BDC's Digital Collections at the Lowcountry Digital Library

The past several years have been full of transitions, both personal and work-related. As a consequence, I have been ruminating about professional choices and professional relationships formed as a consequence of my 19 years working in the Beaufort County Library system. One of my greatest professional satisfactions has come from our long-standing partnership with the Lowcountry Digital Library.

The Lowcountry Digital Library (LCDL) produces digital collections and projects that support research about the Lowcountry region of South Carolina and historically interconnected sites in the Atlantic World.  Together with its institutional partners, LCDL helps students, scholars, and a wide range of public audiences develop a better understanding of the history and culture of the South Carolina Lowcountry relative to the nation and the world.

• LCDL utilizes the best practices to build partnerships between scholars and information technologists to improve our collective understanding of the region in a global context.
• LCDL fosters relationships between the digital library and cultural heritage institutions. We provide digitization and metadata training and support to smaller, underfunded institutions that would, otherwise, be unable to engage in these activities.
• LCDL makes all of our content, documentation and resources freely available on-line.

LCDL is harvested and fully searchable within the South Carolina Digital Library and the Digital Public Library of America, which brings our partner institutions and their collections to the national and international stage. LCDL is also indexed by Google and all other major search engines. This increased visibility, coupled with LCDL's complimentary digital preservation services, facilitates the sustainability, accessibility, and public engagement of our partners’ digital projects.

I selected two albums of family photographs donated by Professor Christopher Donner of Miami and Dr. Christopher and Ann Donner of Cape Cod, Massachusetts in 2001 as the pilot project for inclusion of public library special collections materials in the South Carolina Digital Library in 2007. I felt that this was a "win-win:" the Donner Albums contained rare images of the phosphate mining industry in Beaufort County which meant that the content was both unique and exceptional; the number of items finite (548); the items required special handling; and the format (photographs) was attractive to both scholars and the general public. (Who doesn't love to look at old pictures?) Even if the project failed, the original images would be better protected with less handling ("Reduce the handling and you will preserve the resource.") and the material could be shared with anyone anywhere in the world who had an internet connection. That first digital collection still runs in the top 15 accessed collections within the ever growing Lowcountry Digital Library more than a decade after its initial upload. Needless to say, the pilot project was a roaring success with Greenville Public Library system and the Beaufort County Library system leading the way for including the special collections materials from thirteen other public library systems in 2017.

The digitization process usually consists of 5 steps: Selection; Capturing the digital object; Describing the digital object (metadata); Storing the digital object; and, Sharing the digital object. The end result of digitization is increased usability and discoverability; more people are able to see and explore what an institution has to offer researchers.

Through the years, the Beaufort County Library has periodically added items into the Lowcountry Digital Library as staff, special events, and other tasks have allowed:

• "'Phosphate, Farms and Family:' The Donner Collection" (2007)
•  "The Lucille Hasell Culp Collection: A Celebration of Beaufort, South Carolina" (2011)
• "Beaufort Hurricane of 1893 Photograph Collection" (2015)
• "Storm Swept Coast by Rachel M. Mather, 1894" (2015) 
• "Russell J. Arnsberger Postcard Collection" (2017)
• "Civil War and Reconstruction Stereoscopes" (2018)
• "L.A. Hall Stereoscopes" (2018)

As Amanda Forbes final act of employment as the BDC's Preservation Associate, she submitted the digital scans and transcription of Dr. R. L. Johnson's Medical Journal for uploading into the Lowcountry Digital Library during early 2019. Projects for 2020 and 2021 have already been selected so stay turned, there's more to come!

Reminder: