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Digitisation Guide
A simple guide to digitisation for museums.

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Contents

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Introduction

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Project scoping and planning

Principles
Depending on the scale of the project, certain
project planning tools and approaches should
be applied since digitisation is likely to be seen
as a discrete project, rather than purely an
operational process.
The first thing you need to do is to outline
the reasons and scope of the project.
Reasons to digitise might include:
to make your collection accessible to those that
cannot visit the museum

The scope of your project will define what parts

of your collection are digitised for example, the
corset collection or objects from 18th Century.
It is important to consider the long-term aspects
of any decisions:
would it be better to go broader and digitise more
objects in a simpler manner, or deeper by digitising
at the highest possible quality?

As part of your scoping you might find a mind

mapping approach helpful, this allows you to
explore different elements of the project through a
web of ideas. Two examples of mind maps illustrate
a large collaborative project and a smaller project
originating from a local museum. They draw on
common aspects such as resources, cost, time,
quantity, quality and impact, and were created
for this publication so have the benefit of hindsight.

might this form part of a strategy to digitise further

sections of the collection?
are further resources likely to become available
to pursue the above?

as a response to proven audience need

for the production of a new book
for the production of a CD-ROM or a website

Search facility

Collection Catalogue

Welcome

Online Exhibitions

to reduce handling of fragile originals

Interactive Exhibits

Resources - Finances

The Industry in Photos

Costume
Technology
Themes

Places

Resources - People
and Organisations

HE
History of industry

'Knitting Together'

Linked projects

14-19

Designer

Linked projects

Impact

HE

Splnning the Web

Collections

Commercial

Related information

History of town

Scanning

Resources - Information

Evaluation

Digitisation programme

Summative

Users

Researchers

Collections

Impact

Scanning

Evaluation

Resources - Information

Summative

Digitisation programme

New digital photography

2000/1 - Devising project

2002-3 - Research
2002-3 - Digitisation

NOF Digitise standards

2002-3 - Research
W3C standards

Time

Quality/Standards

NOF Digitise standards

Partners' standards

2002-3 - Digitisation
2003 - Design, programming, establishment of website

2004 - Design, programming, establishment of website

2003 - launch of website

2004 - launch of website

2004 - Review

2005 - Review

W3C standards

2002-3 - Detailed project planning

2001 - Detailed project planning

Audio

Content Management System

2002-3 - Devising project

2001 - NOF Application

2001 June - NOF grant awarded

New digital photography

Rights clearance

Rights clearance
Content Management System

Related information

New research

Front end
Formative

New research
Front end

This is Lutterworth

Schools 0-13

Digitisation staff

Commercial

Formative

Designer
Programmer

Future plans

Programmer

Users

Researchers

Digitisation staff

Museum visitors

Project Co-ordinator
Staff

Schools 0-13

Staff

The Friends of Leicester & Leicestershire Museums

Museum visitors

Practitioners

Resources - People
and Organisations

Hosting

Rudington Framework Knitters Museum

Ongoing support and maintenance

14-19

to contribute to a learning package or provide

e-learning opportunities

Content Management System

Ongoing support and maintenance

Nottingham City Museums

Leicestershire Museums, Arts and Record Office

Project Co-ordinator

Server

Nottingham City Museums

Hosting

Leicester County Council

Partners

History

Leicester County Council

Partners

Server

Leicester County Council

New website

Contacts/Resources

Leicester City Council

Content Management System

Resources - Finances

Postcards

Belper North Mill Trust

People

Lutterworth Parish Council

Sections

Buildings

The Pasold Research Fund

Rudington Framework Knitters Museum

New website

Companies

History of localities

People

Leicester City Council

Nottingham City Museums

Plans post launch

to provide content for an exhibition

Life

Derby City Council

Organisations and Associations

as part of a conservation project

Quiz

Leicester County Council

Bill Partridge Archive

Oral Histories

to take advantage of the opportunity brought

by a regional digitisation project

Map

New Opportunities Fund

Virtual Museum

Video

Quality/Standards
Time

Partners' standards
Audio platform

Apple QuickTime

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Project scoping and planning Continued

Factors in Selecting Material
to Digitise

Rights:
do you have rights over the material to be digitised?

Decisions will be informed by:

Collection Factors.
the condition of the objects

Sustainability:
how will the digital resource be sustained,
especially beyond the timescale of the project?

their importance and relevance

whether a selection would be sufficient and more
realistic than digitising a complete collection
their relationship to other published collections
the need to reduce handling while providing access
through digital surrogates.

Human Resources:
will staff or volunteers need recruiting?
do they have the necessary skills or is there
a need for training?

There should be evidence of demand for the digital

assets that you are planning to create. This may be
available, for example in having a large number of
enquiries for a particular collection, if not it should
be tested.
In order to ensure that your resource delivers its
intended outcomes as effectively as possible, it is a
good idea to start with the needs of the end user in
mind, basing the design and structure of your
resource on how they will use it.

how will they be using the site? (e.g. browsing,

searching for a particular item, following themes)
what do you want the users to get from their visit?
(e.g. learn about individual objects in the collection,
appreciate the strengths of your collections, feel
inspired to visit the museum).

Consulting the public on your ideas and prototypes

can help make sure that your finished resource
works for your intended users. Evaluation may be
formal, such as through structured questionnaires,
or informal through communicating with
representative groups of key users. Potential users
may be involved in scoping (referred to front-end
evaluation), as well as testing the project (referred
to as formative evaluation).

is equipment available in-house or through a partner?

As digitisation projects are often part of a

website development initiative, listed below
are some additional points to consider in
relation to website development:

Evaluating the finished resource (referred to as

summative evaluation) can help to measure how
effectively the project is meeting the objectives you
set at the beginning. As well as measuring the
usability of the resource, you can also monitor
what outcomes the resource delivers to users, how
they are using the site, and identify improvements.

Standards:

who is this site for who do we want to use it?

(e.g. primary school children, specialists, local visitors)

A framework, Inspiring Learning for All, exists

to help this process.

Equipment:
should digitisation take place externally through
a specialist service?

what standards are to be used?

Involving Your Users/Evaluation

object, to follow up after a museum visit)

what are these users needs from the site: what

will they want to do, and why? (e.g. to find a specific

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Project scoping and planning Continued

Opportunities for Collaboration

Project Planning

Links

This may take a number of forms. Projects such as

Knitting Together demonstrate how museums can
come together to provide a richer resource. Even in
projects involving a single institution expertise,
training and equipment may be shared with others.
This may also be attractive to funders, knowing that
the benefit might have a broader reach.

Detailed planning of your project will give it a

greater chance of being achieved on time and
within budget. The following stages could be
considered in the development of your project plan.

Inspiring Learning for All tools and guidance

to support learning in projects in museums,
libraries and archives

Objective setting. Clearly define the objectives

of your project in SMART terms:
Specific Measurable Achievable

Funding

Realistic Timebound.

Account must be taken of the requirements of

funding bodies, and governing bodies. These will
include adherence to certain digitisation or web
standards, such as MINERVA and W3C. As these can
allow some discretion it is important to establish how
they will apply as soon as possible in the project.

For example, a textile digitisation project will result

in the digitisation of our complete collection of 19th
Century corsets for our forthcoming online
exhibition to be completed by March 20th.
1 P
 roject Plan. Break down each element required
to achieve the objectives in to a logical order with
a clear indication of resources required to achieve
each stage.
2 D
 efine tasks and sub-tasks and allocate
with appropriate resources.
3 M
 ap out the elements and timescales of
your project with milestones to enable you
to track progress. Often referred to as a
GANTT chart.
4 E valuation and review. Including lessons
learned for future digitisation projects.

www.inspiringlearningforall.gov.uk
Minerva Project Planning
NPO Managing Digitisation
Office of Government Commerce
Planning and Project Management Resources

JISC Digital Media Managing Digitisation Projects

UKOLN Management Processes

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Copyright
Introduction

Establishing Copyright

Safeguarding Copyright

Some types of object that you are planning to

digitise may cause you to consider copyright issues
e.g. a collection of original cartoons by a cartoonist
who died in the Second World War.

It is important to establish copyright from the

outset of your project as this may take a significant
amount of time, and influence the viability of the
project. If copyright cannot be traced then suitable
records should be kept of attempts to establish
copyright. You may then choose to publish
uncleared material at risk.

Once we have received permission to digitise the

cartoon imagery for our museum website we need
to consider safeguarding our own copyright of
these images against, for example a commercial
publisher using the images in a book.

Copyright is a type of intellectual property that

protects artistic works such as literature, music,
art and recordings. It provides protection for
creators as well as publishers. It is also important
for publishers, such as museums, to protect
themselves against breaches of copyright.
Copyright varies country by country although
there is increasing harmonisation within the EU,
and international treaties cover many countries.
There is no need to register copyright.
Some key facts relating to UK law:
in a literary, musical or artistic work (including a
photograph), copyright lasts until 70 years after the
death of the creator
in sound recordings and broadcasts copyright usually
belongs to the producer, broadcaster or publisher
sound recordings are generally protected for
50 years from the year of publication.
Broadcasts are protected for 50 years.

These guidelines are an interpretation of UK law.

Please take appropriate legal advice.

Legal advice should be sought if you are in

any doubt.

Permission
For material in copyright, you should seek
permission from the creator or copyright holder.
This will relate to particular uses, for instance in
a guidebook or on the museums website.
There are some exceptions to the copyright owners
rights. For example, you may be allowed limited
copying of a work for non-commercial research and
private study, criticism or review, reporting current
events, and teaching in schools. The copyright
holder should still be acknowledged and there are
limits in terms of the number of copies and for large
amounts of material.

Common ways are to make users register to use

material, publish only low-resolution images, and
imbed digital watermarks.
You may judge that while these approaches might
help protect misuse they will also limit what might
be considered to be uncontroversial usage. Lowresolution images may still be good enough for
many uses, but are not generally good enough for
paper-based publications. Digital watermarks can
be removed by expert users.
Certainly, restricting some services to registered
users may be appropriate for a comprehensive
high-profile service such as SCRAN, the Scottish
online learning resource, but for a smaller site this
approach could be off-putting for the majority of
users and still not prevent misuse.
You may chose to licence your digital assets
through a Creative Commons licence which
provides a more open approach to rights.

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Copyright Continued
Links
Creative Commons defines the spectrum
of possibilities between full copyright
all rights reserved and the public domain
no rights reserved.
http://creativecommons.org/
Designers and Artists Copyright Society the UKs
copyright and collecting society for artists and visual
creators. DACS exists to promote and protect the
copyright and related rights of artists and visual
creators. A series of factsheets are available.
www.dacs.org.uk/
Minerva EC IP and Copyright
NPO Managing the digitisation of library,
archive and museum materials
JISC Digital Media Managing Digitisation Projects
UK Intellectual Property Office this site provides
guidance to Intellectual Property covering
Copyright and also Designs, Patents and Trade
Marks. Basic guidance is available to download.
www.ipo.gov.uk/
UKOLN Management Processes

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Preparation for digitisation

Management

Staff and volunteers

Location

It is important that managers and governing bodies

are fully aware of the implications of a digitisation
project, especially the need to maintain resources
beyond the project. See the section Preservation
and Sustainability. Managers need to have
sufficient knowledge to devise and implement
relevant policies and procedures including a
training plan.

Digitisation projects often require the

allocation or recruitment of staff or volunteers.
At the implementation stage these are some
valuable skills:

A separate photographic, audio or video studio

is ideal but in all instances you should seek to
establish a designated area for digitisation such
that equipment can be set up and maintained
in a consistent way. If museum objects are to be
kept in the studio or designated space then
security will need to be in line with that of stores.
Control over movement of works of art should
follow Spectrum standards.

awareness of general issues in digitisation

practical digitisation skills and experience
broader organisational skills
methodical approach
keyboard skills
experience of databases, collections management
systems, image management software
able to apply due care in handling museum objects
ability in relevant areas e.g. visual (ability to distinguish
colours), audio (awareness of background sounds).

Production may be in-house, through shared

hardware and personnel, or using an external
digitisation company.

Spectrum - the UK and international standard for

Collections Management.

