<< Back to Digitization Resources
COMPREHENSIVE
Best Practice Guidelines for Digital Collections at University of Maryland Libraries, Second Edition, May 2007 (Office of Digital Collections and Research, University of Maryland, College Park)
This guide is to highlight the opportunities and challenges of creating digital collections by addressing current standards across media, application of metadata, and issues of project management.
Digitization and Archives, October 2002 (Preservation Committee, Canadian Council of Archives)
This guide contains a listing of principles specific to digitization in archives and a decision tree for digitization projects.
Digitization Activities: Project Planning and Management Outline, November 2009 (Federal Agencies Digitization Guidelines Initiative)
This document attempts to define work activities relating to the digitization of original cultural materials by outlining a generic sequence of high-level activities for planning and management purposes.
Digitization Best Practices, Version 1.0, August 2009 (University of Colorado Digital Library)
This document offers an introduction to digitization, provides links to resources containing more information, and describes the recommended digitization parameters for collections in the CU Digital Library.
Digitization Guidelines (University of Virginia Library)
This guide is intended to make UVa Library’s current standards for digitized materials for faculty members who wish to donate digital materials to the Library for inclusion in the permanent digital collections. These guidelines were developed to increase interoperability and accessibility, ensure a consistent, high level of quality, and decrease the likelihood of re-scanning and promote long-term preservation of digital resources.
Digitization Guidelines (U.S. Federal Agencies)
The materials and information appearing on this site have been formulated collaboratively by a group of federal agencies that began meeting in 2007 to articulate a common set of guidelines, methods, and practices for the digitization of historical content in a sustainable manner.
Framework of Guidance for Building Good Digital Collections, 2007 (National Information Standards Organization)
This framework provides an overview of some of the major components and activities involved in the creation of good digital collections and provides a framework for identifying, organizing, and applying existing knowledge and resources to support the development of sound local practices for creating and managing good digital collections.
Guide to Digital Projects, Winter 2004 (MINITEX/LSD Joint Standards Review Task Force)
This guide provides guidance to Minnesota Digital Library participants and to all Minnesota cultural heritage institutions that undertake digitization projects.
Guidelines for Digitization Projects for collections and holdings in the public domain, particularly those held by libraries and archives, March 2002 (International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions)
These guidelines are aimed at digitization programs for collections and holdings in the public domain; particularly to institutions in countries in the developing world.
NINCH Guide to Good Practice in the Digital Representation and Management of Cultural Heritage Materials, 2002 (National Initiative for a Networked Cultural Heritage)
By adopting community shared good practice, project designers can ensure the broadest use of their materials, today and in the future, by audiences they may not even have imagined and by future applications that will dynamically recombine “digital objects” into new resources.
Putting Content Online: A Practical Guide for Libraries, 2006 (Mark Jordan)
This links to the Mark Jordan’s page for the book. The chapters “Search and Display” and “Project Management” are available under a Creative Commons licence. This book focuses on practical, standards-based approaches to planning, executing and managing projects in which libraries and other cultural institutions digitize material and make it available on the web (or make collections of born-digital material available). Topics include evaluating material for digitization, intellectual property issues, metadata standards, digital library content management systems, search and retrieval considerations, project management, project operations, proposal writing, and libraries’ emerging role as publishers.
IMAGES
Digital Image Editing (From Canadiana Forums)
The following information reflects the best practices in the context of the West Vancouver Memorial Library. The instructions provided reflect our use of PhotoShop Elements 7.0 and will generally translate both conceptually and in terms of detailed instructions to other projects using different versions of the software. The goal of the restoration process is not to alter the existing photograph in order to repair blemishes or remove content. Rather, the aim is enhance the existing photo information to bring out as much original colour and detail as possible.
CDP Digital Imaging Best Practices, Version 2.0, June 2008 (Bibliographical Center for Research)
This document is intended to serve as a guide for practitioners in cultural heritage institutions that seek to create images from physical objects.
Image Digitisation Manual 2007 (Picture Queensland)
This manual is intended to be used as a guide by Picture Queensland partners to ensure consistency with the State Library of Queensland’s digitisation standards. The manual provides information on the key aspects of planning and conducting a digitisation project.
Digital Imaging Basics and Standards: A Guide for Creating and Archiving Digital Images (New Jersey Digital Highway)
This document is intended to provide a basis to learn those skills needed for digital imaging, as well as to express the requirements in equipment and resources to commit to such projects.
Guides to Quality in Visual Resource Imaging, (Digital Library Federation)
These guides were written for those who have already decided what they will digitize and what purposes the digital images will serve and cover project planning, scanner selection, imaging system set-up, and the resulting digital masters.
Preservation issues in digitizing historical photographs (SEPIA)
This document discussing the process of digitization of historical photographs from the perspective of preservation and also briefly lists some preservation issues relating to digital images.
Technical Guidelines for Digitizing Archival Materials for Electronic Access: Creation of Production Master Files – Raster Images, June 2004 (National Archives and Records Administration)
These guidelines define approaches for creating digital surrogates for facilitating access and reproduction.
Technical Guidelines for Digitizing Culture Heritage Materials: Creation of Raster Image Master Files, August 2010 (Federal Agencies Digitization Initiative FADGI – Still Image Working Group)
This documents represents shared best practices followed by agencies participating in the Federal Agencies Digitization Guidelines Initiative (FADGI) Still Image Working Group for digitizing cultural heritage materials.
AUDIO
Sound Directions: Best Practices for Audio Preservation (Mike Casey, Indiana University and Bruce Gordon, Harvard University)
This publication presents the results of research and development carried out by the Sound Directions project with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities in the U.S.
METADATA
Introduction to Metadata, Online Edition, Version 3.0, 2008 (Tony Gill, Anne J. Gilliand, Maureen Whalen, and Mary S. Woodley, J. Paul Getty Trust)
An online publication devoted to metadata, its types and uses, and how it can improve access to digital resources.
Metadata Best Practices, December 2008 (Loyola Marymount University Digital Library Program)
This document provides guidelines for creating metadata records for digital objects.
Metadata Best Practices Version 1.0, September 2009 (University of Colorado Digital Library)
This document offers an introduction to metadata, provides links to resources containing more information, and describes the required and recommended elements for collections in the CU Digital Library.
Metadata Entry Guidelines for Participating Institutions, October 2006 (Minnesota Digital Library)
These guidelines are aimed toward institutions participating in the Minnesota Digital Library and are directed at creating metadata for photographs, documents, and maps.
RLG Best Practice Guidelines for Encoded Archival Description, 2002 (Research Libraries Group)
This set of guidelines intends to facilitate interoperability of resource discovery, offer researchers the full benefits of XML in retrieval and display, and contribute to the evolution of EAD standard.
Understanding Metadata, 2004 (NISO)
This is an introduction to metadata, metadata standards and creation of metadata.