APPENDIX A:
Institutions Participating in the Survey
Colorado Springs Pioneer Museum
Cornell University Mann Library
Denver Museum of Nature and Science
Indiana University Bloomington Library
Nebraska Historical Society
Museum Online Archive of California
Tufts University Digital Collections and Archives
University of Michigan Library
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Library
University of Southern California Library
University of Virginia Library
University of Washington Library
Washington Research Library Consortium
APPENDIX B:
Framework for Sustainable Web Access to Cultural Heritage Collections—Interview Questions
Please review the following questions and be prepared to answer them prior to the telephone interview. Thank you!
PROJECT BACKGROUND AND DESCRIPTION
1a. About how many digitization projects has your institution been involved in over the past 3-5 years?
1b. For purposes of the interview, I’d like you to select one of those projects to discuss. Please select the project that you’re most familiar with and one that you think would serve as a good “model” for other institutions starting their own digitization projects.
1c. Briefly describe the digitization project (you selected). Include the purpose, goals, objectives, programs, services, and products.
1d. About how long did the project take—from the time to submitting the grant to the time you implemented the service?
PROJECT PLANNING
2. How was the project initiated?
3a. Did you have a written plan for the digitization project?
3b. Does the plan include integrating the service into the organization?
3c. What was the rationale for developing a plan?
4. How did the plan to integrate the service to fit into your organization’s strategic plan?
5. From the time you first started the project to the time you integrated the service into your organization, did your original plans or objectives change in any way? What changed? Why did it change?
COMMUNICATION PLAN
6. Did you create a plan to communicate the project? What did the plan include?
MARKET RESEARCH
7. Did you conduct any market research or do a needs assessment during the planning stage of the project? How did you use this information in the planning process? Was it helpful?
8. Did you have to do any additional research when you went from the digitization project to integrating the service into your organization?
MARKET/AUDIENCE
9a. What process did you use to identify the target audiences for the service?
(FOR PARTNERSHIPS & COLLABORATIVES ONLY)
10. Was there an overlap in the audience among partners or members? Were any audiences shared? Did you have to define any new audiences or redefine any audience for the collaboration or partnership?
11. What was your strategy for reaching your audiences?
COMPETITION
12. How did you determine if there was any repetition or overlap with your project and other digitization projects?
ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE
13. What was the organizational structure for the project? Did you have to create a separate organization for the project or was it integrated into the existing structure? If separate, what was the relationship with existing units/departments or partners? How were decisions made?
14. How did you determine the organizational structure for the project?
15a. Did the project’s organizational structure (functions) change when you integrated the service into your organization? How did it change?
(FOR PARTNERSHIPS & COLLABORATIVES ONLY—SKIP IF DISCUSSED IN Q13)
16. Was a separate not-for-profit organization set up for the project?
(FOR PARTNERSHIPS & COLLABORATIVES ONLY)
17a. Was the digitization project an existing activity of one or more of the members of the collaborative or partnership?
17b. How were decisions made? That is, was there a digitization standing committee that made policies for the digitization activities or are those policies made by the collaborative board?
(FOR PARTNERSHIPS & COLLABORATIVES ONLY)
18. What other digitization organizational structures do you have? For example, standards working groups, technical working groups, fund raising, etc.
OUTSOURCING
19a. Did you outsource any components of the project?
19b. What was the decision process to outsource in the context of project planning and organizational planning?
20a. Did you conduct any cost analysis to determine what would be more cost effective—outsourcing project components or conducting the work in-house? What cost components or factors did you look at?
20b. IF NOT OUTSOURCED, ASK: How did you come to the decision that components of the project would not be outsourced?
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
21a. In general, describe your project management infrastructure.
(FOR PARTNERSHIPS & COLLABORATIVES ONLY)
22. How was project management handled across partners or members?
23. Did project management change in any way when you integrated the service into the organization’s infrastructure?
STAFFING
24. How did you determine the staffing levels and staffing expertise required for the project?
25. What different staff expertise was required when you integrated the service into the organization’s infrastructure?
(FOR SINGLE INSTITUTION ONLY)
26. Did you share staff expertise with other departments, organizations, business units, etc.? Explain the process for shared staffing.
