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The California State Library supports digitization and preservation for California’s public libraries, archives, museums, historical societies, and other memory organizations through California Revealed. Through its annual Digitization and Preservation Assistance program, California Revealed digitizes, preserves, and provides online access to materials documenting California history from hundreds of partner organizations around the state. The program also offers more targeted support related to cataloging, community archiving, and the establishment of Memory Lab digitization labs.

One of the best ways to learn more about digitization and digital preservation is to attend one of California Revealed’s regional workshops or webinars. A 2020 webinar available online, Demystifying Digitization: An Introduction to California Revealed, introduces the program and basic digitization concepts. Please visit California Revealed’s website for more information about available training and how to participate in the program.

Contact team@californiarevealed.org with questions related to digitization and preservation.

Collections Care

• Library of Congress Collections Care: Basic information and simple steps to take for the good care, handling, and storage of collections in a variety of formats.
• Library of Congress Care, Handling, and Storage of Audio Visual Materials: Simple tips for the care, handling, and storage of AV materials, including a bibliography of additional resources.
• Northeast Document Conservation Center Preservation Leaflets: Accessible PDF pamphlets on a variety of preservation topics related to Planning and Prioritization, Environment, Emergency Management, Storage and Handling, Photographs, Reformatting, and Conservation Procedures.
• National Film Preservation Foundation’s Film Preservation Guide: Available as a book or a free PDF, this guide is an essential primer for archivists just getting started in film preservation. In addition to aiding format identification, this guide describes methods of handling, duplicating, making available, and storing film that are practical for research institutions with limited resources.
• Sound Directions: Best Practices for Audio Preservation: A project of Indiana University and Harvard University, this overview summarizes key concepts for collection managers and curators, followed by a section intended for audio engineers, digital librarians, and other technical staff that presents recommended technical practices.
• Graphics Atlas: Resource for the identification and characterization of prints and photographs.

Description

• California Revealed Metadata Guidelines: Detailed guidance for submitting descriptive metadata for audiovisual, still image, and text objects to California Revealed.
• California Revealed Audiovisual Formats Identification Guide: Identification guide for legacy audiovisual formats, as well as basic considerations for storage and preservation risks.
• Describing Archives: A Content Standard: Output-neutral set of rules for describing archives, personal papers, and manuscript collections.
• Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Materials: Provides specialized cataloging rules for various formats of rare materials typically found in rare book, manuscript, and special collections repositories
• Manuscripts (Documents/text-heavy archival materials)
• Cartographic (Maps)
• Graphics (Artwork, photography, etc.)
• Music
• Serials (Newspapers, newsletters, periodicals, etc.)
• Archives for Black Lives in Philadelphia Anti-Racist Description Resources: Collectively authored document includes extensive recommendations and considerations for creating and auditing descriptive metadata, with a focus on combatting anti-Black archival description. Also includes annotated bibliography for further reading.

Digitization

• Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) Self-Guided Curriculum for Digitization: Workshop curriculum based on documented best practices to introduce public librarians to the digitization process.
• Recollection Wisconsin: Wisconsin’s equivalent of California Revealed, bringing together digital culture heritage resources from Wisconsin libraries, archives, museums, and historical societies.
• Digitization Project Planning: Accessible first-step guidelines for planning digitization project.
• Digital Project Planning Worksheet: Useful tool for setting out on digitization project.
• Northeast Document Conservation Center Preservation and Selection for Digitization: Criteria and considerations for the selection of archival materials for digitization.
• Memory Lab Network: Provides training and equipment for public libraries across the U.S. to run Memory Lab digitization labs with equipment for digitizing video and audio and scanning photographs, documents, and slides in a public computing space.
• Digitization Vendor Questionnaire: This questionnaire helps to organize the information you will need to select and develop a successful relationship with a digitization vendor.

Digital Preservation

• Digital Preservation at the Library of Congress: Includes resources related to sustainability of digital formats, as well as tools and open-source software for digital preservation.
• Recollection Wisconsin Digital Readiness: Glossary of terms, reports, and training created by community-driven initiative to build “digital readiness” in local historical societies and historic preservation groups.
• National Digital Stewardship Alliance (NDSR) Levels of Digital Preservation: Benchmarks for building a digital preservation program.
• Preserving Digital Objects with Restricted Resources (POWRR): Tools, workshops, and peer assessment program aimed at making digital preservation more widely accessible.

Copyright and Permissions

• California Revealed Permissions Guidelines: Detailed guidance for determining copyright status and securing permissions for archival objects. Includes sample letter of inquiry and succinct overview of key copyright and permissions concepts.
• American Library Association (ALA)’s Public Domain Slider: Useful tool to quickly determine if published works can be placed in public domain.   
• Society of American Archivists (SAA)’s Orphan Works: Statement of Best Practices: Developed by SAA’s Intellectual Property Working Group, this document describes what professional archivists consider to be best practices regarding reasonable efforts to identify and locate rights holders.

Disaster Readiness

• California Preservation Program Emergency Preparedness and Response: Includes basic steps to prepare your library for emergency situations, as well as additional resources for creating a disaster plan, preservation networks, salvaging, and more.
• Northeast Document Conservation Center Disaster Assistance: Includes collections emergency hotlines for immediate assistance, as well as resources for emergency salvage procedures.

Training Opportunities

• Digital Preservation Outreach & Education Network: Offers professional development support to cultural heritage professionals in the area of digital preservation. Also offers workshops and emergency hardware support to small libraries, archives, and museums.
• Memory Lab Network’s YouTube channel: This channel includes the training, outreach, and programming videos made by or in collaboration with the Memory Lab Network for others to plan, build, run, grow, and sustain a Memory Lab in their communities.
• Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA)’s Continuing Education: Upcoming and on demand webinars regarding audiovisual archiving and preservation.

Funding Opportunities

• Cultural Heritage Disaster Preparedness Project: Through its partners, the California State Library offers disaster preparation risk assessment and grant opportunities. In partnership with the Northeast Document Conservation Center, Ready – Or Not preservation consultants provide consultation and conduct free site visits for California organizations stewarding cultural resources and then deliver an assessment report with their observations. In partnership with Myriad Consulting & Training, cultural organizations can apply for Groundwork Grants to implement assessment recommendations and disaster plans.
• Library of Congress Community Collections Grants: Grant program aimed at expanding the American Folklife Center’s collection by funding and supporting individuals and organizations in collecting and archiving contemporary cultural expressions and traditions that may otherwise be absent from the national record.
• National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Preservation Assistance Grants for Smaller Institutions: Preservation Assistance Grants help small and mid-sized institutions — such as libraries, museums, historical societies, archival repositories, cultural organizations, town and county records offices, and colleges and universities — improve their ability to preserve and care for their significant humanities collections.
• Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) Digitizing Hidden Special Collections and Archives Grants: Grants for digitizing rare and unique content stewarded by collecting organizations in the US and Canada. Most recent call for applications focused on projects proposing to digitize materials that deepen public understanding of the histories of people of color and other communities and populations whose work, experiences, and perspectives have been insufficiently recognized or unattended.
• Bay Area Video Coalition (BAVC) Media Preservation Assistance Program: Program funded to provide museum-quality transfers and preservation services of audiovisual media at a reduced rate.
• National Historical Publications and Records Commission Grants: Offers several different grants, including Archival Projects (for projects that ensure online public discovery and use of historical records collections) and Public Engagement with Historical Records (for projects that encourage public engagement with historical records).
• National Film Preservation Foundation Grants: The National Film Preservation Foundation offers several types of preservation grants supporting the creation of preservation and access copies of American orphan films of historic and cultural interest.