Resources
Additional resources
On this page are additional resources, which have either been referred to in the Digital Access to Collections workshops or participants have expressed an interest in the content, but the content is outside the scope of inclusion in the Digital Access to Collections training manual. This page will be updated throughout Stage 2 of the Digitial Access to Collections project, so be sure to check in to see updates!
Quick links
- Audio and Audio-Visual Collections
- Benefits of Digitisation - How to Sell Digitisation to Management
- Collection Management Policies
- Conservation and Preservation
- Digitising Glass Plate Negatives
- Digitising your collections
- Funding Opportunities
- Oral Histories - Collecting and Recording
- Photographing Your Collectables
- Preservation Needs Assessments
- Significance Assessments
- Useful Free Software Tools
- Volunteer Agreements
- Volunteers and Copyright
Audio and Audio-Visual Collections
Digitising audio and audio-visual content (including audio recordings, video, and motion picture film collections) can be managed within your organisation, but as the resources required to do so tend to be more complex and expensive than to digitise image-based material, it will generally be more cost-effective to outsource to a vendor with expertise in this field.
Here are some useful resources that can assist with managing your audio and audio-visual collections and preparing your items for digitisation:
- Digitising audio and audio-visual material – State Library of Queensland: http://www.slq.qld.gov.au/resources/qld-history/connect/connected-collection-of-queensland-memory/digitisation-toolkit/digitising-audio-and-audio-visual-material
- Technical specifications for digitising audiovisual records – National Archive of Australia: http://www.naa.gov.au/information-management/records-authorities/types-of-records-authorities/GRA/tech-specs-for-digitising-av-records.aspx
- Guidelines on the production and preservation of digital audio objects – International Association of Sound and Audio-visual Archives: https://www.iasa-web.org/tc04/audio-preservation
- Technical preservation handbook – National Film and Sound Archive: https://www.nfsa.gov.au/preservation/guide/handbook
- Preservation at home – National Film and Sound Archive: https://www.nfsa.gov.au/preservation/guide/home
The National Film and Sound Archive has produced a discussion paper Deadline 2025: collections at risk that outlines the issues facing tape based audio-visual collections and the need to digitise. Access the discussion paper here: https://www.nfsa.gov.au/corporate-information/publications/deadline-2025
Benefits of Digitisation - How to Sell Digitisation to Management
Sometimes the hardest hurdle to face in the beginning is how to convince your management, committee or board that digitisation is both an essential and valuable task for your organisation to undertake.
Here are some articles and business cases that may provide some useful approaches to selling the idea of digitisation and providing digital access to management:
- Benefits, costs and risks of business process digitisation programs – NSW State Archives & Records: https://www.records.nsw.gov.au/recordkeeping/benefits-costs-and-risks-business-process-digitisation-programs
- Planning for business process digitisation – NSW State Archives & Records: https://www.records.nsw.gov.au/recordkeeping/planning-business-process-digitisation
- Digitisation plan template – University of Tasmania: downloadable from http://www.utas.edu.au/it/records/forms
- A review of a year of open access images at Te Papa – Adrian Kingston and Philip Edgar, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa: https://mwa2015.museumsandtheweb.com/paper/a-review-of-a-year-of-open-access-images-at-te-papa/
- Digitisation of museum collections: a worthwhile effort? – Anna Stow, University of Gothenburg [Check pages 23-34 in particular]: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.456.9594&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Collection Management Policies
In the planning stage of a digitisation or digital access project there are some key pieces of policy that should be considered to ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of workflow within an organisation. Policies like these aid in the decision-making process of an organisation, setting clear guides as to how an organisation approaches dealing with its collection.
A collection management policy is used to outline how a collecting organisation handles situations in regards to their collection. This can include:
- Acquisitions
- Deaccessions
- Loans
- Storage and care of collection
- Conservation
- Record management
- Risk management
Collecting organisations may want to consider what this policy may look like before undertaking a digitisation project to ensure that the items acquired by the organisation follow and are included in the mission or scope of the organisation.
Benefits of having a collections management policy in place include answering common concerns such as:
- What items should be acquired?
- How are items best handled for display?
