E4: Digitizing Legal History

Target Audience: Librarians interested in digital libraries and digitizing government documents

Learning Outcomes:

1. Attendees will be able to identify the steps involved in building a subject-based digital library.
2. Attendees will be able to describe how to curate a digital collection of historic legal documents.

This program identifies the steps involved in building a digital archive of litigation documents related to the Mt. Laurel cases, a series of groundbreaking cases on affordable housing in New Jersey regarded as the state law equivalent of Brown v. Board of Education. Just as Brown forced the “American dilemma” of race onto the national political agenda, the New Jersey Supreme Court used judicial power to put the “political third rail” of suburban housing equity and affordability before legislators and governors who would have preferred to ignore the problem. Speakers will explain the basics involved in a successful digitization project, including selection, funding, digitizing documents, cost management, metadata, workflow, quality control, website design, the use of open source software, digital preservation, and publicity.

Co-sponsored by M/AV-SIS and LHRB-SIS.