Advice requested on digitization of loaned items
I’m posting this question on behalf on an archivist who is in need of advice.
I recently started a new position as the head of a digital projects unit in an academic library. Special collections has a policy of allowing patrons to loan materials for duplication and use on our website. Patrons sign a loan agreement form which gives us permission to publish the resulting images online, although not having seen the language I’m not sure how airtight that is. My main issues of concern are: disruption of digitization workflow (these requests can be time-consuming and take time away from digitizing in-house collections); perception of the end-user (even with a disclaimer, will users understand that physical items cannot be consulted?); and possible future arguments regarding copyright/permissions. I’m wondering how many institutions out there engage in duplication of loaned items and if so, what guidelines they have in place for that? Any opinions on the subject or references to literature/blog entries, etc. on the subject would be appreciated.
Please help if you can. Thanks.
Tags: copyright, digitizatino
Uncategorized | Kate T. | 
November 21, 2009 1:06 pm
3 Comments
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By Christie P, November 23, 2009 @ 11:35 am
I haven’t personally encountered this issue, but since Kate asked “pretty please with sugar on top,” here’s my professional opinion as an archivist with an MIS:
The question seems to come down to whether the benefit to the institution and to your unit from doing this work outweighs the risks and costs associated.
Regarding the possible benefits, I would want to know what is being scanned and how it meets institutional goals. Are things being scanned as a measure to build donor relations and possibly lead the way to important donations in the future? Or are things being scanned because someone just can’t bear saying “no” to a potential donor?
Regarding risk, I would be extremely concerned about what the “loan agreement” says. Does it in any way assign responsibility for damage or loss while the item is on “loan” to the institution? Is your unit possibly at risk if something gets damaged or goes missing? What exactly does it say about long-term preservation of the scans and copyright? Ideally, the donor agreement would grant intellectual rights to the to the library for the digital images the same way that a “regular” agreement would if they donated a physical object. These are questions you should investigate. You may find that you will want to pursue re-writing the loan agreement with input from your institution’s attorney.
Since it sounds like you’re operating as a separate unit from the archives/special collections, the following may not be within your sphere of control, but it is an important point. Essentially, they are building a digital repository and the “loans” (donations to the digital repository) should be handled with the same level of formality that “regular” donations are handled. There should be a clear, written collection policy. There should be some sort of formalized procedure for injest and a written policy about maintenance. If the institution isn’t committed to preserving these items long-term, then why is it expending resources to create and collect them?
It sounds like right now there isn’t any cost to Special Collections for sending this work to your unit. If it seriously impacts your ability to serve the rest of your internal clients, you should pursue some mechanism for offloading some of that burden. For example, you could start charging for certain types of work, or you could invoke an opportunity cost by capping the amount of total work they can send to you per period of time. At the very least, you should be able to collaboratively schedule when and how much they send you so that it isn’t constantly interrupting your unit’s work flow.
And of course, all of this is set within the wonderful world of office politics. There is lots out there about bringing change to the workplace, and reading up on it can only help you. Googling “change agent” is a good place to start; maybe others will have specific reading recommendations for you.
By Stephen, November 23, 2009 @ 3:22 pm
I’m not aware of any literature on this topic, but it is an interesting one. I can see where this might be a valuable service. If items in private hands are likely to stay in private hands, but the information could be of interest or research value to others, then having that material digitized and made available (and presumably also “preserved” digitally) would be a good thing. But I can also see the long list of problems that could arise from such an arrangement.
A colleague of mine had a friend who had dozens of Civil War letters, and this friend was willing to lend us these letters for digitization and mounting on our website. In the absence of any policy, I decided that I was willing to provide this service only if the friend was willing to donate the papers (would not have to be immediately, but an agreement would have been drawn up by the appropriate personnel) as well. Resources are just too tight, in my opinion, to digitize materials from outside our own collections.
Now, if I worked for an organization that had a well-defined mission to preserve and disseminate information on a particular subject, and if some material on that subject was made available for scanning and mounting but donation was clearly not an option, then I might consent. But you can bet that the digitzation agreement would have very tight language about the obligations and rights of both parties involved.
Such an agreement should specify that the timing of the digitization will be determined by those doing the digitizing; in other words, the lender should not expect digitization on demand on their schedule. Also, I would not digitize anything if the lender wanted to exercise their copyright over the material. If the lender is willing to have the materials placed on the web, then they should not expect to be consulted anytime someone wants permission to use the materials in a publication, and I certainly don’t want to waste my time being a middleman between the lender and an interested user. But as far as the users perhaps being confused and believing you possess the originals, that will probably happen no matter what information you provide to the contrary – in most people’s minds (particularly those who don’t read the details), your website equals your stuff. So just be prepared for that, and know in advance whether or not the lender is willing to be bothered on occasion about the originals or not. If not, that may be a strike against digitizing that material.
It’s hard to assess how good or bad an idea this digitization may be for any given organization, but the questions you’ve asked seem to me to be some of the major issues that any manager of such a program would have to deal with. If these issues are not adequately addressed by the existing policies and procedures in place, then I would recommend suspending the program until those issues could be more thoroughly addressed.
Best of luck!
By U. Eco, November 29, 2009 @ 8:31 am
Hello, I’m a student of Science librarian and I’m Spanish, so firstly, Let me excuse for my grammar mistakes.
After read your post, I think about the topic and questions of Digitalization. Then I have found differences between your experience and the practices in Spain. Here there isn’t a clear policy about the process and then, every center decides with according to its budgets and needs for every time. And neither about the parameters for this digitalization, so at many times users prefer the physical archive because they can read better the information contained in it, at the digitalizated archive.
And lastly, I want to ask you a single (but quite long) question.
Is there a clear and coordinate policy about the digitalization process for Archives or are there dispersed projects like in my country?