(FOR PARTNERSHIPS & COLLABORATIVES ONLY)
27. Did you share staff expertise with other partners, participants, institutions, organizations, etc.? How was this undertaken?
TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT
28a. Did you develop specific training requirements for staff working on the project ?
28b. How did you develop the new staff expertise?
29. IF OUTSOURCED, ASK: Was the outsourcing organization required to provide specific training for their staff who were working on the project?
(FOR SINGLE INSTITUTION ONLY)
30a. Did you develop staff expertise across departments, across organizations?
(FOR PARTNERSHIPS & COLLABORATIVES ONLY)
30b. Did you develop staff expertise across partners, participants, organizations?
(FOR PARTNERSHIPS & COLLABORATIVES ONLY)
30c. IF YES, ASK: How was staff expertise developed?
(FOR PARTNERSHIPS & COLLABORATIVES ONLY)v 31. How was ongoing participant training supported? What were member institutions’ responsibilities?
(FOR ALL)
32. When you implemented the service, did you develop training for end users?
EQUIPMENT AND FACILITIES
33. Were there any unique physical requirements to house the digitization project?
34. Were there any additional physical infrastructure requirements needed to integrate the service into the organization’s infrastructure?
PRICING
35. Do you charge or plan to charge for the service?
36. IF YES, ASK: How did you determine how to price the various components of your service?
BUDGET/FUNDING
37a. Did you have a separate budget for the project?
37b. IF YES, ASK: What were the major factors you took into account to develop the budget for the project?
38a. Were these the same factors you took into account to develop the budget for integrating the service into the organization’s infrastructure?
38b. IF NO, ASK: What were the major factors you took into account to develop the budget?
39. When you integrated the service into the organization’s infrastructure, did you experience any additional operational costs that you didn’t budget for?
40. What is the relationship of the operational budget to the overall organizational budget?
(FOR SINGLE INSTITUTION ONLY)
41. Did you reallocate monies from other funds, departments, or services to fund the project?
(FOR SINGLE INSTITUTION ONLY)
42a. How did (or will) you transition the financial support of the project from grant money to your operating budget?
(FOR SINGLE INSTITUTION ONLY)
42b. IF REVENUE OR FEES, ASK: What role did revenue or fees play in that transition?
(FOR PARTNERSHIPS & COLLABORATIVES ONLY)
43. How were resources and expenses allocated among organizations who participated in the project?
(FOR PARTNERSHIPS & COLLABORATIVES ONLY)
44. What are the revenue sources to support the partnership or collaborative on an ongoing basis?
TECHNOLOGY
45a. Did you create a separate technology infrastructure for the project?
45b. IF NO: How does the technology infrastructure relate to the current organizational technology infrastructure?
46. Was the existing technology infrastructure modified in any way for integrating the service into the organization’s technology infrastructure.
STANDARDS
(FOR PARTNERSHIPS & COLLABORATIVES ONLY)
47. How did you agree on the quality control standards?
48. What process did you use to determine metadata and digital imaging standards for the project?
49. Did the standards change or have to be modified when you implemented the service?
EVALUATION
50. Did you build in an evaluation component for the project?
51a. Was usability testing part of the plan? How did usability testing work?
CURRENT STATUS
52. What are your plans for maintaining the service? Explain
53. Do you have plans for growing or expanding the service? Explain.
THOUGHTS
54. Overall, do you think the project has been or will be successful? Why or why not?
55. How successful have you been integrating (and sustaining) the service into the organization’s infrastructure? What challenges did you face? What were one or two factors that had a major influence on how you integrated the service into the organization’s infrastructure? For example, you used vendors for the digitization project—but when it came time to implement it, you brought those same functions in-house.
56. If you had to do this all over again, what would you do differently?
57. For those developing a business plan for a similar project, what advice would you give them?
