“Into the Middle of the Thing” (With Apologies to Horace)

Abstract

Temple University Libraries received an Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) grant in 2000 for the development of a digital image collection. Based on this experience, the authors discuss a computer and manual tracking system developed to control and manage the collection building effort. The need to accurately track the progress of materials and the workflow in the digitization project was not fully understood at the beginning of the project. Thus, after the tracking system was designed, it was necessary to populate it with information reflecting work on the project from the beginning.