Example of photo caption... Another caption... Example of photo caption... Another caption...

Resources for Digital Projects


List of annotated resources for planning and implementing digital projects.

Project Planning & Management | Mission Statements & Strategic Plans | Digitization | Standards | Metadata | Digital Preservation | Controlled Vocabulary & Thesauri | Organizations | Tools & Additional Resources

Project Planning and Management

American Memory Technical Information
Resources on copyright, metadata, preservation, scanning and conversion, and text encoding/mark-up for collections in the Library of Congress American Memory website. See also the National Digital Library Project Planning Checklist.

Digital Library Federation
Consortium of libraries and other agencies with a mission to enable research through the development of an international network of digital libraries. Information on digital collections, digital production, digital preservation, usage and users, digital library architecture, including reports, guidelines, and standards.

Framework of Guidance for Building Good Digital Collections
National Information Standards Organization (NISO) document covering principles for collections, objects, metadata, and projects.

Indiana Memory
A collaboration of Indiana libraries, museums, archives and related cultural organizations to enable access to Indiana's unique cultural and historical heritage through a variety of digital formats and free distribution over the Internet.

Inside CDL
Provides access to California Digital Library working documents. Useful categories include Collection Development Process, Digital Library Building Blocks, and Assessment.

NLG Project Planning: A Tutorial
Designed as a tutorial for participants in the National Leadership Grant through the IMLS. The tutorial provides information on defining a project, planning a project, writing a grant application, and carrying out a project.

Return to top of page


Missions Statements and Strategic Plans

Indiana University Digital Library Program
Strategic plan, including mission statement, program purpose, program benefits, goals, participants, audience, and strategic areas for the Indiana University Digital Library Program

Return to top of page


Digitization

Moving Theory into Practice: Digital Imaging Tutorial
Provides information on digital imagining, covering selection, conversion, quality control, metadata, technical infrastructure, presentation, digital preservation, management, and continuing education.

University of California Selection Criteria for Digitization
Recommended guidelines for selecting materials for digitization at the University of California Libraries, including collection development, preservation/archiving, access, and organizational/funding.

Return to top of page


Standards

Best Practices for OAI Data Provider Implementations and Shareable Metadata
Join initiative between the Digital Library Federation and the National Science Digital Library.

Open Archives Form
Tutorial introducing the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH).

Standards at the Library of Congress
Includes Resources Description Formats, Digital Library Standards, Information Resource Retrieval Protocols, and ISO Language Codes.

Return to top of page


Metadata

Dublin Core Metadata Initiative
Developed interoperable online metadata standards. Provides ready reference resources, information on the initiative, and additional resources. See also: DCMI Metadata Terms, DCMI Element Set, and Encoding Guidelines.

Learning Object Metadata Standard
Wiki on the Learning Object Metadata (LOM) standard, which is used to describe educational resources.

Understanding Metadata
PDF of a NISO publication defining metadata, different metadata element sets used in libraries, and additional information.

Metadata Object Description Schema
Official website for MODS (Metadata Object Description Schema), a metadata schema developed by the Library of Congress as a bibliographic element set that can carry selected data from existing MARC 21 records and allows for the creation of original resource description records.

NSDL_DC Metadata Guidelines
Metadata Guidelines for NSDL partners, collaborators, and contributors based on Dublin Core metadata schema.

Open Archives Initiative
"Develops and promotes interoperability standards that aim to facilitate the efficient dissemination of content." Projects include the Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH).

VRA Core 4.0
Data standard established by the Visual Resources Association for the cultural heritage community.

University of Washington Dublin Core Data Dictionaries

Return to top of page


Digital Preservation

The Incentives to Preserve Digital Materials: Roles, Scenarios, and Economic Decision-Making
PDF of a research report from OCLC

Library of Congress Digital Preservation
Discusses the importance of digital preservation and includes links to various resources

PREMIS Final Report
PREMIS Working Group documents on digital preservation strategies

Risk Management of Digital Information: A File Format Investigation
Report on the risk assessment of migrating common file formats. Looks at the risks associated with migration.

MetaArchive Cooperative
Provides low-cost, high impact preservation services to help ensure the long-term accessibility of digital assets.

The ECHO DEPository
A 5-year digital preservation research and development project at the university of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe)
Based at Stanford University Libraries, an international community initiative that provides libraries with digital preservation tools and support.

Return to top of page


Controlled Vocabulary and Thesauri

Getty Art & Architecture Thesaurus Online

Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names Online

Getty Union List of Artists Names Online

Library of Congress Authorities

Thesaurus for Graphic Materials I: Subject Terms (TGM I)

Thesaurus for Graphic Materials II: Genre & Physical Characteristics (TGM II)

Return to top of page


Organizations

Center for History and New Media, George Mason University

Council on Library and Information Resources

National Science Digital Library

Northeast Document Conservation Center

Return to top of page


Tools and Additional Resources

Berkeley Digital Library SunSITE
Builds digital collections and provides information and support to digital library developers.

ContentDM
Digital collection management package for organizing, managing, publishing, and searching digital collections.

DLXS (digital library eXtension service)
Suite of tools for the development of digital library collections.

DSpace
Open-source solution for accessing, managing, and preserving scholarly works.

Fedora Commons
"Fedora Commons is the home of the unique Fedora open source software, a robust integrated repository-centered platform that enables the storage, access and management of virtually any kind of digital content."

Greenstone Digital Library Software
Suite of software for building and distributing digital library collections.

Sun Microsystems Digital Library Toolkit, 3rd edition

Return to top of page