- How to best handle the loan of a collection item?
- What information should be retained from donors?
Policies like this ensure that there is a clear way in which all staff, members and volunteers within an organisation know the correct procedures surrounding the collection.
Writing a policy for an organisation should be a collaborative process, by either establishing a committee to prepare the policy or have one-person draft which is then open for comment. This ensures that all approaches and concerns are taken into consideration and that there is a shared agreement on the policy for the organisation.
Similarly, while there are many guides and templates available as to how a collection management policy should be written and what it should include, it is important to remember that all collecting organisations are different and have different requirements.
Here are some useful resources to assisting in writing Collection management policies, including templates and examples from other organisations.
- Thinking about: Collection Policies – Museums & Galleries of NSW: https://mgnsw.org.au/media/uploads/files/thinking_about_collection_policies.pdf
- Collection Policy guidelines to writing – South Australian Community History: http://community.history.sa.gov.au/how-do-i/collection-policy-guidelines-writing
- Reference Collection Development Policy – Carol A. Singer: http://www.alaeditions.org/files/Singer_Reference-Collection-Development-Policy-Template.docx
- Collection development policy template – State Library of Queensland: http://plconnect.slq.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/144247/Collection_Development_Policy_Template.pdf
- Sample Collection development policy template - BBLC knowledge base: http://bccls.knowledgebase.co/article.php?id=421
- How to write a collection development policy - Derek Whitehead: https://researchbank.swinburne.edu.au/file/4c88e21b-14f2-42eb-9632-0624acb7d79e/1/PDF%20%284%20pages%29.pdf
- Sydney Living Museums – Collections management policy: https://sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/sites/default/files/Policy%20-%20Collections%20Management.PDF
- University of Queensland Library – Collections management policy: https://web.library.uq.edu.au/collections/collection-management/collection-management-policy
Conservation and Preservation
When you are considering digitisation, you may also need to consider the preservation or conservation of your collection items as well.
Your collection items may need some attention before they digitised to ensure they are as presentable as possible, and they definitely deserve some attention after they are digitised. An organisation should consider conservation and preservation techniques and practices to ensure collection items are kept safe from damage and to reduce the effects of aging.
The Digital Access to Collections workshops and training do not cover conservation and preservation, but there are many very useful resources available online.
- Collection care – Australian Institute for the Conservation of Cultural Materials: https://aiccm.org.au/conservation/collection-care
- Collection conservation – National Gallery of Australia: https://nga.gov.au/conservation/
- Preservation and conservation: tools to care for your archival collection – Public Records Office of Victoria: https://www.prov.vic.gov.au/community/managing-your-collection/preservation-and-conservation
- Conservation guides – State Library Victoria: https://www.slv.vic.gov.au/help/conservation-guides
- Guidelines on the production and preservation of digital audio objects – International Association of Sound and Audio-visual Archives: https://www.iasa-web.org/tc04/audio-preservation
- Technical preservation handbook – National Film and Sound Archive: https://www.nfsa.gov.au/preservation/guide/handbook
- Preservation at home – National Film and Sound Archive: https://www.nfsa.gov.au/preservation/guide/home
Digitising Glass Plate Negatives
Working with glass plate negatives can present challenges, in how you handle them, how you clean them and the equipment you need to digitise them. Philip Moorhouse from The Collecting Bug has produced some guidelines to offer some tips and techniques for digitising glass plate negatives.
Find the resource here: How to Digitise Glass Plate Negatives.pdf
Digitising your collections
Here are a number of short videos that demonstrate the different types of equipment that can be used to digitise your collections:
- Online Museum Training: Photographing collection items – Museums Australia Victoria: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUgG7HEpvyo&t=371s
- Stanford University Libraries’ Digitization labs – Stanford Digital Lib: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdLcrNeWjIs
- Saving the past: Digitisation at the Bodleian Libraries – University of Oxford: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcJhyd9n6vE
- Sarah Mason and Ross Genat on digitising the Library’s collection – State Library Victoria: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbGuy30Xbcw
And here’s a wonderful reminder of why we are and should be digitising our collections:
- Digitising our cultural treasures – Department of Communications and the Arts Australia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNf4nkG_jgI
Funding opportunities
Here are lists of funding opportunties, to find grants that will can help you digitise your collection. Often organisations need some financial assistance to help them get started, especially with digitisation projects and providing digital access to their digitised works. The lists are based per state and territory.
