A medieval historian by background, and qualified archivist, Susan spent her teaching career at Aberystwyth University largely teaching postgraduates in Archive Administration and Humanities to read manuscripts and archives. External work with national organisations from the 1990s (UK and Wales) brought early involvement in developing digital projects in the broad heritage field, alongside observation of other projects and the effect of funding streams. Assessment of AHRC applications which included digital developments brought a different perspective, followed by advisory work with HLF at UK level 2008-11, including assessment of large project applications. This was followed by attachment to a large HLF digitisation project at a London ‘national’ 2012-15.

1. DEPARTMENT OF
INFORMATION
STUDIES

2. 1 Success lies in combining expertise in (i) digital developments and
preservation; (ii) users and their needs; (iii) Social Science methodologies
(e.g. user studies and evaluation); and (iv) the content and uses of the
materials to be digitised or the ‘born digital’ resources.
2 A wide perspective on user interests, extending beyond the specific subject
field, is essential; early consultation will help to identify the potential range
before defining the search systems.
3 ‘Silo mentality’ is problematic in large organisations — digital developments
require close collaboration between different work areas.
4 When seeking examples of good digital projects, look beyond your own
specific area of interest and across different parts of the heritage sector.
5 Online projects cannot rely on ‘in-house’ rules for indexing, search terms or
metadata which do not match recognised standards for sharing and seeking
information in the ‘online world’.
6 A digitisation project may be rejected by funders or delayed because it lacks
an essential pre-requisite. A common reason with archives, photographs and
other 2D collections is that they are not catalogued. If not catalogued to
individual item level, including each page in volumes such as diaries or note
books, they lack key information for metadata and effective search systems.
Ten points and pitfalls in developing digital projects for online delivery

3. 7 Digitisation should never be equated with access or preservation per se. It is
primarily an access tool, but contributes to preservation by reducing the
handling and use of the original. A good project will incorporate all necessary
preservation / conservation measures for the original items alongside the
digitisation.
8 Care of the original material both during and after the digitisation process is
equally important, including the use of appropriate equipment, methods and
workflows. Projects should be aware of the risks: e.g. simple flat-bed
scanning does not suit fragile documents, bound originals, or deteriorating
photographs, glass plates and film.
9 Accuracy is vital for all processes. This applies especially to transcription of
manuscript text and any catalogue description or explanation. Not only are
errors misleading for users, but they also affect the quality of the search
system - and are spread and perpetuated via the internet!
10 Good guidance is particularly important for users of online resources, who
need and deserve much more information than is usually provided: such as
the nature and context of the original material; the purpose of creating the
digital resource; whether it is comprehensive or selective; how to refer to or
cite individual items; and whether or not any transcribed text has been altered
or ‘modernised’, e.g. place names.
Ten points and pitfalls in developing digital projects for online delivery