Guidelines/toolkits/reports used by respondents of 2023 survey to inform their digitisation practice. We are reviewing the possibility that updated versions of these could include an environmentally-conscious digitisation option.
| Name of guidelines | Collection Type | What do they cover | Notes |
| Metamorfoze | Works on paper | Technical guidelines for image capture – light, noise, metadata, illumination and so on. No mention of amount of images or sustainability. | |
| FADGI (Federal Agencies Digital Guidelines Initiative) Technical Guidelines for Digitizing Cultural Heritage Materials | Cultural heritage 2D | Technical guidelines for image capture – light, noise, metadata, illumination and so on. No mention of amount of images or sustainability. | |
| Smithsonian Institution Digitization Guidelines | All Smithsonian collections | Takes inspiration from FADGI, no additional information on environmental sustainability. | |
| iDigBio | Natural History | Basic standards for image acquisition and preservation, less information on the digitisation process. | Refers to LoC |
| Society for the Preservation of Natural History | Natural History | Unfortunately, the website is down so we cannot assess these guidelines. | |
| LOC (Library of Congress) guidelines | Works on paper | Detailed standards for image capture and preservation. Some information on assessing collections for digitisation need. No obvious mention of environmental concerns. | |
| IFLA (International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions) Guidelines for Planning the Digitization of Rare Book and Manuscript Collections | Rare books and manuscripts | High level guidelines for image capture/assessment of collections for capture. No obvious mention of environmental concerns. | |
| Symbiota | Herbaria specimens | Digitisation workflow and data sharing guidelines. | |
| NDSA (National Digital Stewardship Alliance ) Levels of Digital Preservation | All | Tool to begin/reflect upon data preservation- useful in considering level of preservation from environmental perspective. | |
| DPC toolkits | All | Covers good practice, implementing new strategies, computation access and so on. No specific mention of environmental sustainability in all policies but DPC are very active in this area. | Website section here: Environmentally Sustainable Digital Preservation |
| ICCROM: The Sustainability Test: A Self-Assessment Tool for Evaluating Digital Sustainability | All | A report rather than guidelines. | ICCROM report, The Digital Imperative: Envisioning The Path To Sustaining Our Collective Digital Heritage mentions concern around environmental sustainability (2021) |
| BFI informed ingest and file management processes | Film | ||
| DFG guidelines | Works on paper | 2009 version, process driven. No obvious mention of environmental concerns. | |
| Canadian Heritage Information Network | Comprehensive guidelines from designing process to costing to preservation. No obvious mention of environmental concerns. | ||
| Europeana EDM | Data management | ||
| ISO digitisation standards | All | Comprehensive best practice guidelines from planning, processing, management systems and records disposition. Not fully available to me so unable to assess mention of environmental concerns. | Refers to the following: ISO 15489-1:2001, Information and documentation — Records management — Part 1: General ISO/TR 15801:2009, Document management — Information stored electronically — Recommendations for trustworthiness and reliability ISO 23081-1:2006, Information and documentation — Records management processes — Metadata for records — Part 1: Principles ISO 23081-2:2009, Information and documentation — Managing metadata for records — Part 2: Conceptual and implementation issues |
| Guidelines for the capture and management of digital zoological names information (2013) | Zoological | Guidelines for cataloguing specimens: taxonomic and nomenclatural data | |
| Biodiversity Information Standards TDWG | Zoological | Guidelines for cataloguing specimens: taxonomic and nomenclatural data | |
| Darwin Core | Metadata standards | Connected to Dublin Core | |
| In-house processes |