Digitization: Digitization

Digital Image of a Modified  old  copy of the Qur'an by the Digitization Unit

Digitized  CHSS Journal  page

Description

Digitization implies conversion of documents and art works into digital images. Digitization is a process in which materials are converted from hard copies to electronic copies. The major purposes of digitization are to enhance access and improve preservation of library materials.

Libraries embark on the digitization of their resources available electronically thereby providing a wider access to its collections. Therefore, digitization holds the advantage of providing a platform for share ability and duplicity of data, and networking because of the digital form of content.

Digitization is presumed to add value to physical collections because:

• Digital content can lead to new knowledge by enabling scholarly use that was not possible with print collections - such as new forms of  textual analysis and new forms of scholarly communication.
• The creation of new finding aids, links to bibliographic records, and development of metadata will enhance intellectual control of collections.
• Ability to search, discover, and manipulate images, text, and sound in new contexts will increase and extend use of collections.
• Wider dissemination of unique collections will encourage scholarly use.
• Digital surrogates will help preserve unique objects by protecting them from handling.
• Digitization will allow integration of related materials on multiple hosts in "virtual collections."

The UAEU Libraries Deanship Digitization Unit offers the following services.

Scanning:

Theses and dissertations: In collaboration with the College of Graduate Studies in the UAE University, the Digitization Department scan theses and dissertations of graduate students. The process includes the following steps:

• Creating the job,

• Scanning the hard copy into pdf format,

• Image processing,

• Applying optical character recognition (OCR) to the scanned pdf.

• Typing the abstracts

Finally, these electronic theses and dissertations are uploaded to UAEU Scholarworks online website for global access through downloading and online reading.

Materials for special needs students:  We do scan and type (Arabic scripts) for the UAE University special needs students’ books and other learning materials.

Faculty members: Similar scanning services is provided to UAE University faculty members' books and other teaching materials.

UAE Institutions/community:  The same scanning benefit is extended to UAE higher educational institutions such as Higher Colleges of Technology (HCT), Presidential Affairs, the Police Department, Zayed University, National Medical Library and so  on.