Digitisation
Introduction
The departement of Digitisation at KU Leuven Libraries supports and stimulates research, education and heritage activities at KU Leuven, based on its expertise in the fields of project management, legal issues and digital imaging of analogue objects. Collection items are digitised with state-of-the-art infrastructure in the Imaging Lab as part of the libraries' digitisation programme, in the framework of digitisation projects or based on digitisation requests.
Together with our partners LS - Metadata Services and LIBIS, we offer solutions for a wide spectrum of digitisation questions, ranging from the valorisation of collections to the enrichment of digitised materials for research purposes. Collection curators, researchers and teaching staff may contact us with their questions and ideas.
LCS Digitisation also offers bespoke services to organisations outside of KU Leuven.
For whom
LS Digitisation offers its services to
- Researchers and teaching staff
- Collection curators
- Heritage institutions outside KU Leuven
Research support
Researchers may contact us for advise on digitisation, on the conversion of physical objects to digital data, and on virtual work environments for digital assets. Click here for more information.
KU Leuven Libraries also offers support for researchers who wish to work with digital assets and data as part of their research. You can read more about this here.
Digitisation
Digitisation is the conversion of physical objects to digital data. These data can take many forms (e.g. image files, metadata, OCR data or multispectral data) and may serve as the basis for a large variety of actions.
Digitisation is a multifaceted proces, including the physical preparation of the originals, metadating, imaging and other data creation, data preservation and publishing. The specification of each of these facets depends on the digitisation objectives. LS - Digitisation coordinates the proces and is responsible for the project management.
Digitisation projects are executed both as part of KU Leuven Libraries' collection policy and within the framework of research projects or education.
For more information about our digitisation processes, you can check out our service catalogue(in Dutch).
VIEW
LS - Digitisation is an active member of the international research and development community in the field of digitisation, with a strong focus on scientific imaging techniques: colour callibration, multispectral imaging, multilight reflectance and 3D. Examples of R&D projects areRICH, Fingerprint and Pixel+.
Imaging Lab
The Imaging Lab is specifically equiped for the digitisation of fragile and precious heritage materials, with a special focus on high quality. The infrastructure is diverse and can be used in a flexible way.
Images as open data
KU Leuven Libraries has an open data policy for all its digitised collections that belong to the public domain.
Network and international standards
Our team follows the latest developments in the field with regards to technical aspects and concerning digitisation project management and legal matters. For that purpose, we take part in national and international panels, collaborations and conferences. We are, amongst others, a member of the Impact Centre of Competence in Digitisation, AHFAP and the international GLAM Labs community. Our network includes Metamorfoze , Cambridge University Library, British Library and the John Rylands Library. For several projects, we collaborate with the Royal Library of Belgium and the Université Catholique de Louvain, and we are a member of the HERKUL, the KU Leuven Institute for Cultural Heritage.
We participate in the development of best practise guidelines, e.g.a manual for the digitisation of manuscripts, and implement standards such asMetamorfoze and Fadgi.
Furthermore…
- General information on legal aspects
- Digital document delivery service (request a digital copy)
- General terms of use for the digitised collections of KU Leuven Libraries
- Request form for digitisation projects (in Dutch; for KU Leuven staff only)
- Protocol for digitising manuscripts (in Dutch)
- An overview (in Dutch) of past and current digitisation projects
- Follow our work on twitter and on our blog
Contact
KU Leuven Libraries
Digitisation and Document Delivery
Mgr. Ladeuzeplein 21, bus 5593
3000 Leuven
Tel: 016/325029