Browsing by Subject "quality assurance"
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Item Current Practices in Quality Assurance for Web Archives(2013-04-19) Reyes, Brenda; University of North TexasWeb archiving is the process of storing and maintaining Internet resources (such as websites) to preserve them as a historical, informational, legal, or evidential record. The process involves three stages: selecting relevant resources for preservation, gathering and storing them, and providing for their access. In recent years, it has become an increasingly common practice in libraries around the world, as national libraries, such as the Library of Congress and the National Library of Australia, seek to preserve their national digital heritage. Many universities have also begun archiving the web, usually to create subject-specific collections of web sites that supplement their existing print and digital collections. Within the web archiving community, a step that often goes unmentioned is the Quality Assurance process (QA), which measures the quality of an archived site by comparing it to a standard that must be met. Currently, each institution conducts its QA process independently, using a myriad of different standards and software tools. The result is a considerable knowledge gap: practitioners do not know if and how their peers are conducting a QA process and generally do not share this information. Consequently, there are no agreed-upon quality standards or processes. The study presented here attempts to address this information gap in the web archiving community. To this end, we investigated how several institutions conduct their quality control processes. It is worth noting that quality control procedures are often not publicly available and not thoroughly documented, if at all. Much of the information present here has been obtained from reports, electronic communications, listserv discussions, and interviews with staff involved in the QA process. The results we obtained led us to design a survey instrument to gather information in a more thorough and structured manner. The results from this survey are included here.Item I Am Not a Photographer: One Librarian’s Journey Toward Understanding FADGI, Image Quality, and Digitization Best Practices(2017-05-25) Willis, Shannon; University of North TexasIn digitization labs that have grown out of library departments, it has become common place for librarians to be tasked with overseeing the imaging and digitization of cultural heritage collections. While librarians are well trained in library and information science, there can frequently be a gap in their imaging and photography knowledge, making the task of establishing imaging workflows and judging image quality a challenge. While guidelines for imaging exist, they are not always clear and how best to apply them is not always apparent. In September of 2016, The Federal Agencies Digital Guidelines Initiative (FADGI), the organization who has historically established guidelines for imaging in the United States, issued a new version of their guidelines including a star-rating system for image quality. But questions still remain as to who is using these guidelines, and how do they apply them if they do. To attempt to bridge the imaging knowledge gap, and in light of the new FADGI guidelines, the Digital Projects Lab Manager at the University of North Texas (UNT) conducted site visits at over a dozen digitizing institutions across the country. Institutions included in the study were the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian, Crowley Company, Northwestern University, Metropolitan Museum of Art, the University of Maryland, New York Public Library, Yale University, Boston Public Library, MIT, Harvard University, Stanford University, San Francisco Public Library, and the University of California at Berkley. Funded by an internal grant, the Lab Manager was able to tour each institution’s digitization space and speak with its head of imaging. In viewing a range of digitization labs and observing a variety of approaches to digitization work, several common threads between institutions became apparent. From how to best apply FADGI guidelines, to common tools used, to how the best-of-the-best do imaging, many lessons were learned from this research. With the information gleaned from these institutions, the Digital Lab Manager was able to better outline for her institution the ways imaging at UNT could be improved and offer a number of options for potential future paths forward. This presentation will illuminate much of what was gleaned from an investigation of various top digitization labs and how it can be applied.Item Tuberculosis: standards and resources for quality improvement in resource limited settings(2010-01-01) Katherine Louise McQuade; Christine Arcari, PhD MPH; Susan Weller, PhD; Philip Keiser, MDTuberculosis is a significant problem, infecting nearly 9 million new patients per year and killing about 2 million a year. The fight to eradicate TB is located primarily in countries that are resource poor and disproportionately affected by HIV and the development of drug resistant TB. The primary means with which to affect TB globally are to decrease transmission locally, mainly by effective identification, diagnosis, and treatment of TB patients. Providing quality care to TB patients is therefore essential to the global effort to eradicate TB. This review describes the problem of TB, identifies the essential services of TB control programs and standards of care, and reviews the available resources for quality improvement in resource limited settings. Finally, recommendations for a quality improvement plan for a TB control program in resource limited settings are made.