ISIS Expands Bibliotheca Alexandrina Digital Laboratory
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Alexandria—In response to the rapid expansion of ISIS projects which require specialized digitizing devices, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina digital laboratory has recently undergone major expansions in area, equipment, and personnel. The lab has been extended to assimilate a staff of up to 120 members working 7 days a week, two shifts per day, along with additional 5 new scanners, raising the total number of scanners to ten. The original size of the lab comprises only one third of its total area after the extension. Owing to this extension, the production rate of the digital lab has reached 120 books/day instead of 60 books/day in the past. In addition, the storage capacity assigned for the digital lab was also expanded to reach 64 terabytes.
The Digitization Workflow Management System (DWMS), a system developed in Bibliotheca Alexandrina manage the whole process of digitization including its various phases, has also been updated. It provides flexibility to simultaneously manage multiple projects with a diversity of materials covering books, journals, newspapers, manuscripts, unbound materials, audio, video, and slides and allows easy integration of tools used to perform functions of the workflow. DWMS is highly reliable digitization workflow management system that can be customized for large and challenging digitization projects or used out-of-the-box. The system is based on an open source platform and is fully deployed in Bibliotheca Alexandrina digitization laboratory.