BOCA RATON, FL. November 9th, 2005 - After attending a DLSG seminar, Casey Bisson of Plymouth State University made the following statement:

"I was in Cambridge today attending the Digital Library Systems Group presentation on their fancy scanners and imaging workflow software. We have no digital collections program going yet, but we’re part of a university system plan to acquire either Ex Libris’s Digitool or ENCompass for Digital Collections (sample sites). But getting the collection management software just creates another problem: we don’t have any imaging resources to use to fill the new digital archive.

It’s not an area that I have much experience in, so all I can really say is it might be a good way to spend $75,000."

Apparently, the makers of digitization hardware and software don’t have quite the voice in the library community as the makers of content managers and database viewers. This may result from the need to understand the value of digitization first, and seeing a demonstration of repository software can help one to gain an appreciation for digital collections. However, once an appreciation of digital collections is acquired, as Casey Bisson said, it may be better to focus on what’s needed to create a digital collection. Inspired by this realization, the DLSG recently resolved to minimize the initial investment of an institution that wishes to add digitization capabilities to its services.

In keeping with the Digital Library Systems Group’s open systems and affordability policies, the DLSG is releasing an exciting new feature in the next version of its Opus digitization system – HTML output that allows digital collections to be viewed using a standard Web browser. While this simple facility is not intended to replace any of the existing viewing systems, it postpones what can be a substantial investment until the institution has learned what capabilities and features it requires of a repository system.

If you’d like to see this type of output, visit www.dlsg.net the first or second week of 2006 and browse through a sample digital collection.