Anna Eskola
Testing scalable processes - carrying out a large mass digitisation project successfully
The Impact of the Stimulus Project on Digitisation Workflow at the National Library of Finland
In spring 2010 the Ministry of Education and Culture granted funds to many Finnish organisations for carrying out large and small projects to digitise cultural heritage material. These projects were designed to simultaneously alleviate youth unemployment. The National Library of Finland was granted funds for a one-year so-called Stimulus Project that commenced in July 2010 and required the National Library and its personnel to adjust to a multitude of changes in digitisation workflow, logistics and even working methods.
From Operators to Team Leaders
Recruiting a large number of digitisation operators was one of the first steps when launching the Stimulus Project. Altogether 29 new operators were hired for the scanning and post-processing stages of the digitisation proces - a drastic change compared with the low number of 7 permanent employees who had work as digitisation operators. Luckily the recruiting process and the launching of the project were made easier by the fact that at hand was a large number of qualified applicants that had experience with similar digitisation work, of whom some had even worked previously in a similar project at the National Library's Centre for Preservation and Digitisation.
Due to the large number of temporary project personnel, the division of labour among the permanent digitisation staff had to be reorganised. The project personnel were divided into teams and most of the permanent digitisation operators became team leaders. This allowed for a flexible yet well-organised structure within the digitisation unit. It also helped with carrying out the project, as every team leader was very familiar with the work and the leaders were able to support their team members both during the orientation stage and throughout the project.
The digitisation facilities needed to be altered as well to make room for the project personnel. The Centre for Preservation and Digitisation in Mikkeli was able to secure a large amount of office furniture that the local branch of the Finnish Defence Forces was letting go. With this and by using its own resources the Centre was able to create enough work stations for all new employees.
The Scale of the Shipments
The launch of the Stimulus Project called for quick planning to achieve the ambitious goal of two million digitised pages from a large amount of journal material and two thousand compact cassettes. The National Library decided to focus on Finnish journals that had been published before the year 1944 and on unique legal deposit compact cassettes from the 1980s and that had not been published in Finland in any other format. The latter contained material that had become brittle over time. These cassettes were coming close to the end of their lifespan as the tapes had already started to degrade despite good care and correct storing.
Three compact cassettes can be digitised at once.
Photo by Tuomas Havukainen
Continuing the digitisation of both Finnish journals and compact cassettes had been planned even before the Stimulus Project was on the horizon. This facilitated the launching of the Stimulus Project, as the necessary equipment and software were set for these types of materials. The drastic changes in the production basically handled only the volume - something that we at the Centre for Preservation and Digitisation trusted our scalable processes would be able to manage.
A crucial factor in successfully carrying out the Stimulus Project was the efficient item-tracking system that has been tailored to National Library's needs. In addition to being able to track the flow of individual items being digitised, the system allowed National Library personnel to plan ahead and ship optimal amounts of material to the Centre for Preservation and Digitisation in order to avoid an excess or lack of material. This planning also made it possible to arrange for the transportation vehicles in time according to the size of each shipment.
Two-Shifts and the Phased Working Method
As any project that starts with a recruiting process, the beginning of the Stimulus Project was characterised by an orientation phase where new employees were made familiar with the project and the work. In order to make full use of the resources both the project personnel and the available equipment, the experts at the Centre for Preservation and Digitisation decided to use two-shifts for scanning. This was necessary in order to provide the post-processing operators with enough scanned material. At the same time work in post-processing was streamlined by adopting a working method in which each operator focused on a specific phase of the process.
Post-processing staff at work.
Photo by Tuomas Havukainen
In the early stages of the Stimulus Project the production goals appeared fairly ambitious. As the project put to test not only the capabilities of the personnel but also the equipment, its first part was marked by a constant need to follow developments in order to assess whether the goals could in fact be achieved, what risks might prevent this from happening, and how these risks could be avoided. In the end this was beneficial to the Library as it created a situation where the method for monitoring the digitisation and the different stages of the production was developed further.
As the project continued, the staff´s collective know-how rose dramatically. The production goal was met in early April 2011 - an achievement one would not have been able to predict merely a few months earlier. As a result millions of pages of this material can now be accessed by anyone. Journals published before the year 1910 can be found online (digi.nationallibrary.fi), the rest are available at work stations in the National Library's premises and in other legal deposit libraries.
Anna Eskola is a Planning Officer at the National Library of Finland, Centre for Preservation and Digitisation
|
|
HIGHLIGHTS
Manual scanning is needed for bindings that are either too fragile or of the wrong size for the automatic scanner.
Photo by Tuomas Havukainen
|
