This course is a comprehensive introduction to health information management for librarians and information scientists.

The objective of this course is to provide information scientists with an overview and critical analysis of historical and current developments and ongoing discussions regarding several important aspects of scientific scholarly communication.

The course offers an overview of digital libraries and the conceptual and practical understanding of digital libraries. The course enables students to understand concepts such as collection development,  text, still images, audio and video digitization, metadata, Digital Library Management Systems, digital preservation, evaluation, user needs etc.

Course Description

1. Objects and materials: Books, archival material, film, magnetic and optical media. Paper, leather, parchment, inks, audio records, magnetic tapes, films, photographs, digital objects. Bookbinding.
2. Causes and mechanisms of deterioration of paper, books and archival material. Chemical, mechanical and biological decay.
3. Paper, book and archival material conservation methods. Conservation, restoration, preservation.
4. Preservation in libraries and archives. Preservation planning. Risk assessment and management. Storage guidelines.
5. Principles and best practices in digitization of books and archival material.

Learning Outcomes

The students will be able to understand the preservation needs of an information organization, implement preservation strategies for the safekeeping and protection of its material and compile a preservation master-plan. They will also be able to manage -from the non-technical perspective- the conservation activities and integrate them to the preservation master-plan.

The course offers an overview of metadata and the conceptual and practical understanding of metadata in archives, libraries, museums, in information organizations in general and in every day life. The course enables students to understand concepts such as metadata (descriptive, bibliographic, authoritative) and their use in digital repositories, library catalogues, the web etc., and concepts about interoperability, metadata harvesting and protocols etc.