Technical Guidelines

Throughout Europe, international, national, regional and local initiatives are investing significant public and private sector funding to enable access to a range of cultural heritage resources through digital channels.
The motivations and drivers for these initiatives may vary widely: they may encompass different types of resources, address different audiences and aim to contribute to distinct social and economic objectives.
However, the various agencies supporting digitisation programmes typically share a common concern of seeking to maximise the value of their grant awards, by requiring that the content produced should be as widely useful, portable and durable as possible. These qualities are encapsulated within the notion that resources (and the
mechanisms through which resources are accessed) should be ‘interoperable’.

The key to such ‘interoperability’ is to ensure consistency of approach to the creation, management and delivery of digital resources through the effective use of standards, the rules and guidelines that codify good practice. Digitisation programmes already recognise the value of standards, and the adoption of a shared set of technical standards and guidelines is often a first step in seeking to ensure conformity within a programme.

This document, developed on behalf of the MINERVA project, by UKOLN, University of Bath, in association with MLA The Council for Museums, Libraries & Archives,  seeks to provide some guidelines for the use of standards - primarily technical standards. It is intended primarily as a resource for policy-makers, and for those implementing funding programmes for the creation of digital cultural content.

The document is divided into the following main sections, each reflecting a stage in hefe cycle of digitisation:

• Preparation for digitisation
• Handling of originals
• The digitisation process
• Storage and management of the digital master material
• Metadata creation/capture
• Publication
• Disclosure of resources
• Re-use and re-purposing
• Intellectual property rights and copyright

This publication can be purchased at:
Associazione italiana biblioteche - Italian Library Association
Viale Castro Pretorio 105, 00185 Roma, Italy
Tel. + 39064463532
e-mail servizi@aib.it
url: http://www.aib.it/aib/editoria/catalogo.htm#minerva

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