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Guidance for Digitizing Images

Advisors in the Weissman Preservation Center and HCL Imaging Services are available to help members of the Harvard community plan workflows and identifiy service providers for preservation reformatting of pictorial materials. This page provides links to selected best practices, guidelines, standards, and tools that inform and support image digitization at Harvard.

Selected Harvard imaging studios for collections digitization

• HCL Imaging Services (also see Reformatting: Digital Imaging page on this site)
• HCL Fine Arts Library Digital Imaging Lab & Photography Studio
• Harvard Art Museums Digital Information & Technology photography studio

Harvard specifications and tools (image metadata and packaging)

Digital images require extensive metadata to support long-term management, preservation, and delivery. The following Harvard University Library specifications and tools are designed to produce HUL DRS compliant objects in the most accurate and cost-effective manner.

• HUL DRS Administrative Metadata for Digital Still Images.
• JHOVE, tool for format validation. Still image format modules in JHOVE include GIF-hul, JPEG-hul, JPEG2000-hul, and TIFF-hul.
• DRS Batch Builder, tool that enables a DRS depositor create batch directories, assign administrative and technical metadata, and generate batch control files (batch.xml) required to accompany all objects deposited into the HUL Digital Repository Service.

Guidelines

See panel at right for links to image digitization guidelines. The following resources present criteria for assessing file formats for sustainability, as well as a registry of profiles being used for still image masters:

• Harvard University Library, et al., Global Digital Format Registry (GDFR), main web site.
• Library of Congress NDIIPP, Sustainability of Digital Formats: Planning for Library of Congress Collections, Quality and Functionality Factors for Still Images.
• Weissman Preservation Center, Harvard University Library, Principles for Reformatting Library and Archival Collections.

Standards

• ANSI/NISO Z39.87-2006 Data Dictionary – Technical Metadata for Digital Still Images. "This standard defines a set of metadata elements for raster digital images to enable users to develop, exchange, and interpret digital image files." Also see the Library of Congress, NISO MIX Official Web Site for the current MIX schema and documentation.
• Metadata Encoding & Transmission Standard (METS), Official Web Site. See also the METS Implementation Registry, for descriptions of uses of METS to package image objects into submission information packages (SIPs) for preservation repositories.