WiLSWorld

This is the first part of a two-part, full-day workshop introducing the core elements of creating digital collections of historic photographs, documents and other archival materials. Part 1 focuses on selecting materials to digitize and the basics of reformatting. We'll start with some recommendations for planning a successful project and consider how your digital collections can fit into the statewide and national landscape of digital content. We'll discuss copyright concerns in order to help you answer the question "CAN I put this online?" And we'll explore the vocabulary of digital images, including pixels, resolution and bit depth as well as tools and best practices for scanning photographs and documents. 

This is the second part of a two-part, full-day workshop introducing the core elements of creating digital collections of historic photographs, documents and other archival materials. Part 2 focuses on sharing your digitized materials with the world and steps you can take to ensure that they'll remain usable and accessible into the future. We'll define metadata and why it's important, and consider approaches to creating descriptive metadata for discovery of historical resources. We'll examine the issue of digital preservation, including practical steps you can take to preserve your digital content with limited resources. And we'll think about digitization as a path to community engagement, including reaching out to your community for content and promoting your digital collections to your users.