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Preparation for digitisation Continued

Hardware

Types of still camera

Hardware is a general term to describe the

equipment needed for digitisation such as
scanners, cameras (still and video), and audio and
video recorders. The choice of equipment will be
dictated by the scale and ambition of the project.
The gap between consumer and professional
equipment is becoming less well-defined.

Point and shoot cameras aimed squarely at the

consumer may not be suitable for digitisation projects
involving museum objects, although they may be
useful for capturing less demanding subjects such
as the recording of events. Such cameras have little
control over shutter speed and aperture, and
focusing. They often use the JPEG file format which,
as it is compressed, compromises on quality.

Types of scanner

Digital SLR cameras provide the controls necessary to

optimise the capturing of images. They also have
higher quality lenses, with a range of lenses suited for
different purposes such as macro (for close up
photography) and telephoto (for objects at greater
distance). Images are saved in RAW or TIFF formats,
both uncompressed. In both the above types of
camera the images are captured on a digital storage
card - common types are CF (Compact Flash) and SD
(Secure Digital). Images are transferred to computer
for editing and storage through direct cable
connection to the camera, or by removing the card
and using a separate card reader.

Flat-bed scanners are the most common, providing

reflective capabilities for flat material such as
photographs and correspondence, and
transmissive capabilities for slides and
transparencies through a transparency hood.
They come in sizes to manage A4 or A3 originals.
Low cost scanners are unlikely to provide suitable
results. It is worth looking closely at what software
is bundled with the scanner.
Rotary scanners are used in commercial scanning.
Book scanners are principally used by libraries to
deal with issues of opening and handling books.
Slide scanners are designed to deal with 35mm
transparencies or slides and negatives as they
provide the ability to scan at very high resolution, up
to 4000 DPI. They will accept one slide at a time or
more through an adapter.

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Professional medium format cameras provide the

highest quality images, at a cost not just in purchase
price but in the implications for data storage. For
instance the Phase One P65+ has a resolution of
60.5mb and captures images in RAW format.
Following editing this may generate TIFF files of 180mb.

A copy stand with suitable lighting will be needed

for smaller works. Larger 2D works may need to be
photographed hanging on a wall, and the largest
works outside of a studio.

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Preparation for digitisation Continued

Links

Types of video camera

consumer cameras can be effective in capturing
video for use on the web. They capture data on
miniDV tape, DVD and increasingly memory cards
similar to those used in still cameras
DVDCAM and DVCPro are higher
specification cameras.
High-Definition Video (HDV)
Digital Betacam (DigiBeta) and DVCPro50 format
cameras are suitable for broadcast
To get the best audio quality, using separate
microphones is advisable. The choice of these,
such as desktop, tie-clip or lapel, or boom, will depend
on the nature of recording.

Audio recorders
Digital audio can be recorded directly on a PC or
Mac, or by using a portable recorder.
You can record audio directly to your PC or Mac
using built-in or plug-in (USB or mini-jack)
microphones. These may suffice for general
recordings, but for optimum quality your PC should
have a good quality sound card, and you should
use a high-quality external microphone with a preamp audio interface. Microphones need to be
selected with the appropriate connection and preamps may require another such type, XLR.

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Portable or field recorders offer a more flexible

alternative. Lower cost digital recorders may record
in proprietary formats, and are not recommended.
More expensive models typically used by
broadcasters will use universally acceptable
formats, such as WAV. Recordings are usually made
to memory cards that can be removed, and the
recorders can be connected to a PC for
downloading content.

British Universities Film & Video Council

runs training in the moving image.

For information on choosing microphones see the

section above Types of video camera.

East Midlands Oral History Archive this site

provides advice, guidance and training, as well as
sharing information on local initiatives.

Computers, data storage

www.le.ac.uk/emoha

A computer will be needed to capture, store and

edit digital content. An important consideration in
determining the specification for the computer is the
need to manage the data storage. Space will be
needed to store all possible surrogates as well as
the digital originals. Calculating this at the outset
of the project will determine the amount of data
storage required e.g. 500 images of 50mb each
may require up to 500gb of storage (based on
500x50x2 where the factor of 2 is intended to
cover a range of surrogates). External disc drives
can be added easily and cheaply to provide
additional storage.

JISC Digital Media runs training from general

guidance, to specific sessions on using particular
hardware and software.

www.bufvc.ac.uk/courses/index.html
Digital Photography Review an independent US
website covering all types of digital still camera in
detail.
www.dpreview.com/

Spectrum - the UK and international standard

for Collections Management.

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Preparation for digitisation Continued

Selecting Suitable Approaches
2D and 3D Objects
Resolution/

Originals

Method

Letters and line art

(Black and white)

Flatbed scanner
or digital camera

600 dpi
1-bit

The high resolution will aid legibility. You may want to capture
these in colour to be more naturalistic e.g. to communicate the
colour of the paper.

Illustrations and maps

(Colour or black and white)

Flatbed scanner
or digital camera

300 dpi
8-bit grayscale or
24-bit colour

The lower resolution should be adequate

but may need to be tested ref legibility.

Photograph
(Colour or black and white)

Flatbed scanner

300 dpi
24-bit colour

You may want to capture these in colour to be more naturalistic

e.g. to communicate the colour of the paper.

35mm slides and negatives

(Colour or black and white)

Slide scanner or
flatbed scanner with
transparency adapter

1200 dpi
24-bit colour or
8-bit grayscale

3D Objects

Digital camera

300 dpi
24-bit colour

Colour Depth

Notes

Black and white artists prints may be photographed

in colour for reasons stated above.
For 3d objects such as sculpture a number of alternate
views may be taken to more fully represent the object.

Resolution is that captured when scanned or photographed, lower resolutions may be used in publication. TIFF files should used for capture (and/or archive),
other formats such as PNG or JPEG may be used in publication. Black and white photographs may be in grey tones, and sometimes colours from chemical
processes used, e.g. sepia prints, or from aging. Sizes will vary with the size in pixels and the content of the image.
Video and Audio Recordings held on cassette or reel-to-reel tape in analogue form can be converted to digital format for archiving and publication. Digital audio
can be recorded on a PC or Mac, or by using a portable recorder.

