The Digital Production Unit
The Digital Production Unit (DPU) combines professional-grade production equipment
with current industry standards and best practices to provide support for collection-level
digitization projects, systemic digitization, as well as internal requests for small
sets of items. The content we create is used in an ever-widening range of digital
collections, research, teaching and learning.
The DPU primarily creates new digital content along two paths: digital collections
and digitization as preservation. Much of the production work goes into Oregon Digital or ScholarsArchive@OSU. A core operation of the DPU is creating high-quality copies of deteriorating original
content that is in danger of being lost. Examples include videotape materials and
glass plate negatives. DPU works closely with curators, archivists, conservators and
other staff responsible for the care and management of special collections and archival
materials as they undertake digital reformatting projects. DPU uses digital formats
that are easily accessible and enable ongoing long-term management of the content
for future users.
The DPU consists of digitization and digital preservation operations manager Brian E. Davis, digital collections and metadata archivist Kevin Jones, and student technicians Nora Quick, Abbey Nickerson and Grace Winningham.
Featured Projects
Written by the former Director of the Special Collections and Archives Research Center,
Lawrence A. Landis, this pictorial history of Oregon State University's first 150
years covers a variety of topics including campus development, university research,
student organizations, and athletics. The DPU digitized over 400 photographs, negatives,
and large-format maps from the Special Collections and Archives Research Center for
this project.
This grant-funded project was a partnership between Oregon State University Libraries
and the Oregon Historical Society. The DPU digitized over 8,000 pages of manuscript
materials for this Oregon Digital project. The DPU was also involved with the glass
plate negative digitization as Brian travelled up to OHS to setup the scanning equipment
and provide training for Oregon Historical Society staff. Reuniting Finley and Bohlman
received the 2017 LSTA Project of the Year Award for the state of Oregon.
This project came to the Digital Production Unit as they were transitioning from away
general digitization towards archives-specific digitization. Using a combination of
sheet-fed and flatbed scanning equipment, the DPU digitized the yearbooks and produced
111 text-searchable PDFs. This digital collection is Oregon State University Libraries'
most popular in Oregon Digital.
The Digital Production Unit has partnered with OSU Press on a number of projects over
the years. The most recent is Ellie's Strand, the third in the Ellie and Ricky series of books. The DPU digitized all the artwork for each of the three books.
In-house videotape digitization has been a welcome addition to the Digital Production
Unit. Using a variety of analog video decks and signal correction devices, Brian has
worked to preserve over 500 videotapes from SCARC's audiovisual collections.
