Presentation given on April 25, 2012 at the Albright Memorial Library in Scranton, PA, for a Save Pennsylvania's Past Digitization Basics workshop.

1. The University of Scranton
Digital Collections:
Worst Mistakes and Greatest Hits
Kristen Yarmey
kristen.yarmey@scranton.edu

2. Our collections:
8 live collections
32,548 live images
31,000 image backlog
≈ 500 GB

3. Our set-up:

4. Our team
• Digital Services Librarian
• Systems Specialist
• Brilliant student workers
• With lots of help from:
– University Archives and Special Collections
– Cataloging
– Library administration

5. My
worst mistakes
(and our fixes)

6. Not-so-timely
quality control
Fixes: Project tracking queue
Building QC into workflow

7. Lack of
documentation
Fix: Digital collections wiki

8. Misplaced trust in
automatic backup
Fix: Frequent backup testing

9. Overly optimistic
time tables
Fixes:
Project queue
More realistic expectations
Training more support staff

10. Informal
(or sometimes nonexistent)
project tracking
Fix: Project queue

11. Our
greatest hits

12. Prominent Men of Scranton
(downloaded 4,370 times)

13. Yearbooks

14. Civil War collaboration

15. Football
alumni reunion

16. Football
alumni reunion

17. Dining Services partnership

18. Custom Moleskines!

19. Letterpress!

20. Timeline

21. Pinterest

22. History Pin

23. Facebook Timeline

24. Thank you!
Questions?
Kristen Yarmey
kristen.yarmey@scranton.edu