Learn About Digital Assets - Selection for Digital Reformatting

The wealth of resources available at the University of Texas at Austin can be daunting. The fact that many of these resources go undiscovered and unused year after year should be even more daunting. Digital reformatting not only provides access to UT’s intellectual resources, it also provides surrogates which can protect rare and unique artifacts. As an example of how surrogates can serve as a preservation tool the costumes from the motion picture Gone With the Wind, housed in the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center as part of the David O. Selznick Archive, were accurately reproduced for display purposes and to limit exposure of the original garments to harmful exhibit conditions. A virtual representation of artifacts, art, and intellectual property can serve the same purpose.

Many factors contribute to the process of selecting intellectual resources for digital reformatting. Popularity of a collection is a valid consideration. If requests, both from the public and researchers, for a particular collection are numerous that would imply that it might be a good candidate for digitization. However, popularity is not the only consideration in choosing a collection for digital reformatting. Issues to be considered are numerous: copyright and the physical condition of the object are just two of the concerns to be taken into consideration.
Are the artifact(s) physically capable of being digitally reformatted?
Would digital reformatting further damage the collection?
Is conservation treatment required before digital reformatting?
Who owns the copy right on the collection?
Will the collection impart an equitable amount of information to the user audience in a digital form as it does in a physical form?