Documenting Local Procedures: The Development of Standard Digitization Processes Through the Dear Comrade Project

Abstract

During the digitization of the Eugene V. Debs correspondence collection, known as the Dear Comrade project, at Indiana State University, project staff developed new procedures for assigning and tracking responsibilities. This development was part of an overall initiative to document local practices and create a more complete workflow process for projects undertaken through the Wabash Valley Visions & Voices Digital Memory Project (WV3) located at http://visions.indstate.edu. Consisting of approximately 6,000 pieces of correspondence written to and from Eugene Victor Debs, the Debs Collection is housed in Special Collections at Cunningham Memorial Library. The new work plan enabled multiple people with varying levels of expertise from different library departments to check the quality of scans and to catalog and upload items to WV3 using the digital collection management software CONTENTdm.