Oral Histories - Collecting and Recording
Oral histories are very important part of capturing history. Museums Australia (Victoria) has developed a very useful resource to assist with recording oral histories, which includes a set of templates for guidance.
Find the resource here: Recording_Your_Story_-_Oral_History_Kit.pdf
Photographing Your Collectables
Philip Moorhouse from The Collecting Bug has produced a valuable resource to offer some tips and techniques to use when photographing collection items. From camera settings to lighting, to a D-I-Y Light box, Philip details ways to produce high quality photographs.
Find the resource here: Photographing_Your_Collectables_-_Philip_Moorhouse.pdf
Preservation Needs Assessments
The aim of a Preservation Needs Assessment (PNA) is to look at the physical condition of a collection, the suitability of current housing and storage facilities and to make recommendations for the development of a conservation program. A PNA evaluates the policies, practices and conditions that affect the preservation of an organisation’s collection, identifies the specific preservation needs and actions to meet those needs, and prioritises actions matched to resources.
Useful resources are:
- How to develop a conservation plan for a community museum – Museums Australia (Victoria), 2006
- The Conservation assessment: a proposed model for evaluating museum environmental management needs – The Getty Conservation Institute and Heritage Preservation, 1999
- Benchmarks in collection care 2.1 – Collections Trust, 2018
Significance Assessments
A Significance Assessment (SA) helps explain the meaning and value of a collection and provides further information for its management and interpretation. For a SA, an assessor undertakes a site visit to assess the physical condition of the collection (acceptable percentage), the veracity of its accompanying documentation and the relationship between the organisation building(s) and the collection.
The SA process can help collecting organisations to make sound judgements and good decisions about conserving, interpreting, and managing objects and collections, now and into the future. It focuses on the importance of identifying significant collection items to boost a collection’s relevance to its community and stakeholders.
Useful publications about Significance Assessments are:
- Significance 2.0: a guide to the assessing the significance of collection – Collections Council of Australia, 2009.
- Sharing our stories: guidelines for heritage interpretation – The National Trust of Australia, (WA), Museums Australia (WA) and Lottery West, 2007
- Reviewing Significance 2.0 – Caroline Reed, Collections Trust, 2012
Useful Free Software Tools
Here are some useful tools discovered during the workshop discussions:
- Metadata extraction - this tool will assist with extracting metadata from the file properties of image files: http://meta-extractor.sourceforge.net/
- Adding metadata to images can also be managed as a batch task. This tool will help you to add, change, delete, and search the metadata fields of your choice: https://sourceforge.net/projects/fastphototagger/.
- Microsoft Image Composite Editor (ICE) can be used to ‘stitch’ images together for a panoramic view. Two free versions of the software are available: for 64-bit Windows and 32-bit Windows. There are some videos on YouTube that can help you to use the software:
- Microsoft Research - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhdXLH2GYPA
- The Power of ICE - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiRBdfpVmlo
- Duplicate Photo Finder tools – this blog post details 5 recommended types of software that can be used to identify and remove duplicate images, to manage storage space efficiently.
Volunteer Agreements
A volunteer agreement is another piece of policy that an organisation should consider in the planning stage. The agreement ensures that all volunteers within the organisation are aware of the practices and procedures they are expected to follow when volunteering with the organisation.
A volunteer agreement is a way in which clear expectations are set. It can be very useful for a digitisation project as a means of setting the standards to which volunteers will work. Again, these policies and agreements should be adapted to suit each organisation, there are very few one-size-fits-all approaches - each organisation will have its own requirements of volunteers.
When implementing a volunteer agreement, it is best to make sure it is not too complex. It should be accessible and clear for the volunteer so that the paperwork does not appear too daunting.
A volunteer agreement can include:
- An outline or purpose of the volunteer work
- The days or hours agreed to by the volunteer and organisation
- The start and end date (if appropriate)
- Acknowledgement of key policies to be agreed to and signed by the volunteer.
