We're trying to decide what to do with these, and I'm interested in hearing
from others if they've gone through the same process.

These multipage PDFs were loaded into ContentDM with this option of
creating compound objects. CDM pretends that the file is split up into
individual pages, allowing for page-level indexing and user navigation.
Here's an example: http://cdm.reed.edu/u?/reedhisttxt,36177

I can explain more about what these are and why we're needing to make
decisions about them, but I'm assuming that some people already know what
I'm talking about (?).

This also leads into something else I'm trying to work out, which is when
users want and expect PDFs and when they want and expect something like an
image-based manuscript viewer with zoom. I think it is clear that ETDs
should be PDFs, and medieval manuscripts should be in a image-based viewer,
but we have a lot of stuff in between. A course catalog from 1911 seems
good for an image-based viewer, but it seems unnecessary to display a
born-digital PDF course catalog from 2009 in an image-based viewer. But
conceptually, they are the same thing. Is it the age of the thing? Is it
the original format of the material? If anyone has or knows about user
testing around this distinction, or even anecdotal feedback, I would
appreciate hearing about it!

-- 
Laura Buchholz
Digital Projects Librarian
Reed College Library
503-517-7629
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