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Creating and managing digital content

The previous section dealt with establishing the
hardware that you might need for your digitisation
project. This section is more about software,
standards and workflow.

Piloting
Having made the decision to digitise, it is important
to pilot or test what you plan to do. This will allow
you to judge how long the project will take, access
any gaps in skills or knowledge, and apply variable
conditions to test quality.

Managing Workflow
One of the advantages of using an external agency
is that they are likely to be digitising material every
day, and already have in place the necessary
processes for managing workflow. However
everyone undertaking a digitisation project should
establish systems to record their work, for instance
recording the particular settings of the scanner or
camera, the material that they are digitising as well
as the date, time and operator. This example of
good practice allows you to know exactly what has
been processed, when and by whom and at least
as importantly how it was done. It makes it easier
for a new person to continue with established
settings, and to create a new version to match
a lost, missing or damaged original.

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Editing Software
Capturing images, audio and video is one
thing, but manipulating them is almost always
necessary to provide the results that you want
for the purpose that you have outlined.

Images
The most common image management software
for PCs and Macs is Adobe Photoshop, and it
comes in a number of versions. Alternatively,
Photoshop can be purchased separately.
There is also a stripped-down version of Photoshop
for less demanding users, called Photoshop
Elements. This is likely to be suitable for smaller
scale digitisation projects. There are also opensource alternatives such as Gimp (GNU Image
Manipulation Program).
Having selected your camera, this will also have
particular settings available. For instance, the
format of the image recorded e.g. JPEG, TIFF
or RAW. You may be able to experiment with
different exposure settings, to change the
shutter speed or the aperture.
OCR or Optical Character Recognition software
provides the capability of scanning written or typed
text and converting it to machine-readable text. The
results will need editing to correct the transcriptions.

VR or Virtual Reality environments can be created

through software such as Apple QuickTime to stitch
together a series of images to create a panoramic
image or virtual tour.

Audio
Audacity is one of a number of free to download
applications for Linux, Mac and Windows.
GarageBand is pre-loaded on new Macs
and is part of the iLife suite of applications.

Video
For simple video editing Windows Movie Maker
is shipped with the Windows operating system
and works with XP and Vista. iMovie is pre-loaded
on new Macs and is part of the iLife suite of
applications. Higher end applications are
Adobe Premiere, Apple Final Cut Pro and Avid.

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Creating and managing digital content Continued

File formats for capturing
digital content
Formats for images
Lower end digital cameras will be limited to
JPEG format, while higher end cameras will use
RAW or TIFF formats, both uncompressed with
subsequently no loss of information
(see the section Preparing for Digitisation)
GIF Graphic Interchange Format. A bitmap format
used on the web for graphics due to its limited
colour palette (256 colours or greys)
JPEG taking its name from the Joint Photographic
Experts Group. The format is lossy due to the
application of varying levels of compression
PNG Portable Network Graphics. An alternative
bitmapped format designed for use on the Internet,
as a replacement for GIFs
RAW the format used by high-end cameras which
will later be used for further processing, typically
resaving as TIFFs
TIFF Tagged Image File Format. This format is ideal
for high-quality usage and for archiving

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Formats for Audio

Formats for Video

AAC Apple Audio Compression, Apples format for

compressed audio, a higher quality alternative to
the MP3 format

AVI Audio Video Interleave, a common

format used on Windows computers but with
issues in playing on other platforms

AIFF - Audio Interchange File Format.

An uncompressed high-quality format

DV Digital Video, as captured from a digital

video camera

MP3 - an abbreviation of MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3.

MP3 is perhaps the most common format for the
delivery of audio

MOV Apples QuickTime format

WAV an abbreviation of wave format. This is an

alternative, uncompressed high-quality format for
Windows PCs
Recordings are usually captured in AIFF or WAV
format at 44.1 KHz per second (16 bit), equivalent to
CD quality. Higher rates may be used but these will
require resampling to back up to CD.

MPEG Motion Pictures Experts Group.

The de facto broadcast standard is encoding to
MPEG-2 @ 5mb/sec, used as an archival master
RAM RealVideo, developed by Real Media
SWF Shockwave, developed by Macromedia,
also known as Flash
WMV - Windows Media, a common format used
on Windows computers but with issues in playing
on other platforms

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Creating and managing digital content Continued

Processing after Capture
Understanding images
Image Size
The size of the image is measured in inches,
centimetres, or pixels (which refers to the individual
dots that make up the image. Digital SLR cameras
might create images of 4272 x 2848 pixels.
Alternatively, smaller image sizes can be selected
to produce smaller files. Cameras are often referred
to in how many mega pixels they can capture.
In the example above this figure would be
12.2 mega pixels (actually 12,166,656 pixels)

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Resolution

Understanding audio

Alongside the size of the image, resolution dictates

how many pixels are recorded in an inch. A typical
resolution for a higher end camera is 300dpi (dots
per inch). A flatbed scanner might capture images
at 300dpi, and the operator might save them as
surrogates at a lower resolution such as 72dpi for
the web. Higher resolutions such as 600dpi may
be necessary for very fragile or difficult to read
material and resolutions such as 2400dpi for
35mm transparencies.

Understanding audio

Depth of colour or bit depth.

Once captured images invariably need adjustment

in terms of:

This describes whether the image is capturing

simple black and white data, or greyscale or colour.
The number of possible greys might go to 256 (8 bit
greyscale) and the number of colours to a nominal
16 million (referred to as 24 bit colour).

Bit rate
This describes the amount of data that is being
delivered in bits per second eg 128bits/s.
Sampling rate
The frequency that the signal is captured eg 44.1
KHz per second.

Manipulating Digital Data

cropping to remove unwanted areas

colour adjustment to match the original closer

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Creating and managing digital content Continued

Delivering Digital Content
Images
You will create a master copy in high resolution TIFF
format but may then want to create other version
for different purposes e.g. 1mb medium resolution
JPEGs for general use, and 40kb JPEGs at low
resolution for use on the web. Sizes may be fixed to
fit a standard frame size e.g. 1800 pixels maximum
width for general use and 800 pixels maximum
width for web use.

