Toward a Nevada Digital Collaborative

In mid-2008, a statewide committee was formed to engage in a comprehensive, Nevada statewide digital planning process. This group consisted of broad membership from the range of Nevada cultural heritage institutions, and was focused on creating a five year digital plan for the state, with an emphasis on collaboration amongst various cultural heritage institutions, increased digitization, and adoption of a digital preservation strategy. This article describes the initial work of the parent committee and two subsequent working groups, funded by the Library Technology and Services Act and aided by outside consultants. Early steps included a comprehensive planning survey and various meetings to understand the capabilities and desires of both primary stakeholders and the community at large. While several challenges not necessarily unique to Nevada arose over the first couple of years, a clear path forward for additional progress has been charted. In mid-2008, through Library Services and Technology Act funding, the Nevada State Library and Archives brought together members for a newly established Nevada Statewide Digital Advisory Committee (hereafter referred to as “NSDAC”) to engage in a comprehensive, statewide digital planning process. As stated in the charge, “Advisory committee members participate in the identification of issues regarding digitization in Nevada, collaborate in the planning and development of a statewide digital initiative...and contribute to effective communication among the key digital stakeholders in Nevada.” By design, the committee included members from a diverse stakeholder pool representative of various cultural heritage institutions within the state. During the first two years of its existence, committee membership evolved but ultimately included academic librarians, public librarians, museum managers, archivists, and representatives from the State Historic Records Board and the State Council on Libraries and Literacy. The first two years of work were also supported by outside consultants, Liz Bishoff of the Bibliographical Center for Research (BCR) and Tom Clareson of LYRASIS. This paper discusses the early work, challenges, and successes of this group. While several examples of successful statewide collaboratives exist (e.g., the Mountain West Digital Library, under the auspices of the Utah 1. A full version of the charge is provided in Appendix A. 1 Vaughan: Toward a Nevada Digital Collaborative Published by DigitalCommons@USU, 2011 Academic Library Consortium), there are also stories of collaboratives whose success has been increasingly challenged. Similarly, while digitization of primary source materials and posting for broad access has become somewhat normal over the past decade, there are states and regions without a collaborative presence (whether by design or not). While a large number of digital collaboratives exist across the United States, they are not necessarily ubiquitous. It is hoped that this paper will provide insights to others considering the formation of a digitization collaborative or, for more established collaboratives, perhaps offer new ideas to augment their existing structure and operation. What precisely is meant by a digital collaborative, and why are they intriguing? As noted by Ken Middleton, “Statewide and regional digitization programs in the USA offer cultural heritage institutions (archives, libraries, and museums) a viable option for digitizing their collections (e.g., photographs, diaries, oral histories, museum objects). These collaborative programs may provide training in digital imaging and metadata standards, access to scanning equipment, and software tools that streamline the creation of metadata records. Most programs also feature a central site for searching across the digital collections of participating institutions.” Middleton continues, “Students, scholars and lifelong learners gain access to a rich source for exploring the history and culture of their state or region...the cost savings and potential educational value of these programs have not gone unnoticed. Counting programs still in planning, groups from at least 40 states are involved in statewide or regional digitization programs.” Bishoff notes, “Together, institutions that see aspects of a problem differently can constructively explore their differences. The resulting joint solution is always stronger than what one library or museum could achieve alone. While we often categorize institutions by type, our public does not. Users don’t care where they get the photo or map from, as long as they get it. Often smaller institutions with important collections that might not be able to attempt a digitization project on their own can participate, learning in the process.” She notes the benefits of gathering related materials from different cultural heritage institutions and bringing them together into a unified whole, as exemplified by the 2. Ken Middleton, “Collaborative Digitization Programs: A Multifaceted Approach to Sustainability,” Library Hi Tech 23, no. 2 (2005): 145.