Scanning and File Naming

To create high quality digital copies of photographs, scan at a high resolution and save in an approved file format. For most images, scanning at a moderate resolution (600 DPI) and saving as a JPEG should be adequate for this project. For particularly important images and/or images with preservation concerns, scan at a high resolution and save as a TIFF file.

For documents, maps, or other textual materials, scanning at 600 DPI and saving as a JPEG should be adequate. For multimedia files, save the highest quality rendering and avoid proprietary file types.

All files should get a unique file name. I am proposing the following file naming conventions: NHS_##_###. The goals are to provide a unique name to each file to make file management easier. File names are composed of:

• NHS = a generic prefix to distinciton Northfield Historical Society files.
• ## = Accession number. Each new project, donation, or scanning should be given a new accession number.
• ### = File number. Within each accession, give each file a unique number.

Therefore, for example, NHS_01_024 would be the 24th file in the first accession group.

Metadata

Metadata – that is, the descriptions of images or collections – is an important part of this project. I’m proposing the following metadata plan where every item has the following pieces of descriptive information:

1. Title = Short, description of item.
2. Creator = Person/Organization responsible for creating the item, if known.
3. Description = free form description or any length.
4. Publisher = for published works, name of the original publisher.
5. Contributor = name of the person/organization who donated the resource.
6. Date = in the form YYYY-MM-DD. Use “Approximately” for date ranges, etc.
7. Type = Still Image, Text, Map, etc.
8. Format
   1. Original = Photograph, Newspaper, Map, etc.
   2. Digital = image/jpeg, image/tiff,
9. Identifier = File Name (as outlined above)
10. Language = Language of material, if applicable.
11. Coverage
    1. Spatial = all should be “Northfield (Ill.)
    2. Temporal = Grouped by decade (1910-1920, etc.)
12. Rights = Any copyright information. If none, include “No known restrictions”
13. Collection = What collection is the item a part of.
14. Tags = uncontrolled and informal short descriptions to add access points.
15. Subject
16. Source
17. Relation

Next Steps

1. Install Omeka on the northfieldhistoricalsociety.org domain.
2. Migrate all existing content (all images and descriptions) from current site.
3. Update this digitization and metadata guide.
4. Provide some training and support.