.	[Optional: If not, describe in general terms what types of physical problems are present.]
c.	Are the materials appropriately housed, or will rehousing be part of the project?
d.	[Optional: Will any conservation treatment or other physical work be needed to enable the materials to be digitized? For instance, it may not be possible to digitize a book that is tightly bound and has narrow margins without disbinding it.]
e.	For archival and manuscript collections, have the materials been fully processed and arranged?