Within a volunteer agreement it can be important that volunteers have received and signed:
- A position description: specifically outlining the duties and tasks they are performing or a description of the project they are working on.
- A statement of volunteer rights and responsibilities: these can be broad policies that include OH&S, equal opportunity, privacy, harassment and discrimination policies.
- Policies and procedures: these include policies of customer service, communications policies, OH&S, confidentiality, policies including the handling, storage, display, digitisation, photography of, metadata and filename procedures surrounding the collection.
Please note: If a volunteer undertakes work for an organisation, the volunteer owns the copyright in the work as the creator. It may be important to include in your written agreements how you wish to manage copyright ownership with volunteers. One option is that you may request that anything they create will be licenced under Creative Commons so your organisation may freely use it.
It is important to establish what the roles and responsibilities of each volunteer are, especially if they are working on a digitisation project. This way everyone is required to work to the same standards to avoid issues of misplaced or incorrect file naming, incorrect handling, incorrect data entry etc.
By establishing a volunteer agreement, organisations can also ensure that young volunteers are able to obtain a letter of reference, making volunteer work desirable for them to undertake.
There are many resources for templates for volunteer agreements as well as additional policy (such as standard OH&S policy) available that can be utilised for each organisation.
You will find a sample volunteer agreement here: as a DOC Sample Volunteer agreement.docx as a PDF
Sample Volunteer agreement.pdf
Here are copies of the Volunteer documentation used by the Royal Historical Society of Queensland, who are happy to share their work:
- RHSQ Volunteer Form as a DOC
RHSQ Volunteer Form.docx
RHSQ Volunteer Form.pdf
RHSQ Volunteer Policy.pdf
RHSQ Volunteer Information Sheet.docx
RHSQ Volunteer Information Sheet.pdf
RHSQ Volunteer Information Sheet.pdf
RHSQ Volunteer Policy.docx
RHSQ Volunteer Policy.pdf
Other resources are:
- Volunteers Victoria – Volunteer agreements: http://www.volunteer.vic.gov.au/manage-your-volunteers/establishing-codes-and-principles/volunteer-agreement
- Volunteers Victoria – Statement of volunteer rights and responsibilities: http://www.volunteer.vic.gov.au/manage-your-volunteers/establishing-codes-and-principles/statement-of-volunteer-rights-and-responsibilities
- Not-For-Profit Law Australia – Sample Volunteer agreement: https://www.nfplaw.org.au/sites/default/files/media/Sample_Volunteer_Agreement_1.pdf
- Arts Tasmania – Museum induction package for volunteers: https://www.arts.tas.gov.au/__data/assets/word_doc/0015/32244/Museum_Induction_Package_for_Volunteers.doc
Volunteers and Copyright
Were you aware that if a volunteer undertakes work for an organisation, the volunteer owns the copyright in the work as the creator? A volunteer is not seen as a true employer, so the default rule that the employer owns copyright doesn’t apply with volunteers.
If a volunteer creates copyright works in the course of their volunteering activities, the organisation will generally have an implied licence to use those materials. However, the implied licence only extends to the original purpose for which those materials were created. If the volunteer organisation wants to repurpose or adapt the materials for other projects, they do not have a copyright license to cover this. It is important to clarify, in writing, how the parties can use material created in the course of volunteer work.
If an organisation wants to own the copyright or intellectual property rights in material created by its volunteers, it should include this as part of the volunteer agreement when a volunteer commences with the community organisation.
Another approach is to license all works created by a volunteer under Creative Commons, so the works are available to use. Again, this should be included as part of the volunteer agreement when a volunteer commences with the organisation.
Sample volunteer consent and release forms are available at:
- Volunteers – Not-for-profit Law: https://www.nfplaw.org.au/volunteers
Useful resources are:
- Confidentiality and intellectual property – Volunteering Victoria, 2018: http://volunteeringvictoria.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Con%EF%AC%81dentiality-and-Intellectual-Property.pdf
- Copyright information sheet – Arts Law Centre of Australia: https://www.artslaw.com.au/info-sheets/info-sheet/copyright/