What is a Digital Collection?
What is a Digital Collection?
A digital collection is a body of materials in digital format treated as a
group or considered as a whole rather than individually. A collection will
demonstrate some identifiable, collective organizing principle to the materials.
The organizing principle can be derived from various perspectives. For example:
-
Materials with a common theme or subject, format or type, or mode of publication;
- Materials created or collected by an individual (e.g. the works of one author)
or corporate body;
- Materials with a common source or origin issuing from a specific corporate
body.
Since judgment is involved in whether or not to group individual items as a
whole, a collection is often, but not always, a created or artificial accumulation
of materials devoted to a single theme, person, event, etc.
Criteria Used to Select Collections
- Collections with free, open, public access and derived from library, archive
or museum materials versus pay, subscription or closed-access collections
from commercial sources.
-
Collections focused upon or related to UMKC's academic disciplines and
capable of supporting sustained learning and research in these disciplines.
UMKC/UM students, faculty and researchers and the UMKC/Kansas City community
are the primary intended audience.
- Collections of original, content-rich primary resources representing the unique,
scholarly assets of an institution or organization.
- Collections which are permanent or stable versus ephemeral that indicate
a commitment to sustaining and maintaining content and organization over time.
Digital collections are reviewed, selected, described and categorized by the
Libraries' subject specialists. The collections contain numerous types
of materials, including digital images, electronic texts, exhibitions, multi-media,
materials converted digitally and materials that were "born digital."
The Libraries will make efforts to locate new digital collections and keep
existing collection entries up-to-date.
Other Digital Collections Inventories
For additional inventories and directories of Digital Collections, see
Other Inventories.
MERLIN Catalog