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Magnifying Gwendolyn Brooks: Creating a digital collection at the University of Illinois Library at Urbana-Champaign
Journal of Digital Media Management,
12
(1),
65-75
(2023)
Abstract
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Library is describing and digitising the Gwendolyn Brooks collection as part of the Saving America’s Treasures grant. This project began in the autumn of 2021, with the goal of making Brooks’s work visible and accessible. This paper discusses the first two stages of the project — the Red Album and the Black Scrapbook — objects that are full of mementos from Brooks’s personal and professional life. The paper focuses on the workflow and digitisation practices that the project team employed to create the first digital representations. It also reviews the team’s decisions, which would set the procedural policies and standards for all the remaining materials in the collection. The Red Album and the Black Scrapbook contain a variety of physical formats and materials, resulting in display issues for the digital collection. Collaboration between stakeholders from disparate units allowed for a streamlined approach from the initial description of the material through the hosting of digitised materials on the institution’s Digital Collections platform. This paper discusses challenges, the curatorial process, metadata, the process of description, digitisation, technical aspects and lessons learned from this project. Due to delays from the COVID-19 pandemic, the project’s expected completion date is summer 2023. This paper reflects on the processes and lessons learned throughout the project. It also discusses the most valuable lesson from this project, which is that the digitisation of large and complex collections must be adaptable in order to successfully meet the challenges that such materials offer.
Keywords: digital library; digitisation; Gwendolyn Brooks; metadata; photo album; scrapbook
The full article is available to subscribers to the journal.
Author's Biography
Ana D. Rodríguez is the Digitisation Coordinator and Registrar of the Rare Book & Manuscript Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She has been working in the field of galleries, libraries and museums for the past 23 years, in areas dedicated to special collections, digital collections and descriptive metadata. Ana holds a BA in theory of art from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez, an MLIS from Florida State University, and an MA in art history from the University of Florida.
Kate M. Vasquez-Braun Kate Marie Vasquez-Braun is a Graduate Hourly at the Rare Book & Manuscript Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She holds a BA in writing, rhetoric and discourse from DePaul University in Chicago and is currently working on her MSLIS from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She has been working in library spaces for the past eight years.
Angela M. Waarala Angela Waarala is the Digital Collections Project Manager within the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Preservation Services Unit. Based in the university’s Main Library, she manages the mass digitisation of special collections units, and collaborates with digitisation experts, conservators, archivists and librarians in the production of digital collections to ensure long-term preservation and access. She holds a BFA in photography from Illinois State University, an MFA in photography and video and an MLIS from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Rachael Johns is Digital Imaging Specialist II at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), where she digitises library materials and supports the use and maintenance of equipment. She holds a BS in journalism (Southern Illinois University Carbondale), an MS/LIS (UIUC) and has photographed professionally for over a decade.
Stephanie M. Luke Stephanie Luke is an assistant professor and metadata librarian at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). She collaborates with content providers throughout UIUC’s libraries to describe digitised and born-digital material. She holds a BA in English from UIUC as well as an MA in English and an MLS with a specialisation in rare books and manuscripts librarianship, both from Indiana University Bloomington.
Ruthann E. Mowry Ruthann Mowry is Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts at the Rare Book & Manuscript Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She earned a master of library science specialising in rare books and manuscripts as well as a masters in ancient history language acquisition from Indiana University. Ruthann combines her language skills in Latin, her historical knowledge of the medieval period and her experience with books as objects to advocate for a well-rounded and individualised approach to medieval manuscript research. She is also a supporter of playful learning and incorporating interactive elements into library experiences.
