Date of Award

December 2018

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Information Studies

First Advisor

Iris Xie

Committee Members

Dietmar Wolfram, Donald Force, Jin Zhang, Krystyna Matusiak

Keywords

Academic Libraries, Challenges, Compliance, Digitization, Guidelines, United States

Abstract

This doctoral dissertation aims to explore digitization practices at academic libraries in the United States. It examines adopted digitization guidelines, levels of compliance with these guidelines, challenges, and solutions. It seeks answers to five research questions in relation to academic libraries’ compliance with static and non-static (audiovisual) media digitization guidelines, encountered challenges, and applied solutions. A mixed methods explanatory research design was adopted for this comparative study. Purposive sampling was applied. The study sample consisted of 68 subjects from doctoral universities with highest and higher research activity based on the 2015 classification issued by The Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. Quantitative and qualitative data were gathered through three collection methods: document analysis, electronic questionnaire, and semi-structured interviews. Document analysis was conducted for five sets of digitization guidelines (i.e., ALCTS, BCR’s CDP Digital Imaging Best Practices Working Group, CARLI, FADGI, and NARA), wherein one (i.e., CARLI) consisted of five documents. Open coding was applied to explore themes in qualitative data collected by the electronic questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. The Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test was applied to examine differences between digitization of static and non-static (audiovisual) media regarding challenges, levels of compliance, availability, and usefulness. The Paired Samples Test was applied only for sets of quantitative data that have normal distribution. Findings revealed differences in the adoption of digitization guidelines for digitizing static and non-static (audiovisual) media. Consistency, Standardization, and Sustainability was the most frequent type of reason for compliance with digitization guidelines adopted for static and non-static (audiovisual) media. Planning and Workflow was the most frequent type of reason for not complying with digitization guidelines adopted for static media, whereas Hardware was the most frequent type of reason for not complying with digitization guidelines for non-static (audiovisual) media. Statistical analyses revealed no significant differences in levels of compliance, availability, and usefulness between static and non-static (audiovisual) media among ALCTS, consortium/consortia, and a university’s own customized digitization guidelines. Open coding indicated that Funding and Hardware challenges appeared among the three most frequent types of challenges for static and non-static (audiovisual) media. The Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Tests revealed significant differences (with the exception of external funding) between digitization of static and non-static (audiovisual) media in terms of budget, digitization equipment/hardware, digitization software, staff digitization skills, and the need for more professional training. Different types of applied and suggested solutions were explored, wherein Planning and Workflow and Funding solutions were most frequent among the applied and suggested solutions for static and non-static (audiovisual) media. The theoretical implications of this study focus on digitization guidelines and compliance levels with those guidelines, and digitization challenges. Practical implications aim to provide suggestions to enhance development of digitization guidelines, and to reduce the effect of challenges faced in digitizing static and non-static (audiovisual) media.

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