Presentation by Gavin Willshaw at University of Edinburgh Open Knowledge Network event, 28th April 2017

1. PhD thesis Digitisation
Project
Gavin Willshaw, Digital Curator, Library & University Collections
@gwillshaw

2. Project background
• 27,000 PhD theses dating from
early 1600s to present day
• 10,000 already digitised / in
digital format
• 2005: requirement for
submission of digital thesis
• Several small-scale digitisation
projects

3. The collection
• Largely standardised
• Yet, lots of diversity:
• Latin / handwritten
• Awkward foldouts
• Varying size
• Some theses damaged /
dirty
• Biological specimens…

4. Project aims
• Provide global, unhindered access to unique Edinburgh research
• Obtain equipment, software and expertise for future mass digitisation
projects
• Digitise 17,000 PhD theses – online by end 2018
• Create basic MARC records for 4,000 uncatalogued theses
• Undertake conservation work on 2,000 damaged theses

5. • 10,000 theses scanned destructively in-house
• Boards and spines removed
• Pages fed through Kodak i4250 document scanner
Destructive scanning

6. • 3,000 unique theses scanned non-
destructively in-house
• i2s Copibook Cobalt scanners (x2)
• Angle support allows for scanning
items with tight bindings
• 4,000 unique theses outsourced
Non-destructive scanning

7. LIMB Server batch processing software
• Deskew, sharpen, remove signatures / addresses, OCR, QA
• Output keyword searchable 300 DPI PDF

8. Copyright / Licensing
• Made available open access through Edinburgh Research Archive (ERA)
• However, copyright still held by authors, not UoE
• 2039 rule: all unpublished works (inc PhDs) under copyright until 2039,
even if author died centuries ago
• UoE has no right to openly licence
• Low risk; Take-down policy

9. • Gain expertise in mass digitisation
• Obtain equipment / software at
project end for future digitisation
initiatives
• More control over fragile material /
workflows
• Frees up 500 linear metres of shelf
space
Why this approach?

10. Date Activity
Feb 16 Funding confirmed
May 16 Equipment and staff in place – scanning work begins
Jun 16 First batch of digitised theses online
Nov 16 Conservation work begins
Mar 17 Procurement partner confirmed and outsourcing begins
Jul 17 Conservation work complete
May 18 All in-house scanning and processing complete
Dec 18 All outsourced theses returned
Dec 18 All theses available online
Timeline

11. • 5,646 scanned in-house
• 4,132 duplicate items
• 1,514 unique items
• 4,898 processed in-house
• 4,434 online
• On track to have in-house
element completed within
timeframe
Progress to date

12. Not just text…

13. Some notable authors

14. • Linking theses to Wikipedia
• Wikisource
• Looking to explore advanced
research techniques (e.g.
text mining / data
visualisation)
Beyond scanning

15. • libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk/phddigitisation
• era.lib.ed.ac.uk
• facebook.com/crc.edinburgh
• @CRC_EdUni
• @gwillshaw
Find out more

16. Gordon Brown: By Copyright World Economic Forum (www.weforum.org), swiss-image.ch/Photo by Remy Steinegger [CC BY-
SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Arthur Conan Doyle: By Arnold Genthe - PD image from
http://www.sru.edu/depts/cisba/compsci/dailey/217students/sgm8660/Final/They got it from:
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/photodraw/portraits/,where the source was given as:Current History of the War v.I (December
1914 - March 1915). New York: New York Times Company., Public Domain,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=240887
Alexander McCall Smith: By TimDuncan (Own work) [CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia
Commons
Honor Fell: See page for author [CC BY 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Isabel Emslie Hutton: By Post of Serbia (http://www.wnsstamps.post/en/stamps/RS060.15) [Public domain], via Wikimedia
Commons
Attributions