Re/Mastering Theses at The Ohio State University

Re/Mastering Theses at The Ohio State University

Emily Frieda ShawHead, Preservation & Reformatting

University Libraries

Presented to the ALA-PARS Digital Conversion Interest GroupALA Annual Meeting 2015

June 27, 2015

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• Urban land-grant university in Columbus OH• Founded 1870• 3rd largest campus in the U.S., with enrollment ~ 58,000• Big 10/CIC• FOOTBALL and other sports

• Comprehensive academic programs• engineering, medicine and nursing, law, business, veterinary medicine,

food/ag/environmental sciences, music, visual and performing arts

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4William Oxley Thompson Memorial Library



5William Oxley Thompson Memorial Library



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Dissertations (PhD) and Master’s Theses* deposited with the University Libraries

PhD (1892-2001) 35,232

Master’s (1895-2008) 56,673

Total

91,905

*Known as of mid-Sept 2012



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Task Force on Stewardship of Student Works

(2012)Charge:• Review existing collections of thesis, dissertation, and student project

content managed by the University Libraries in all formats.• Develop a plan that addresses:

• Reformatting • Appropriate and consistent housing and access policies for print, reformatted and born

digital components of these collections

“The plan should address priorities for action … , strategies for reformatting and implementing new access and housing policies, and broad timelines for

accomplishing the work.”

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2006-present 3,230 digitized theses and dissertations added to the OhioLINK ETD Center

1 hour per 3,230 hours= 80 40-hour

weeks= close to 1 FTE

for 2 years

At this rate, it would take us about 40 years to digitize all 91,905 theses and dissertations!



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RFP issued 2014

20,000 volumes/2,000,000 pages over 2 years

Scanning specs• Color/grayscale/bitonal corresponding to characteristics of originals• PDF/A-1b = high-quality, preservable access copies

Logistics• Bids included:

• Insured shipping both ways• Disbinding + trimming textblocks pre-scanning; tie-up post-

scanning• Sufficient acid-free, lignin-free 1.2 cu ft record storage boxes



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Contract awarded fall 2014 to Buffalo-based D4

Pricing obtained through this competitive bid process will enable us to scan roughly 1/3 more pages than originally anticipated for the funding allocated to this project

First shipment of 4,500 volumes sent in December; 2 more since

- total of about 19,000 volumes sent to date (6/2015)

At the current rate, we expect to digitize 25,000 Master’s Theses by the end of FY16, from approximately 1960-2008



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Quality control

• OSU Libraries staff performed full, page-by-page QC on first 1,000 files• < 2% error rate

• 1.17% Rotational errors introduced in OCR and PDF/A-1b conversion (from TIFF)

• Ongoing, high-level QC only on every file + page-by-page for 10%

Access

• OhioLINK ETD Center

Rights

• OSUL intends to make all digitized theses open access



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Thank you!



Education

Re/Mastering Theses at The Ohio State University