Discussing Digitization with a Visitor from Serbia

On May 7, I had the privilege of sharing information about how MHS digitizes its collections with Dr. Andrej Fajgelj, Director of the Cultural Center of Novi Sad.  (Novi Sad is the second largest city in Serbia.) The Cultural Center is embarking on a new project to use information technology in art and culture and Dr. Fajgelj will be overseeing a large digitization effort to present rare books, musical scores, notes and manuscripts. 

The purpose of Dr. Fajgelj’s trip to the United States was to meet with professionals involved with the digitization of library and cultural heritage materials.  Over the course of about one week, he visited many institutions on both coasts including the San Francisco Public Library, Stanford University, the Internet Archive, Harvard University, and the Massachusetts Historical Society.

To help Dr. Fajgelj understand the context in which our digital projects take place, Brenda Lawson, Director of Collections Services, provided a brief overview about the MHS.  Even though MHS is an independent research library (and differs greatly in size from the other institutions he visited), I conveyed how important it is for us to create digital collections according to standards and best practices.  At MHS we always have to work to balance the content and goals for digital projects with the available resources.   We talked about workflows, standards, equipment, encoding, web delivery systems, and budgets.  

Towards the end of our meeting Dr. Andrej Fajgeli made some thought-provoking points about the importance of the Cultural Center’s upcoming digitization activities.  He acknowledged that at the present time, there aren’t significant amounts of digitized Serbian-language material s.  As a former instructor of languages and assistant professor in a university philology department, he is well-aware of the fact that students turn to the Web for research, news, and fun.  Although many Serbs know multiple languages, he wants them to find more Serbian cultural sources online.  He hopes more digitized Serbian materials will inspire Serbs to be creative and write songs, prose, and poetry in their native language. 

Dr. Fajgelj was accompanied by Glenn Carey, a U. S. State Department English Language Officer (who kindly provided the image of the meeting).  Dr. Fajgelj’s trip and itinerary were administered by the U.S. Department of State’s International Visitor Leadership Program and the Massachusetts portion of his visit was arranged by WorldBoston.