Captioning or transcripts should be provided to

make content accessible to all users. They may
also be helpful for those whose first language
is not English.
For backup see the section Preservation
and Sustainability.

File Naming

Audio and Video

A logical and consistent approach to file naming is

essential to aid identification and file management.

Audio and video can be delivered through

standalone applications, or through plug-ins in your
web browser.

The main approach not recommended is

to use the objects accession number as:

Downloading or streaming?
downloading is where you have to wait for the file to
be downloaded to your computer before reading
streaming is where you can access content as soon
as there is enough data to be read. Streaming is
managed through your web browser using plug-ins
which support different file formats.

16

A range of file sizes and download methods may

be offered to users, some of whom will have
restricted bandwidth in their internet connection.

the image may be only one part of the accessioned

object e.g. a tea cup and saucer from a tea set
There may be none
There could be problems with non alpha-numeric
characters e.g. /

Suggested approaches are:

Create a new sequence of unique image numbers
with an institutional or project prefix, and record the
accession number in an separate index system.
DCN01234_SAS_123456_detail
In the example the first element (DCN01234) is the
image number, the second the institutional or
project prefix (SAS), the third a description (123456).
You might choose to separate these elements by
the underscore character as spaces cannot be used
in file names in most systems.
Use a unique number for the image, and include
the accession number. This would facilitate
searching by accession number, providing the
system will accept any special characters used
in the accession number.
DCN01234_2008.100_detail
In the example the first element is the image
number, the second the accession number,
the third a description.
Avoid characters such as: \ / : * < > | and
spaces as these cannot be used in file names
in most systems.

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Creating and managing digital content Continued

Links
Chart of Audio Software

GIMP GNU Image Manipulation Program,

an open source image editor
www.gimp.org/
IPTC

National Archives
www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/selecting_file_formats.pdf
JISC Digital Media
Which? Advice
Some simple visual guides to subjects such
as scanning, and resizing images using
Microsoft Windows
www.which.co.uk/advice/computing/
Chart of Video Software

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_video_editing_software

17

Moving Here
Examples of templates for capturing workflow.
Digitisation Guidelines, pages 12-14
www.movinghere.org.uk/help/documents/digitisation_issue3.pdf

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Creating metadata
Definition
At the simplest level, metadata is data about data.
The relevance to digitisation is that when you create
new data e.g. a photograph or a scan or a
recording, it is important to capture and manage
additional information. Some settings from a
camera are captured automatically, but others
such as the subject, or the photographer are not.
Many of us are familiar with looking through family
photographs and finding a name, place or date
on the back and how that adds to the value of the
photograph. Metadata is recorded and presented
in a structured way, making use of common
standards, and may be used by people or
directly by computer systems.

Standards
In the context of a digitisation programme,
metadata should use a common structure (a set
of fields such as subject, date, format). These are
sometimes expressed through common standards
e.g. Dublin Core. These standards help the sharing
of information with others, as well as in defining
fields. Metadata may be stored on paper, in a
spreadsheet, or in a computerised system.

18

DC (Dublin Core) provides as few as 15 elements

in its basic subset which leaves a lot of scope for
interpretation. As a fairly open structure, DC doesnt
provide sufficient guidance for some users and
certain application profiles have been developed
to provide this e.g. DC-Collections is used to record
collections at a collections description level.
There are different data standards for archives,
libraries and museums:
Archives - ISAD (G), ISAAR (CPF) and EAD (Encoded
Archival Description)
Libraries - MARC (MAchine Readable Cataloguing)
Museums - CIMI, Spectrum and the Getty CDWA
(Categories for the Description of Works of Art).
Spectrum has been accepted widely in the design
of collections management systems which can
be labelled Spectrum compliant

Visual Data VRA (The Visual Arts Resources

Association) has created the VRA Core Categories
to describe surrogates as well as original artworks,
making it highly relevant to digital image collections

Controlled vocabularies have a role in

standardising terms, which aid indexing
and retrieval. Examples are:
British Museum Object Names, and Materials thesauri
Getty AAT (Art and Architecture Thesaurus),
TGN (Thesaurus of Geographical Place Names),
ULAN (Union List of Artist Names)
Others may be available through SSN
(Subject Specialist Networks)

Some Frameworks
There are a number of frameworks which
provide guidance rather than standards.
METS - (Metadata Encoding and
Transmission Standard)
MPEG-7 - or Multimedia Content Description
Interface is a standard developed by the MPEG
(Motion Picture Experts Group) to describe
multimedia and audiovisual works. It relates to data
rather than the type of encoding of the resource
OAI - (Open Archives Initiative) protocol provides
a system for managing and distributing data
RDF - (Resource Description Framework) aims
to provide a model for using resources with XML

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Creating metadata Continued

The Role of Software Applications
There are at least two types of computerised
system relevant here, a dedicated image
management system (or Digital Asset
Management System) and a museum, library
or archive collections management system.
PCs and Macs ship with applications to help
manage images. Windows users have Windows
Live Photo Gallery, Mac users iPhoto. These can
provide powerful ways of organising and
accessing images.
Other more advanced applications geared towards
professional photographers are Adobe Lightroom
(Windows and Mac) and Apple Aperture (Mac only).
They support master images, allow extensive
editing within the application, control over
metadata and exporting to online services such
as Flickr and Picasa.
Even information captured on a consumer camera
may be extensive: title (the cameras unique image
number), date, time, kind e.g. JPEG, size in pixels
width, height, file size, camera make and model,
and extensive information on the exposure settings.
When an image is edited in an application such as
Photoshop, additional information is captured
although some maybe lost when saved outside of
that application e.g. as a TIFF or JPEG.

19

In exporting an image from an image management

system the data associated with the image might
be embedded in it, or exported as a separate but
linked resource (using a standard such as IPTC).
Structured data may be presented and exchanged
using XML (Extensible Markup Language) and
an appropriate DTD (Document Type Definition).
This describes the specific elements and implies
a common vocabulary.

