Exploring

Digitization

Standards/Guidelines

Unlike preservation microfilming and photocopying, there are no formal standards that govern the capture, processing, and storage of digital images.

There are, however, a number of projects and publications that have set forth best practices for creating high-quality digital images, access systems, and storage systems. If you choose to undertake a digitization project, you will need to create your own technical guidelines that reflect your institution's needs and your project's goals.

Explore Cornell University's Moving Theory into Practice: Digital Imaging Tutorial. Look particularly at "Section 1: Basic Terminology," "Section 2: Conversion," and "Section 3: Quality Control" to get a sense of the issues to be considered when deciding on technical requirements for image capture (commonly referred to as "benchmarking").

See Additional Resources for links to other online resources that provide guidelines for building digital collections.