Large-scale Digitization Projects Research Articles

From Dormant Collections to Repositories for the Study of Habitat Changes: The Importance of Herbaria in Modern Life Sciences.

In recent decades, the advent of new technologies for massive and automatized digitization, together with the availability of new methods for DNA sequencing, strongly increased the interest and relevance of herbarium collections for the study of plant biodiversity and evolution. These new approaches prompted new projects aimed at the creation of a large dataset of molecular and phenological data. This review discusses new challenges and opportunities for herbaria in the context of the numerous national projects that are currently ongoing, prompting the study of herbarium specimens for the understanding of biodiversity loss and habitat shifts as a consequence of climate changes and habitat destruction due to human activities. With regard to this, the National Biodiversity Future Center (active in Italy since 2022) started a large-scale digitization project of the Herbarium Centrale Italicum in Florence (Italy), which is the most important Italian botanical collection, consisting of more than 4 million samples at present.

How do management factors influence digital adoption in the case of a large-scale digital transformation project – A process perspective

Abstract Although practitioners and scientists agree that user adoption of new technologies is a key success factor in digital transformations, little is known about how specific management factors are related to user behavior. In particular, the temporal nature of digital transformation projects is largely neglected. Therefore, we propose a systematic, theory-based framework for the management of digital adoption (MDA) and derive specific process-oriented hypotheses for content-, process-, and context-related management factors, their relationships to user adoption, and underlying psychological processes (e.g., performance expectancy or social influence). We applied the MDA framework in the context of a large digital transformation project in a logistics company in a two-wave research design. We tested the process-oriented hypotheses based on latent change score analysis among 1,095 users. The results support the assumption that changes in management factors, largely mediated by changes in the psychological processes, lead to changes in user behavior.

The Memorial Afterlives of Online Crowdsourcing

From May 2014 to March 2019 the Imperial War Museums launched a large-scale digital crowdsourcing project, ‘Lives of the First World War’. ‘Lives’ melded official and unofficial datasets to create an integrated database of people who had participated in the First World War. Over the course of the project 7.7 million individual histories were collected. After the initial collection phase, ‘Lives’ became a permanent digital memorial and database. This article investigates how ‘Lives’ contributed to public understandings of the First World War during and after its centenary. While undoubtedly an impressive and difficult undertaking, this article suggests that large scale data collection as a methodology on its own will replicate collection biases, unless married with specific collection drives. In the case of the First World War, this means that global majority narratives are subsumed by white British ones, at the expense of historically realistic data. The skewed datasets that come from large crowdsourced projects have widespread implications for cultural memories of events if they are to be digitally preserved within national collections.

Digital innovation in social cash organizations – the effects of the institutional interactions for transforming organizational practices

PurposeWhile the potential for digital innovation (DI) to transform organizational practices is widely acknowledged in the information systems (IS) literature, there is very limited understanding on the socio-political nature of institutional interactions that determine DI and affect organizational practices in social cash organizations. Drawing on the neo-institutionalist vision, the purpose of the study is to examine the unique set of institutional exchanges that influence the transition to digital social cash payments that give rise to new institutional arrangements in social cash organizations.Design/methodology/approachThe paper draws on an in-depth case study of a government social cash organization in Pakistan. Qualitative data were collected using 30 semi-structured interviews from key organizational members and stakeholders.FindingsThe results suggest that DI is determined by the novel intersections between the coercive (techno-economic, regulatory), normative (socio-organizational), mimetic (international) and covert power (political) forces. Hence, DI is not a technologically deterministic output, but rather a complex socio-political process enacted through dialogue, negotiation and conflict between institutional actors. Technology is socially embedded through the process of institutionalization that is coupled by the deinstitutionalization of established organizational practices for progressive transformation.Research limitations/implicationsThe research has implications for government social cash organizations especially in the Global South. Empirically, the authors gained rare access to, and support from a government-backed social cash organization in Pakistan (an understudied country in the Global South), which made the data and the consequent analyses even invaluable. This made the empirical contribution within this geographical setting even more worthy, since this case study has received little attention from indigenous scholars in the past. The empirical findings showcased a unique set of contextual factors that were subject to BISP and interpreted through an account of socio-cultural sensitivities.Practical implicationsThe paper provides practical implications for policymakers and practitioners, emphasizing the need to address institutional challenges, including covert power, during the implementation of digitalization projects in the public sector. The paper has certain potential for inspiring future e-government related (or public sector focused) studies. The paper may guide both private and government policy-makers and practitioners in presenting how to overcome certain institutional challenges while planning and implementing large scale multi-stakeholder digitization projects in similar country contexts. So while there is scope of linking the digitization of public sector organizations to anti-corruption measures in other Global South countries, the paper may not be that straightforward with the private sector involvement.Social implicationsThe paper offers rich social insights on the institutional interchanges that occur between the social actors for the innovation of technology. Especially, the paper highlights the social-embeddedness nature of technology that underpins the institutionalization of new organizational practices. These have implications on how DI is viewed as a socio-political process of change.Originality/valueThis study contributes to neo-institutional theory by theorizing covert power as a political force that complements the neo-institutional framework. This force is subtle but also resistive for some political actors as the force shifts the equilibrium of power between different institutional actors. Furthermore, the paper presents the social and practical implications that guide policymakers and practitioners by taking into consideration the unique institutional challenges, such as covert power, while implementing large scale digital projects in the social cash sector.

A collaborative approach for the registration, deposit and digitisation of Flemish film heritage

This paper discusses the collaboration between meemoo (the Flemish Institute for the Archives) and the Royal Belgian Film Archive with regard to the registration, conservation and digitisation of film heritage preserved by Flemish libraries, archives, museums, performing arts organisations, government bodies and city archives. The paper begins with a detailed description of the various pain points identified in a 2013 report on the state of Flemish audiovisual heritage conservation, including inter alia the fragmentation in film heritage management, the lack of specific attention for film collections, the lack of infrastructure and content-related and technical knowledge and poor storage conditions. It then focuses on the eight-step approach developed by meemoo and the Royal Belgian Film Archive, which culminates in large-scale digitisation projects and encouraging the reuse of the digitised films. After discussing some interim results of the collaboration, the article concludes that partnerships such as the one discussed facilitate an efficient, effective and affordable approach to the preservation and digitisation of diverse and dispersed film collections on a regional scale, thus providing a solid base for further conservation and digitisation.

Phototank setup and focus stack imaging method for reptile and amphibian specimens (Amphibia, Reptilia).

Fluid-preserved reptile and amphibian specimens are challenging to photograph with traditional methods due to their complex three-dimensional forms and reflective surfaces when removed from solution. An effective approach to counteract these issues involves combining focus stack photography with the use of a photo immersion tank. Imaging specimens beneath a layer of preservative fluid eliminates glare and risk of specimen desiccation, while focus stacking produces sharp detail through merging multiple photographs taken at successive focal steps to create a composite image with an extended depth of field. This paper describes the wet imaging components and focus stack photography workflow developed while conducting a large-scale digitization project for targeted reptile and amphibian specimens housed in the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History Herpetology Collection. This methodology can be implemented in other collections settings and adapted for use with fluid-preserved specimen types across the Tree of Life to generate high-quality, taxonomically informative images for use in documenting biodiversity, remote examination of fine traits, inclusion in publications, and educational applications.

The end of the reading room? Simulating the impact of digitisation on the physical access of archival collections

ABSTRACT Digitisation has become an essential part of archival and library strategies to enhance access to collections. As the digital content is increasing due to large-scale digitisation projects, it is expected that providing digital access to the analogue collections will eventually reduce the number of archival records accessed in the reading room. In this paper, we investigate this issue using two approaches: system dynamics and agent-based modelling. We first analyse real data in order to identify the dynamic hypothesis of the model. Then, a sensitivity analysis is conducted on two baseline models to identify scenarios that match the real dataset. Although the two approaches suceed to simulate the number of requests in the reading room, the experimental results show that a better fit is obtained in the agent-based model when not only the number of records that have been accessed and digitised is taken into account, but also the number of times that such records have been accessed before digitisation. The proposed model can be used to explore the impact of different digitisation strategies on the decrease in access requests in the archival and library reading rooms.

Maintaining momentum of accelerated digital transformation created by the pandemic

Like many financial services firms, Mercer, an investment management company, started planning and kicking off several digital transformation initiatives in the early winter of 2020. These projects ranged from the creation of a data management repository to the migration from a proprietary on-premises trading system to a third party hosted system. The latter will be the focus of the comments in this paper. The goal of these projects was to increase operational efficiencies and to transform data into information and make that information more accessible and useable. And then, everyone went home. In this paper, the challenges, learnings and unexpected benefits resulting from managing large-scale digital transformative projects during a pandemic will be discussed, and how that momentum can be maintained as teams return to the office, at least in some form. The intent of this paper is not to be a technical deep dive into the specifics of any projects, but rather a discussion of experiences. The goal is to provide the reader with additional considerations when undertaking a digital transformation project, real-life examples of unexpected considerations and how focusing on people, no matter what the initiative, should yield positive outcomes, even in unexpected ways.

