Developing the Women Working Digital Collection
The Women Working digital collection provides more than 3,500 carefully selected books and pamphlets exploring women's roles in the U.S. Economy. The criteria for building the collection and the techniques used to identify relevant materials are fully described in the following report:
Michalak, Thomas J. and Christine Madsen. "Selecting Published Material for the Women Working Digital Collection: A Case Study in Developing a Digital Library Collection." Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Library, Open Collections Program, 2004.
Occasionally, appropriate works were identified, but not digitized by OCP, although one might expect to find them. Examples include; Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Women and Economics, Virginia Penny's The Employments of Women, Ida Tarbell's The Business of being a Woman, Florence Kelley's Persuasion or Responsibility, Margaret Sanger's Debate on Birth Control, and Catherine Beecher's Miss Beecher's Housekeeper and Healthkeeper. These books will be included in the topic structure of Women Working and will have links in Women Working to the digital documents in their institutional repositories at Cornell University, The University of Michigan, and the Library of Congress.
The following outline provides a general overview of our selection criteria and the collection development process.
General Criteria for Topic Selection- The subject should utilize a number of Harvard Libraries in different faculties.
- The subject should have a broad appeal for teaching at schools and colleges across the country and at Harvard.
- The subject should utilize a wide range of materials: books, pamphlets, manuscripts, images, etc.
- The subject should not be too general.
- The subject should complement, not duplicate, the work of other institutions.
- Harvard faculty in a variety of disciplines from among the faculties should be willing to focus the subject and provide guidance in developing the topic.
General Selection Guidelines for the Women Working Digital Collection
- Materials must be academically significant for the study of the topic.
- Works chosen should aim to reflect women's experience working, not just the technical aspects of their employment.
- Commentary, controversies, and conflicts should be covered over the full time scope of the period wherever possible, e.g. looking at the legal issues from 1870 to 1930.
- Avoid too specialized an approach, e.g. legal issues limited to one particular state when broader surveys are available.
- Include materials, when appropriate, that will appeal to younger students.
- Utilize a wide range of materials: books, pamphlets, documents, manuscripts, images, etc.
Search the Harvard Catalogs, Hollis (books and pamphlets) and Oasis (manuscripts)
- Thorough subject review
- Author search
- Keyword search for reminiscences, diaries, letters, biographies, etc.
- Ferreti out pamphlets
- Review all manuscript collections in Schlesinger
Shelf browsing the collections
- Schlesinger Library (complete shelf review)
- Baker Library (selected areas of the collection)
- Widener Library (selected areas of the collection)
Review Widener and Baker Library pamphlet collections (minimally cataloged)
Review specific collections
- Baker Library trade catalogs
- Fogg Museum, Social Museum photographs
- Schlesinger manuscript collections
Literature Review
Consult bibliographies in works of key authors in the field: key works, Cott, Kessler-Harris, Dublin, Goldin, Sklar, etc.
Consult key bibliographies and guides, including,
- American Women: a Library of Congress Guide for the Study of Women's History and Culture in the United States.
- Himes. Medical history of contraception.
- Huls. United States Government documents on women.
- Ranta. Women and children of the mills. An annotated guide to nineteenth-century American textile factory literature.
- Strasser. Never done: a history of American housework.
- Woloch. Muller v. Oregon: a brief history with documents.
- Woody. A History of women's education in the United States.
Once an item was identified, a decision was made, with book in hand, as to whether the item should be included.
The following guidelines were considered in the inclusion decision.
- Is the book within the subject scope of the topic?
- Is the date within our range of coverage?
- Is the book in the public domain?
- Was the title published in the United States?
- Does the book have interesting material?
- Does the book contain useful statistical data?
- Does the book cover a part of the topic not previously covered or add a new dimension to the topic?
- Will the physical condition permit handling for digitization? (Is the text complete, are there sufficient margings, or is the binding too tight? Is the work so fragile that digitizing it will destroy it?
- Are there indices, tables, etc. that add value?
- Is there a detailed table of contents that will help with online navigation?
- Is there evidence of heavy use, possibly including circulation data?
- If digitized, will the resulting page images be presentable and/or navigable?
- Are there other factors that may make the copy unusable e.g. messy or missing pages, extensive repairs, etc.
- To what extent does the volume contain grey scale images that will require digital imaging?
- If there are a large number (more than 25%-40% of the item) digital images required to faithfully reproduce the item, evaluate if the information value is sufficient to justify the cost. Consider other alternatives and works that may achieve the same information value.
- Item identified is not owned by Harvard.
- Items at Harvard in microfilm copy only. No physical copy at Harvard.
- Items requiring complex and expensive conservation.
- Items only held by the Houghton Library (Rare Books) of Harvard College.
- As a matter of policy, OCP does not duplicate the digitization work of other institutions, however, items digitized at other institutions must be of sufficient digital quality and navigability.
- Links within the Women Working topic structure and the Harvard catalog (Hollis) are created for those items that have permanent urls, Example, books in the HEARTH collection (Home Economics Archive, Research, Tradition History ) at Cornell University.
- Examples of situations where the Open Collections Program duplicates a digitally available item.
- Item is digitized but only available commercially (fee based).
- Item is commercially available without charge but at a web site with excessive advertising, annoying pop-up windows, and/or non-durable access.
- Full text transcriptions.
- Items digitized elsewhere but not accurately reproducing all the information in the physical book, for example, photographs, engravings, half-tones, maps, foldouts etc., are omitted or poorly reproduced.