U California Publishing Ag Journal to Digital Repository with Aptara

  • By Dian Schaffhauser
  • 07/22/09

The University of California will be converting print editions of California Agriculture journal using technology from Aptara. The digitization project will convert close to 6,000 articles dating back to 1946 and move them into a searchable Web site, accessible online. California Agriculture which publishes peer-reviewed research in agricultural, natural, and human resources, is one of the oldest, continuously published, land-grant university research publications in the country, with one of the largest circulations among journals of its kind.

"Thanks to Aptara, this highly valuable research, previously accessible only at scattered university libraries, is now widely available online for the benefit of authors, readers, and scientists worldwide," said Janet White, executive editor of the journal. "Aptara transformed old, well-worn hard copies into high-quality, reusable XML-based content and full-text PDFs, with the highest levels of data integrity and readability," she added. "These digital assets represent a tremendous contribution to the field, for a broad range of research relating to agricultural systems, environmental sciences, and nutrition and food safety."

Aptara has processed over 550 back-dated journal issues, per the university's custom editorial specifications, converting them into XML files with cross-referencing for immediate posting online. The technical nature of the content required subject matter experts to ensure the proper processing and tagging of the mass volumes. The project also involved design and implementation of a custom workflow for digitization and specialized XML processing.

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

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