IT / Digitisation Process

Aims

One of the fundamental objectives of this project is the creation of this web site. The web site will contain background and general information about the partners and the project, an education programme, a best practice report and the most important element, access to 1,000 historical children's illustrations with bibliographic and image data. This will:

• Enable European and world wide access to material that otherwise would be very difficult to see.
• Enable the collection to be accessible without the physical movement of delicate and valuable items
• Provide a composite site for European historical children's literature
• Provide a cultural, social and educational resource for adults and for children

Partners Involved

• Buckinghamshire County Council Library Service, UK
• Dublin City Public Libraries, Dublin, Ireland
• Institut fur Jugendbuchforshung, Frankfurt, Germany
• International Youth Library, Munich, Germany
• Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The Hague, The Netherlands
• La Baracca: Testoni Ragazzi, Bologna, Italy
• National Centre for Research in Children’s Literature, University of Surrey, Roehampton, England
• Wandsworth Borough Council Library Service, London, England

The Process

1. Selection Criteria - The criteria for illustration selection was decided upon by all partners at the first transnational meeting in Brussels (December 2000) The illustrations were to be chosen from books published up to 1890, though a few exceptions were agreed. The illustrations had to relate to four specific educational themes:

• History of Children's Illustrations
• Children's Literature; The European social and cultural context
• Children's European Folk tales
• Historical Literature in Europe and dramatic arts

1. Image Selection - It was agreed that the smaller collections plus one large collection (Frankfurt) would make their selection first. Then the other larger collections (Koninklijke Bibliotheek and International Youth Library) would be given tighter selection criteria to ensure a wide range of material and to avoid duplication.
2. Photography - Each partner commissioned an expert photographer with the appropriate facilities for photographing both valuable and delicate material. They produced two sets of 35mm plastic mounted slides. These slides were then delivered with an inventory list to the project co-ordinator in the UK .
3. Digitisation - A benchmark selection from Buckinghamshire's collection was used to agree cropping guidelines. In April 2001 the slides were delivered to the Higher Education Digitisation Service (HEDS), at the University of Hertfordshire. They were scanned by a production house, then cropped and straightened. The master images of each collection were produced on a CD ROM, along with thumbnail and screen size images with their relevant file names.
4. Bibliographic Data - The bibliographic data to be displayed on the web site was agreed at the meeting in Dublin (January 2001) and is based on a template provided by Dr Andreas Bode, International Youth Library, Munich. Dublin City Public Libraries designed a Microsoft Access database which was e-mailed to all the partners and the Buckinghamshire County Council IT team. After some changes were made following practice search queries, the data was entered and the bibliographic data completed.
5. Web site Design - A web site designer working for Buckinghamshire County Council was commissioned to design the CHILDE site. The current CHILDE logo was used as the pattern for style and colour. The site is hosted by Buckinghamshire County Council's Internet server. The Buckinghamshire IT team designed the search queries in HTML that will allow users of the site to either enter free text search terms, choose from categories or enter a chosen title, author, or illustrator so producing a list of results. These results link to an illustration and the relevant bibliographic information.
6. The Final Stage - The Access database and the thumbnail and screen images are placed in the Internet server, they are linked by common identifier/file names for each image. The search queries are double checked and the web site with images and bibliographic data will be launched.

The images and bibliographic information will be available from Summer 2001 onwards.