Repatriation of ancient Benin bronzes to Nigeria: reflection on copyright and related issues

The 1897 invasion of Benin traditional empire by British soldiers led to the looting of ancient Benin bronzes. These have been at the centre of conversation around the repatriation of stolen African cultural heritage from Europe and America for a long time.1 There have been efforts in the past by the Nigerian government and the Benin Royal Palace to get stolen artefacts back from the UK.2 Recent global calls on colonial overloads for the return of looted artefacts from their previous colonial territories and for the atonement of colonial atrocities, which included the stealing of indigenous art,3 goaded the Nigerian government to reopen talks with foreign governments for repatriation of the looted bronzes. The awakened international consultations for the return of the looted ancient Benin bronzes forming part of the holdings of museums in Germany and the UK stirred schism among the governments of Edo State (sub-national), the Nigerian Federation and the Benin Royal Palace led by the Oba of Benin (the Oba Palace is located at the centre of Benin City, Edo State [Province], Nigeria). The schism was about who would control the ancient Benin bronzes upon their return. While the schism has been settled, as discussed in Section 3, the local ‘warring’ parties did not avert their minds to questions around who owns, would manage and benefit from the copyright relating to the ancient Benin bronzes. Nonetheless, the copyright and related issues have been identified as issues to be negotiated at the international consultation for the repatriation of the bronzes. Discussion of the copyright and related issues is important when viewed against the backdrop of the large-scale digitization project of the ancient Benin bronzes embarked upon by museums in Germany, for instance, in preparation for the repatriation of the bronzes. Viewed broadly, the discussion would serve to give useful insights into the copyright-related issues concerning other large-scale digitizations of cultural heritage, such as the Timbuktu Manuscripts recently digitized by Google Arts and Culture.4

A Time to Gather: Archives and the Control of Jewish Culture

A Time to Gather: Archives and the Control of Jewish Culture

“Africa's First Woman Press Photographer”: Mabel Cetu's Photographs in Zonk!

“Africa's First Woman Press Photographer”: Mabel Cetu's Photographs in <i>Zonk!</i>

Cicero, Voltaire and the Bible: French Best-Sellers in the Age of Enlightenment?*

Since the early twentieth century, when Daniel Mornet conducted his path-breaking survey of private library catalogues in an attempt to determine what people read during the enlightenment, historians have debated how to identify the best-selling texts in the distant past. Besides library catalogues, scholars of eighteenth-century France have ransacked will inventories, publishers’ archives, print licence registers, book auction records, the titles available in cabinets de lecture, and even the extraordinarily rich records of books stamped in an amnesty for pirated editions in 1777–1781. This article suggests that none of these sources taken in isolation can give us sufficient insight to provide a reliable overview of the book trade and the market for books. Taken together and analysed digitally, however, they give important representative insights into the best-selling texts, genres and authors of the eighteenth century. The article compares and contrasts the findings of several large-scale digital projects to identify and explore the best-selling – or most frequently-encountered-texts across a number of genres including school-books, self-help manuals, popular medical texts, creative literature and religious works. In the process, it will help us to think more critically about what constituted a best-seller in the early modern period. By revealing some broad contours of eighteenth-century print culture, it will also challenge existing narratives of the enlightenment, secularisation, popular literacy and the book trade.

Rediscovering Shanghai modern: Chinese cosmopolitanism and the urban art scene, 1912–1948

AbstractRepublican Shanghai was a renowned art capital. This article is based on a large-scale digital mapping project of the residential locations of 1,349 Shanghai artists. We analysed the transformative spatial distribution patterns of artists in relation to the city's social and urban conditions, and developed an artists’ habitation approach to elucidating the issues of Republican-period Shanghai urban and art history from the perspective of Chinese cosmopolitanism. We mapped areas of high artist concentration and identified a higher percentage of artists residing in the concessions (compared with the Shanghai general population) and the incremental convergence of art clusters in the concessions. We argue that the concessions provided a favourable environment for cultural diversity and the ungovernable, elite spirit of the literati tradition. The mainstream Shanghai art practices, known as haipai, were modern, as they were rooted in the urban modernity of the concessions and embodied Chinese cosmopolitanism.

Intermediality in medieval Iberian manuscript cultures: methodological reflections on ongoing and future research

ABSTRACT This introductory article offers an in-depth discussion of the special issue’s overall theme, as well as summaries of the individual contributions and a reflection on how digital tools are reshaping research. The first section covers the recent flourishing of large-scale digitization projects along with advances in material sciences and in a range of scholarly disciplines including paleography and codicology, art history, musicology, literary studies, and conservation and restoration, all of which have explored previously unimaginable possibilities for the study of medieval manuscripts. The second section focuses on the articles gathered for the special issue: those helping to create a theoretical framework, those presenting the results of recent projects, and a group of case studies that reveal how scholars are gradually adopting digital technologies and material studies as essential research tools. The third and final section suggests new avenues of investigation and methodological approaches to promote and improve our current understanding of Iberian manuscript materiality.

Validating media quality in a largescale outsourced media migration project: The second layer

This paper describes the quality control (QC) processes for a large-scale digital migration project conducted by österreichischer Rundfunk, the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation. It provides an overview of the initial requirements and the motivation for introducing an additional, independent QC layer, and describes the implementation process as well as the actual service itself. It draws on first-hand experience to provide a detailed introduction to the technology used for the task. The examples presented and the conclusions drawn provide the reader with the information they need for their own preservation and migration projects.

Experimenting with 360° and virtual reality representations as new access strategies to vulnerable physical collections: Two case studies at the KB, National Library of the Netherlands

In the late 1990s, the explosion of electronic resources resulted in large-scale digitisation projects amid the need for the preservation of digital information. The KB, National Library of the Netherlands, has been actively involved in these activities. Now, it is proposing better ways to both preserve physical library materials and improve their accessibility for educational purposes. This article describes two ongoing projects that involve preservation and public engagement. One, in its early stages, is to test the applicability of 360° imaging to support virtual access to the special collections’ storage. The second is the virtual reality production, for educational purposes, of children’s pop-up books. Both projects could inspire other libraries to introduce three-dimensional or virtual reality technologies and their applications to new audiences. This article describes each project, shows the methods used, and discusses the expected outcomes.

FAIR Digital Objects and Natural Science Collection Data

The Distributed System of Scientific Collections (DiSSCo) is a new Research Infrastructure that is working towards the unification of all European natural science collections under common curation, access policies, and practices (Addink et al. 2019). The physical specimens in the collections and the vast amount of data derived from and linked to these specimens are important building blocks for this unification process. Primarily coming from large scale digitization projects (Blagoderov et al. 2012) along with new types of data collection, curation, and sharing methods (e.g. Kays et al. 2020), these specimens hold data that are critical for different scientific endeavours (Cook et al. 2020, Hedrick et al. 2020). Therefore it is important that the data infrastructure and the relevant services can provide a long-term sustainable and reliable access to these data. To that end, DiSSCo is working towards transforming a fragmented landscape of the natural science collections into an integrated data infrastructure that can ensure that these data can be easily Findable, more Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable – in other words, comply with the FAIR Guiding Principles (Wilkinson et al. 2016). A key decision for the design of this FAIR data infrastructure was to adopt FAIR Digital Objects (Wittenburg and Strawn 2019) that will enable the creation of Digital Specimen—a machine-actionable digital twin of the physical specimen (Lannom et al. 2020). This FAIR Digital Object by design, ensures FAIRness of the data (De Smedt et al. 2020) and thus will allow DiSSCo to provide services that are essential for natural science collection-based research. This talk summarises the motivation behind this adoption by showing how design decisions and best practices were influenced by the FAIR data principles, global discussions around FAIR Digital Objects and outputs from the Research Data Alliance (RDA) interest and working groups.

Voting-Based Document Image Skew Detection

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is an indispensable tool for technology users nowadays, as our natural language is presented through text. We live under the need of having information at hand in every circumstance and, at the same time, having machines understand visual content and thus enable the user to be able to search through large quantities of text. To detect textual information and page layout in an image page, the latter must be properly oriented. This is the problem of the so-called document deskew, i.e., finding the skew angle and rotating by its opposite. This paper presents an original approach which combines various algorithms that solve the skew detection problem, with the purpose of always having at least one to compensate for the others’ shortcomings, so that any type of input document can be processed with good precision and solid confidence in the output result. The tests performed proved that the proposed solution is very robust and accurate, thus being suitable for large scale digitization projects.

The Limits of Recovery: The Failure of James Gates Percival

In the 1820s, James Gates Percival was the foremost poet in the United States. But by the time he died in 1856, his verses had all but vanished, and he was known primarily as a failure. This essay examines Percival’s strangely precipitous decline from celebrity to obscurity in order to reinvestigate the critical paradigms shaping our expectations for early nineteenth-century American poetry. Following the meager reception of his work up to the present day, it considers the limits and prospects of current recovery scholarship for writers like Percival. The sudden availability of historical texts through large-scale digitization projects changes the very concept of recovery and allows for a different mode of appreciation that takes a more comprehensive view of its subjects. Percival may be seen as more than simply the author of some once-praised poems.

Metropolitan Collections: Reaching Out to Regional Australia

Metropolitan Collections: Reaching Out to Regional Australia