Links
Dublin Core
http://dublincore.org
Getty Research Institute - Categories for
the Description of Works of Art

http://www.getty.edu/research/conducting_
research/standards/cdwa
NPO - Managing Digitisation
Research Support Libraries Programme
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/rslp/
Resource Description Framework

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_
Description_Framework

SPECTRUM - the UK Museum Documentation

Standard, 2nd Edition
www.mda.org.uk/
Subject Specialist Networks

JISC Digital Media - Metadata currently available

as a PDF
UKOLN - Good Practice Guide Metadata Sharing and XML
VRA (The Visual Arts Resources Association)
http://www.vraweb.org/
Vocabularies generally includes links
to Getty, BM etc.
http://www.collectionslink.org.uk

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Creating metadata Continued

DC
Title
Creator
Subject
Description

Contributor
Date
Type
Format
Identifier
Source
Language
Relation
Coverage

Rights
Publisher

20

Description
A formal name given to the artefact. Used in
books, prints and paintings.
A person or organisation primarily responsible for
making the artefact.
A topic for the artefact. A controlled vocabulary
should be used such as AAT (Art and Architecture
Thesaurus).
A free text account of the artefact.

An entity responsible for making contributions to

the artefact.
Date associated with the artefact.
Added automatically for data sharing: Physical
Object/Text/Image.
Added automatically for data sharing: Text/XML.
A unique id for the artefact.
A reference to a resource from which the
described artefact is derived.
Added automatically for data sharing. The
language of text in the artefact: En/Latin.
A related resource.

Museum field name

Title

Museum data
The Return

Maker name and role

Southall, Joseph

Subject

boats, rivers, sailing, tempera

Description

Born in Nottingham in 1861, Southall first used the tempera technique

after visiting Italy in 1883. In 1901 he set up The Society of Painters in
Tempera and was influential in the revival of this medieval technique,
which binds pigment colours with an emulsion, usually water and egg
yolk to create this brightly coloured, hard edged style. In the scene,
possibly Fowey in Cornwall, a figure in a boat at lower left appears to be
returning the womans wave.

Related person name and role

Date made or date used
NA
NA
Accession number
Donor information

1930
Physical Object
Text
NCM 1948-2

NA

Related object id or related

image id
Split into spatial and temporal. Spatial may be a Place of manufacture (spatial) World, Europe, United Kingdom, England, Cornwall, Fowey
or related event/period
named place or a location specified by its
geographic coordinates. Temporal period may be (temporal)
a named period, date, or date range.
Recommended best practice is to use a controlled
vocabulary such as the Thesaurus of Geographic
Names [TGN].
Information about rights held over the artefact
Copyright statement
Nottingham City Council
including intellectual property rights.
An entity responsible for making the resource
NA
Nottingham City Council
available.

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Publishing digital content

Accessing Content

External Websites

Publication normally includes the web, but

sometimes the impetus for digitisation is a book,
or interpretation for a display. What is important is
that once content is digitised it can be used in
many different situations.

MLA (Museums, Libraries and Archives Council

http://www.mla.gov.uk) is committed through the
Collections Trust to publish content at a European
level through the website Europeana and at a
national level through the Peoples Network
Discover Service.

The Internet is increasingly being accessed

through handheld devices including mobile phones,
and outside of the home, schools and offices.
This brings new opportunities and contexts to
deliver content.

Your Website
One of the obvious destinations for your content is
your own website. For small amounts of
information, you can use standard web authoring
tools to create customised pages. Alternatively, your
site may use a content management system in
which content and design are separate - design is
interpreted through templates and styles so that
content can be reused at a number of different
points in the site. Projects may be set up to enable
content and data to be compatible with and used
on other websites.

21

Learn with Museums

(http://www.learnwithmuseums.org.uk)
is a site open to East Midlands museums and offers
the opportunity to publish image galleries, learning
resources and education visit information. Content
is managed through Renaissance East Midlands,
contact Renaissance East Midlands e-learning
manager or digital access development officer
for more details.

Popular sites are increasingly being used by

museums to enhance accessibility of content,
to make it more easily accessible to more users.
Examples are:
Flickr (http://www.flickr.com) one of two popular
photo sharing services, is used by Powerhouse
Museum (http://www.powerhousemuseum.com),
Sydney as a complement to their own rich
website. The other service is Picassa (http://picasa.
google.com).
YouTube (http://www.youtube.com), the webs
video sharing site, is used by The Manchester
Museum (http://www.manchester.ac.uk/museum)
to publish their community videos produced for the
Collective Conversations initiative.
iTunesU (http://www.apple.com/education/itunesu)
the section of iTunes, Apples online audio and
video library, is available through the downloadable
iTunes application and geared towards university
and educational use. This is used by Brooklyn
Museum to host free podcasts.

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Publishing digital content Continued

Links
Europeana, Europes digital library, museum
and archive.
http://www.europeana.eu/
Peoples Network Discover Service - a site that
allows you to discover cultural objects, collections,
organisations and news, plus useful Web Links.
http://www.peoplesnetwork.gov.uk/discover/
Culture 24 - a not-for-profit online publisher,
working across the arts, heritage, education,
and tourism sectors.
http://www.culture24.org.uk/
Minerva EC, Processing for delivering text,
video, audio, VR (virtual reality) and GIS
(Global Information Systems)
JISC Digital Media - Finding and using Digital
Images

22

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Preservation and sustainability

The Role of Planning
This section is dedicated to helping ensure that the
considerable effort and commitment that you intend
to put into digitisation is not lost.
Digital media is well placed to be reused, and to be
available for different applications e.g. as a source
of images for marketing, a picture library resource
and for an online collections database.
There are several aspects to this:
the formats of documents or data files, by
following established standards, remain
discoverable and usable
the media that they reside on is stored safely, is
reliable and is refreshed, and is backed up securely
systems are designed to remain available,
and affordable and are supported
websites are maintained and supported

A classic example of obsolescence on a number of

levels is the BBC Domesday Project. Dating from
1986 and to mark the 900th anniversary of the
Domesday Book, this was a multimedia production
using custom software. It was published on 17
laserdiscs, and required an Acorn BBC Micro
Master computer to play the discs. With the demise
of the BBC Micro and laserdisc technologies, the
data became inaccessible.
To deal with this a new project to publish the data
online was launched in 2003. It was found to be
very complicated to retrieve the data even with
reverse engineering. Unfortunately the original
environment was unable to be recreated.
The following strategies should be used in the
preservation of digital assets:
refreshing media may need to be refreshed in line
with its recommended life. A checking system may
be put in place to identify problems
migration data may need converting into a
more accessible format. This has the potential
for the loss of data
emulation where an emulator mimics the original
software environment to allow data to be read

