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Digitisation of Library Collections

Strategy and guidelines

The National Library of Australia’s approach to digitisation of its collections is described in its Collection Digitisation Policy. The policy outlines the Library’s strategy on managing its digital collections and providing access to them. The guiding principles for the processes involved in digitisation are also described.

Progress so far

As of 30 June 2011, a total of 174 250 collection items (consisting of 536 614 images) have been digitised. This includes pictorial material, maps, printed music, manuscripts, and selected books and serials. The table below illustrates the breakdown of the Library’s digital collections.

Graph 1 – Number of items in the National Library’s digital collections by collection format, as of 30 June 2011

Graph 1, number of items in digital collections - figures below

Table 1 – Number of items in the National Library’s digital collections by collection format, as of 30 June 2011
Collection format Number of items
Total 174,250
Books & serials 4,505
Maps 12,526
Manuscripts 8,974
Printed music 12,590
Pictures 135,655

Graph 2 - Number of images in the National Library’s digital collections by collection format, as of 30 June 2011

Graph 2, number of images in digital collections - figures below

Table 2 - Number of images in the National Library’s digital collections by collection format, as of 30 June 2011
Collection format Number of images
Total 536,614
Books & serials 128,102
Maps 22,580
Manuscripts 53,376
Printed music 113,742
Pictures 218,814

Table 1 is based on the number of items in the Library’s digital collections broken down by collection format. An item usually represents a single work and may be described by a separate cataloguing record or an individual entry in a finding aid. 

Items can have an equivalent number of images, for example an individual photograph consists of one image file. Other items are represented by a large number of images. For example, a piece of printed music may consist of multiple images representing individual pages, or a map may consist of several parts each represented by a separate image file.

Infrastructure

The infrastructure to support the Library's digital collections consists of the Digital Object Storage System (DOSS), Digital Collections Manager (DCM), Persistent Identifier resolver service, and delivery systems to support web access to our digital collections of pictures, printed music, maps, manuscripts, books and serials, and oral history audio recordings. More information is available on the Digital Collections Infrastructure webpage.

The hardware currently used for the digitisation processes includes a combination of PCs and Mac computers for scanning workstations: Pentium 3.4 Ghz 4 CPU Dell Optiplex GX620 Small Mini Tower (250GB hard drive and 4GB DIMM memory) and Mac OS X Ver. 10.4.6 (processor: 4x2.5 GHz Power PC G5; memory: 2 GB DDR2 SDRAM), and Mac OS X Ver. 10.4.8 (processor: 2.1 GHz Power PC G5; memory: 1 GB DDR2 SDRAM). Scanners, workstations and staff PCs are on a switched 100MBit network using Cisco Switches. Servers are on a switched 1Gbit network using Cisco Switches.

Storage

Digitised images are stored on DOSS. The DOSS architecture comprises a hierarchical storage management system which provides near-line and offline storage on tape, and online storage on a RAID Disc array. The following hardware is used:

  • SAN switching infrastructure that interconnects the application and management servers, EMC CX3-80 and CX700 Disk Array systems and an Oracle database service.
  • EMC CX3-80 system (disk array)
  • EMC CX700 system (disk array)     
  • StorageTek L700 Robotic Tape Library
  • SUN Sun-Fire V490 server connected via FC to the Tape Library
  • SUN Sun-Fire V215 server running ACSLS software to enable the Tape Library’s robotics to be shared by multiple tape management applications
  • Servers connected via FC to the disk array

Current disk capacity: 128TB (not entirely for DOSS); tape library capacity: 285TB; maximum Tape Library capacity: 1120TB.

Contact details

Digitisation and Photography Branch
National Library of Australia
Canberra ACT 2600
Ph: +61 (02) 6262 1557
Email: digitisation@nla.gov.au