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Digitizing the Aldo Leopold Papers

Digitizing the Aldo Leopold Papers. Cooperating with a Non-Profit and the University of Wisconsin Digital Collections Center David Null, Director, University Archives and Records Management Services, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Who is this Aldo Leopold?.

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Digitizing the Aldo Leopold Papers

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  1. Digitizing the Aldo Leopold Papers Cooperating with a Non-Profit and the University of Wisconsin Digital Collections Center David Null, Director, University Archives and Records Management Services, University of Wisconsin-Madison

  2. Who is this Aldo Leopold? • Considered by many as the father of wildlife management and of the United States’ wilderness system, Aldo Leopold was a conservationist, forester, philosopher, educator, writer, and outdoor enthusiast. • Author of A Sand County Almanac • Includes essay “The Land Ethic” “A land ethic, then, reflects the existence of an ecological conscience, and this in turn reflects a conviction of individual responsibility for the health of land.”

  3. Leopold Papers • Donated to University Archives in 1960s • Some from Department of Wildlife Management, some from Leopold family • Collection consists of 27.6 cubic feet, 3 reels microfilm, 5 folios, 3 cases, 7 diaries, 12 journals, 1 scrapbook, 1000+ photos.

  4. Aldo Leopold Foundation • Founded in 1982, by Leopold’s children: Starker, Luna, Nina, Carl, and Estella • Family’s literary rights assigned to the foundation

  5. Applying for NHPRC Grant • Who should apply: University Archives or Leopold Foundation? • Leopold Foundation was conducting a $7,750,000 fundraising campaign • Few private foundations seem to apply for these types of grants • Less paperwork if ALF got grant

  6. Partnerships • Aldo Leopold Foundation applied for grant, in cooperation with the University Archives • Awarded two-year, $110,530 matching grant, Jan. 2007 • The ALF hired the University of Wisconsin Digital Collections Center to do the digitization • UW-Madison General Library System/UWDCC agreed to donate $25,ooo in scanning costs

  7. UWDCC • UW Digital Collections Center in existence since 2001, currently funded by UW-Madison and UW-System • At the time of the application had digitized over 1,300,000 pages of text and over 40,000 images. Very good at estimating costs, timelines, etc. • So had very good infrastructure for the project

  8. http://uwdcc.library.wisc.edu/

  9. First Steps • Already had an EAD guide to the collection, but needed revision • Hired a graduate student to go through the physical collection and also revise the EAD guide • Began digitization with Leopold’s journals and diaries, which are heavily used and fragile • No additional metadata was added

  10. Online equivalent of paging through a folder or a journal Digitized using UWDCC’s Electronic Facsimile Text (Pageturner/EFacs) Images were done in JPEG 2000, so can zoom in closely High resolution tiffs and metadata stored in 3 locations.

  11. Costs • Estimates from the UWDCC for digitization have been pretty accurate, actually somewhat lower than expected • Running about $ 1.42 per page (varies with type of material, e.g. journals vs. letter) • Includes actual scanning, plus document preparation, metadata, project management, quality control, etc. (total of 17 items)

  12. What's next? • Most textual material is digitized (27,000 pages up so far) • Photos are the major remaining thing • Leopold Foundation will do their own web page to get people to the site • Leopold Foundation will do some modules aimed at school children and other groups

  13. Will do more publicity this fall Don’t have much feedback yet Do some evaluation/assessment Will post more on costs, feedback, etc. on the web site

  14. Comment from Daniel Simberloff, Gore Hunger Professor of Environmental Science, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee “I should add that the beauty of having this archive on-line was made abundantly clear when I looked into the Charles Elton papers at the Bodleian, with Julianne Warren. Nothing whatsoever is on-line, except a list of what they have, some of which looks potentially very important to her project and to mine (they are somewhat related). So one of us is going to have to go to Oxford to dredge this archive, and that's even harder than going to Madison. The contrasting experience with the 2 archives made me realize how digitizing archives will revolutionize research and make archives much more valuable.”

  15. Links • The Aldo Leopold Archives http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/AldoLeopold/ • EAD Guide http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-lib- leopoldpapers • Aldo Leopold Foundation http://www.aldoleopold.org • David Null, UW Archives dnull@library.wisc.edu

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