Standards & Best Practices

Collaborative Digitization Program Best Practices

These practices have been adopted by the Minnesota Digital Library, the Minitex Advisory Committee, and the Advisory Council of State Library Services and School Technology, a unit of the Minnesota Department of Education. These documents were developed by the Collaborative Digitization Program's Metadata and Scanning Standards working groups, in which the Minnesota Digital Library Coalition participates.

Minnesota Digital Library Metadata Guidelines

The MDL Metadata Guidelines cover photographs, documents, and maps. The guidelines and worksheets are intended to provide assistance for the metadata entry process.

Worksheet Samples

These worksheet samples are for your information only. Do NOT try to use these to complete metadata for an MDL digitization project. Organizations working on digitization projects with the MDL will receive Excel versions of these worksheets after their collections have been scanned.

Digital Projects Guide

The following guide has been prepared by a working group of the Minitex/State Library Services and School Technology Joint Standards Review Task Force in collaboration with the Minnesota Digital Library Coalition to provide a companion to the Western States Digital Standards Group best practices documents and to provide other information for organizations involved in digitization activity.