Prospectus

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Digital Acces to Cultural Heritage

Course
2013-2014

Admission requirements

Successful completion of the first semester elective The Library.

Description

Creating digital access to collections of cultural heritage is hot. Institutions want to have a strong web presence and making their collections accessible via the World Wide Web is central to that. The digitisation of collections is still in a developing phase, with many technological and policy challenges lying ahead. This course deals with the variety of challenges for making cultural heritage collections and knowledge domains accessible in a digital form. Scanning (or imaging) is only step in a complex sequence of activities to be undertaken to make physical collections accessible and searchable via the Internet. Topics include: selection and preparation; digitisation; search and retrieval; digital preservation; legal aspects; emerging technologies; project management and planning, etc. The course is facilitated by the National Library of the Netherlands (Koninklijke Bibliotheek).

Course objectives

Students:

  • Gain a broad understanding of digitisation concepts;

  • Become familiar with current digitisation practice within the broader cultural heritage field;

  • Gain an understanding of the key processes in the planning and realisation of digitisation projects;

  • Gain experience with developing a project plan for a digitisation project;

  • Gain knowledge of methods and standards for providing access to digital documents as well as knowledge of file formats, techniques, long-term preservation, usability and copyright issues;

  • Are equipped to think about future developments and effects of digitisation on society and cultural heritage organisations;

  • Know how and where to find knowledge and examples of good practice.

Timetable

The timetable will be available by June 1st on the website.

Mode of instruction

Three-hour seminar per week.

Course Load

The course load of this course is 140 hours.

  • hours spent on attending lectures and seminars: 21

  • time for studying the compulsory literature: 42

  • time to prepare for the exam and/or write a paper (including reading / research): 77

Participation in all sessions of this course is compulsory. Upon prior consultation, the lecturer can permit absence at one session for compelling reasons. Students who are absent twice in a half-semester course (7 weeks) will be excluded from further participation and will have to re-take the course. Students who are absent twice in a semester course (13 weeks) will be given an complementary assignment by the lecturer. Absence on three sessions in such a course will lead to exclusion from it.

Assessment method

Midterm essay (25%) and final project plan (75%).

Blackboard

This course is supported by Blackboard.

Reading list

To be announced.

Registration

Students should register through uSis. If you have any questions, please contact the departmental office, tel. 071 5272144 or mail: ma-mediastudies@hum.leidenuniv.nl.

Registration Studeren à la carte and Contractonderwijs

Not available.

Contact

MA Media Studies departmental office, P.N. van Eyckhof 4, room 102C. Tel. 071 5272144; mail: ma-mediastudies@hum.leidenuniv.nl.

Remarks

“Participation in all sessions of this course is compulsory. Upon prior consultation, the lecturer can permit absence at one session for compelling reasons. Students who are absent twice in a half-semester course (7 weeks) will be excluded from further participation and will have to re-take the course. Students who are absent twice in a semester course (13 weeks) will be given an complementary assignment by the lecturer. Absence on three sessions in such a course will lead to exclusion from it.”