Digitizing criminals: web delivery of a century on the cheap

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to present the process, challenges and lessons learned from carrying out a small digital project to create a web resource of unique historic materials related to crime in New York City. All aspects of digital project management are discussed, including selection, infrastructure, budgeting, workflow and delivery.Design methodology approach - Experiences from project administration, including management of a combination in-house and outsourced digitization and metadata are discussed. Formation and management of the resulting web resource is explained, which is the product of a creative amalgamation of commercial and open source software. Challenges encountered are presented with suggestions for practical solutions and considerations for future projects.Findings - This grant-funded pilot project presented foreseen and unforeseen problems. Lessons learned and solutions suggesting best approaches for a small-scale digitization project are presented here.Practical implications - In this paper best practices and suggestions for managing a small digital project are presented, including financial, staffing and technical considerations.Originality value - Unlike many other discussions that focus on management of large institutional projects, this study presents an incremental approach for small-scale digitization projects. Presented here are practical uses of available applications for establishing project infrastructure to sustain and continue growth of digital content for small institutions.