23

File Formats
See previous section on Creating and Managing
Digital Content for recommendations on file
formats; using uncompressed formats for archive
masters will ensure no loss of information,
unencrypted formats will protect against future lack
of support.
Using standard formats for data files (whether textbased, images, audio and video) will not prevent
them being superseded but will help in maximising
the opportunity for their reuse.
Examples:
text-based documents Plain text,
RTF (Rich text format)
documents incorporating text and images
PDF (Portable Digital Format)
images JPEG, TIFF

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Preservation and sustainability Continued

Systems
As was seen with the Domesday Project example,
there can be a breakdown of continuity in both
hardware and software.

identification - safe labelling is important to identify

the purpose of the backups and the relationship to
any digitisation programmes. This should take into
account use beyond the immediate life of the project
and the original personnel involved

Systems that conform to standards such as

Spectrum (for a collections management system)
will help ensure easier migration to a new system.

archive copies - should be handled as little as

possible. Working copies should be used for regular
access, such as for copying and publication

Media

remote backup - to ensure safe-keeping, a remote

backup outside of the building and immediate area is
necessary. This may provide an opportunity to store
the media in a specialist, supervised store

In the life of the personal computer there have been

rapid changes in removable data, from the original
5.25 floppy disc found in the earliest PCs, to the
3.5 disc, CD, DVD and USB memory stick. Fixed or
hard discs have grown in size from being
measured in megabytes (one million bytes or units
of information) to reaching terabytes (one million
million bytes).
capacity - the increasing size of data files has put
pressure on backups. Simple local backups may be
made using multiple CDs or DVDs but such media
is not likely to be reliable in the longer term
reliability - reputable brands of media should be
chosen to maximise reliability. Different brands
may be selected for different sets to protect from
faulty batches. Media should be kept in a stable
environment, away from dust and dirt and
magnetic interference

24

Links
The BBC Domesday Project
www.domesday.org.uk/
A web version of the community data from
the project
www.domesday1986.com/
Library of Congress Sustainability of Digital
Formats, Planning for Library of Congress
Collections - extensive information, though not a list
of recommended formats

Websites
Consideration needs to be taken of preservation
and sustainability issues concerning websites.
The design of the website should take into
account how digital content may be used in other
applications, rather than being focussed solely
on one output.
There is a clear advantage in storing and managing
digital assets within a collections management
system which has the capability of exporting to the
web as data might be more easily migrated to
another system.

NPO leaflet on caring for CDs and DVDs

www.bl.uk/npo/publicationsleaf.html
JISC Digital Media Digitisation - Preservation and
Storage
UKOLN - Introduction to Digital Preservation
UKOLN - Top Ten Tips for Web Site Preservation

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Glossary and key sources

AIFF - Audio Interchange File Format. An audio file
format standard used for storing sound data for
PCs and other electronic audio devices. It is noncompressed and lossless.

Codec A computer program capable of encoding

a digital data stream for transmission, storage or
encryption and decoding it for editing or viewing on
the web.

Arts and Humanities Data Service Previously

funded by JISC to collect, preserve and promote
electronic resources in the arts and humanities.
From April 2008 no longer funded to provide a
national service. http://ahds.ac.uk/

Collections Link pages on digitising collections

www.collectionslink.org.uk/digitise_my_collection

Bit A basic unit of information for storage and

communication on a computer taking a value of
0 or 1.
Bit depth The number of bits used to represent
the colour of a single pixel in an image. 1- bit colour
has 2 colours often black and white, 8 bit colour
has 256 possible colours, 24 - bit colour has 16
million possible colours.
British Universities Film & Video Council
www.bufvc.ac.uk/
CMS See Colour Management System;
Collections Management System; Content
Management System
CMYK Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Key (Black). A
subtractive model used in colour printing to
describe the four ink colours. Ink is applied in the
order of the abbreviation. The model works as inks
subtract brightness from white.

25

Collections Management System. A system to

catalogue, manage and often publish museum and
archive collections. Some systems can also manage
digital assets.
Collections Trust pages on digital content
www.mda.org.uk/digital
Colour Management System - A system used to
ensure the most accurate representation of colours
across different devices such as digital cameras,
image scanners and computer monitors.
Content Management System - A computer
application used to create, edit, manage, search
and publish various kinds of digital content. Content
may include images, audio files, video files,
electronic documents and web content.
Compression The process of encoding
information using less data than before
compression was applied. Compression is useful
because it helps reduce the storage size needed for
storing information.

Designers and Artists Copyright Society - the UKs

copyright and collecting society for artists and visual
creators. DACS exists to promote and protect the
copyright and related rights of artists and visual
creators. A series of factsheets are available.
www.dacs.org.uk/
Digital Asset Management System A system
used to annotate, catalogue, store and retrieve
digital assets such as digital photographs,
animations, videos and music. The assets are
described using metadata.
Digital Photography Review an independent US
website covering all types of digital still camera in
detail. Including obsolete models. As a US based
site there can be differences in the names of
cameras in different markets, although these are
usually noted. Includes a glossary.
www.dpreview.com/
DPI - dots per inch -The number of individual dots
that can be placed within the span of one inch. DPI
tends to correlate with image resolution but is
related only indirectly.
DRM Digital Rights Management. Technologies
used by copyright holders to control access and
limit usage of digital media.

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Glossary and key sources Continued

East Midlands Oral History Archive Supported by
the University of Leicester, Leicester City Council and
Leicestershire County Council, this site provides
advice, guidance and training, as well as sharing
information on local initiatives.
www.le.ac.uk/emoha
Emulation software that duplicates the functions
of one system using a different system, so that the
second system behaves likes the first. Emulation
can be used to allow a modern system to duplicate
the features of an older system.
Encryption the process of transforming
information using an algorithm, to make it
unreadable to anyone except those with a key. This
technique can be used to secure data or protect
rights. Non sensitive archive files should not be
encrypted in case of future difficulty with decryption.
GIF Graphics Interchange Format. An image
format used on the web that supports animations
and is well-suited for simple images such as
graphics or logos with solid areas of colour.
Image Management System a content
management system for digital images. The
software will assist in naming, ordering and
delivering an image collection.
Image Resolution describes the detail in an
image. The higher the resolution the higher
the detail.

