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Abstract
Libraries and archives are increasingly producing subject-based digital collections alongside, but separate from, their main digital collections. These smaller projects are often treated as digital one-offs; they are created, launched, promoted, and then largely forgotten. The authors of this study argue that small-scale digital collections instead be treated as test cases for their institutions’ main digitization programs. Because they are lightweight and have relatively low stakes, these collections get pushed through the system quickly and can illuminate its workings and shortcomings in a snapshot form. The authors treat their own experience in developing the Animal Welfare Act History Digital Collection at the National Agricultural Library as a case study in using a digital collection to test and revise an institution’s digitization program. In so doing, this study suggests how agile projects like the AWAHDC can be core components in digital curation policies and their implementation.
Highlights
In September 2015, the Animal Welfare Information Center (AWIC), based at the National Agricultural Library, embarked on a project to create a subject-based digital collection: the Animal Welfare Act History Digital Collection.1 For AWIC and the library, where the authors of this paper work and conduct research, this resource is a new tool in fulfilling an important mission of the center to inform the members of the community regulated by the Animal Welfare Act about the intent and history of the act
As we talked to these participants about their experience, the root cause for this absence of documentation emerged: there was an underlying view among them that these small-scale digital initiatives were secondary to, and even a distraction from, the library’s main digital program, the National Agricultural Library Digital Collections (NALDC)
We argue that libraries should treat digital projects like the Animal Welfare Act collection as core elements of their programs in digital curation, not as digital one-offs
Summary
In September 2015, the Animal Welfare Information Center (AWIC), based at the National Agricultural Library, embarked on a project to create a subject-based digital collection: the Animal Welfare Act History Digital Collection. For AWIC and the library, where the authors of this paper work and conduct research, this resource is a new tool in fulfilling an important mission of the center to inform the members of the community regulated by the Animal Welfare Act about the intent and history of the act. As we talked to these participants about their experience, the root cause for this absence of documentation emerged: there was an underlying view among them that these small-scale digital initiatives were secondary to, and even a distraction from, the library’s main digital program, the National Agricultural Library Digital Collections (NALDC). The latter had been in place since the mid-2000s and contained over 84,000 items at the time that we launched the Animal Welfare Act collection. In the Reflection section, we expand on the importance of the model as whole for the National Agricultural Library and for other libraries with similar digitization programs
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