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Collaboration Jisc digitisation programmes Projects 2006-2009

Public-private partnership delivers thousands of images for free

Thanks to a public-private partnership between the Bodleian Library and ProQuest, thousands of images from one of the world’s most important collections of printed ephemera are being made freely available to all UK universities, further education institutions, schools and public libraries. The John Johnson Collection: An Archive of Printed Ephemera, part of the JISC Phase […]

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Impact assessment Jisc digitisation programmes Projects 2003-2007 Users

Usage and impact of digital resources

The JISC invites tenders to conduct a study on the usage and impact of a selection of online digital resources which were produced as part of the JISC Phase One Digitisation Programme, 2003-2007. The digital collections created as part of the programme are aimed at enhancing the provision of e-content for teaching, learning and research […]

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Jisc digitisation programmes Podcasts Projects 2006-2009

Podcast: How digitisation can bring a nation’s heritage to the desktops of all

One of the projects in JISC’s digitisation programme, Welsh Journals Online, led by the National Library of Wales, will be adding to a growing body of online materials dedicated to Welsh culture, history and language. In this podcast, director of the project Arwel Jones talks about how digitisation can promote wider efforts to make a […]

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Jisc digitisation programmes Projects 2006-2009

Contribute your digital memories of WW1

As part of the JISC funded First World War Poetry Digital Archive project, the University of Oxford has launched a web site to allow members of the public to submit digital photographs or transcripts of items they personally hold which are related to the First World War. The ‘Great War Archive’ site will run for […]

Categories
Jisc digitisation programmes Usability

Web usability tested

In the development of a Web resource, ideally usability testing is an iterative process that is carried out throughout the development of a resource and can be conducted both internally (expert review) and with outside users (user testing). The second meeting of the JISC Digitisation programme partly focused on Web usability issues and user interaction […]

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Data capture Jisc digitisation programmes OCR Projects 2006-2009

The challenges of “useful” OCR

The National Archive’s digitisation project, British Governance in the 20th century – Cabinet Papers, 1914-1975, has been grappling with issues of “useful” OCR. It might be stating the obvious, but accurate OCR is as useful as the search results it produces. If OCRd text consistently misspells particularly relevant key words for retrieving certain documents, than […]

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Data capture

Digitise a book in 15 minutes!

JISC recently met with representatives of QIDENUS TECHNOLOGIES, who are prototyping new robotic book scanning technologies. QiScan RBSpro is a fully automated robotic scanner that uses a robotic rubber “finger”, and no suction technologies, to turn the pages of a book. The “finger” senses the type of paper and the machine sets the right angle […]

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Jisc digitisation programmes Projects 2003-2007

‘Read all about it’

The JISC-funded 19th Century Newspapers digitisation project was highlighted in today’s Guardian as part of a growing number of online newspaper archives which constitute an invaluable resource for historians and researchers. Stephen Hoare commented: “The digitisation of the British Library’s 19th-century newspaper collection – the most comprehensive archive ever to go online – was launched […]

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Europe Funding Google Podcasts

Podcast: Why is Google showing us the way forward in digitisation? asks senior UK librarian

The recent LIBER-EBLIDA workshop on digitisation of library material in Europe explored some important challenges facing national and university libraries across the continent as they attempt to join together to deliver a “European Digital Library”. In this podcast interview Paul Ayris, librarian at University College London and a senior figure in these European developments, depicts […]

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Projects 2006-2009

On “Good Terms”

Next week (6 December) will see the launch of the beta version of Electronic Ephemera: Digitised Selections from the John Johnson Collection at Online Information 2007, London. This new e-resource is part of the JISC Phase Two Digitisation Programme and features selections from the Bodleian Library’s John Johnson Collection, one of the most important collections […]

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Evaluation

Evaluation, Evaluation, Evaluation

Evaluation is often a neglected area within a digitisation project’s life cycle, as most of a team’s energies and resources get absorbed by the complex task of setting up the right infrastructure to carry out the actual digitisation of material. At times subsumed within the more technical Quality Assurance process, at best it’s the kind […]