26

Interoperability The ability of different computer

systems to exchange information and to use the
information that has been exchanged using
common standards.
JISC Digital Media - a glossary and advice on still
images, moving images and sound.
www.jiscdigitalmedia.ac.uk/
JPEG/JPG taking its name from the Joint
Photographic Experts Group. JPEG is a commonly
used method of compression for images. The
degree of compression can be adjusted to perform
a trade off between storage size and image quality.
Metadata data about data, comprising technical,
administrative and descriptive data about digital
assets. Dublin core is the preferred element set to
facilitate the discovery of electronic resources on
the web.
Migration Process of transferring data between
storage types, formats or computer systems.
Migration can be used to prevent data becoming
obsolete over time as technologies change.
MINERVA EC a European Union initiative
promoting digitisation in the cultural sector,
including setting standards.
Digitisation Guidelines
www.minervaeurope.org/guidelines.htm

Good practice handbook

www.minervaeurope.org/publications/goodhand.htm
Good practices in digitisation
www.minervaeurope.org/bestpractices/listgoodpract.htm
Technical Guidelines

MPEG Taking its name from the Moving Picture

Experts Group. A range of standards for audio and
video compression and delivery.
MP3 - an abbreviation of MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3.
MP3 is a very common format for storage, transfer
and playback of music on digital audio players.
NISO - The National Information Standards
Organisation in the USA - A Framework of Guidance
for Building Good Digital Collections
http://framework.niso.org/
NPO - The National Preservation Office of the British
Library has a number of useful leaflets
www.bl.uk/npo/publicationsleaf.html
OAI - Open Archives Initiative, a protocol for
developing and promoting standards in order to
share information across the internet.

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Glossary and key sources Continued

OCR Optical Character Recognition is the
mechanical or electronic translation of scanned
images of handwritten, printed or typewritten text
and the conversion to machine-editable text.
Pixel the smallest item of information in a
digital image.
PNG Portable Network Graphics. An image
format designed for use on the Internet. It is a
lossless non proprietary open standard.
RAW A raw image file contains minimally
processed data from the image sensor of a digital
camera, image or film scanner. There are many
raw image formats in use by different models of
digital equipment. A raw image file will later be
used for further processing, typically resaving
as a TIFF.
RDF Resource Description Framework. This is a
method for describing or modelling information and
is used in web resources.
RGB Red, Green, Blue The additive model where
red, green and blue lights are added together to
produce a broad array of colours. This model is
used in computer displays.
TIFF Tagged Image File Format. A lossless image
format that creates large image files that are ideal
for storage and archiving.

27

TWAIN a set of instructions that regulates

communication between software and
imaging devices.
UK Intellectual Property Office this site provides
guidance to Intellectual Property covering Copyright
and also Designs, Patents and Trade Marks. Basic
guidance is available to download.
www.ipo.gov.uk/
UKOLN centre of excellence in digital information
management, providing advice and services to the
library, information and cultural heritage
communities.
www.ukoln.ac.uk/cultural-heritage/
WAV an abbreviation of waveform audio format.
A file format standard for storing audio data on
computers.
Watermark the process of embedding
information into audio, picture or video data.
Wikipedia -This user generated and moderated
website is a useful source of up-to-date information
on technologies but information can vary in its
scope and reliability.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

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Acknowledgements
Caroline Moore, Digital Access Development Officer at Renaissance
East Midlands, commissioned the guide. It has been researched and
written by Julian Tomlin, a consultant working in the cultural sector.
Caroline and Julian would like to express their thanks to the
following who have contributed to the guide.

The following individuals have helped by

providing support and advice for this project.

Bryony Robins, E Learning Manager,

Renaissance East Midlands

Gerald Berrington, Whitwick History Society

Geoff Smith, Lutterworth Museum

Colin Hyde, East Midlands Oral History

Sue Thornton, Consultant

Tony Gill, Centre for Jewish History, New York

Jonathan Wallis, Assistant Head of Museums,

Derby Museums and Art Gallery

Robert Jones, Ashby de la Zouch Museum

Vincent Kelly, Principal Manager, Collections
Development, Manchester City Galleries
Fiona Marshall, Consultant
David Orton, Leicester City Council
Michael Pollard, Photographer
Nick Poole, Chief Executive, The Collections Trust

28

Audrey Webster, Finance and Performance

Manager, MLA East of England
Katherine Wilson, Director of Marketing
and Communication, MLA East Midlands
Karla Youngs, Manager, JISC Digital Media

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Image credits
Front cover
Nottingham City Museums and Galleries
Collections on Line

Treasures of Derby
www.derby.gov.uk/LeisureCulture/
MuseumsGalleries/TreasuresOfDerby
Page 4
Mind mapping from This is Lutterworth
www.thisislutterworth.com/ and
Knitting Together
www.knittingtogether.org.uk/
Page 8
A page from Picture the Past showing full
copyright details.
www.picturethepast.org.uk/
Page 9
Photographic studio
Nottingham University Manuscripts and
Special Collections
Video studio, The Contact Zone
Manchester Museum, University of Manchester

29

Page 10
Digital camera on a copy stand.
Nottingham University Manuscripts and Special
Collections. The University of Nottingham
Page 15
Images displaying different image resolutions
Leicestershire Collections Online
http://museums.leics.gov.uk/collections-on-line/
Page 17
The Orrery, by Joseph Wright
Treasures of Derby
Page 20
Dublin Core Mapping. Renaissance East Midlands
The Return.
Nottingham City Museums and Galleries
Collections on Line
Page 21
Learn with Museums
www.learnwithmuseums.org.uk/
Page 22
Virtually the Ice Age
www.creswell-crags.org.uk/virtuallytheiceage/
Nottingham City Museums and Galleries
Collections on Line.