You have a digitisation plan, now what?

Now that you have an inventory and a Digitisation Plan, where to start? You have identified significant material in your plan and you know that you want to make it accessible to your community. You may have a limited budget. The information below will provide you with a basic start-up approach (budget friendly and easy) to digitising your Queensland memory materials.

Do-it-yourself basic approach for digitisation

Start with a digital camera and a computer.
Photograph your materials at highest resolution – highest number of pixels or dots per inch, look for a setting on your camera for TIFFs if possible.
Use SLQ Digitisation Standards [PDF 340kb] as a guide. It is very important to use standards. If digitisation does not happen to standard, access and long-term preservation may be limited.
Photograph handwritten letters, diaries, journals.
Photograph photographs if you don’t have the negatives.
Photograph artwork and objects from multiple views.
Think about a consistent way to file your digital images so that you can access your digital inventory once you are ready to move images from the camera to the computer. Look at SLQ file naming conventions [PDF 87kb] as a guide.
Be consistent with the way you describe the materials.
Know what metadata is and what you need to do to ensure that others have access with consistent metadata. Look at SLQ metadata standards [PDF 144kb]. Another good site to explore is http://hosting.collectionsaustralia.net/capture/course/standards.html
Ensure that you note copyright information and any rights restrictions.
Once you have stored your digital files on a computer, make sure that you have the files backed up on a portable hard drive, USB, or burn to disk.
Think about long-term access and preservation of your digital files.
Look at SLQ Digitisation Preservation Policy [PDF 70kb] for preservation standards.

Do-it-yourself basic approach for oral histories and digitising stories

Purchase a digital recorder, utilise .wav format if possible (born digital).
Consider interviewing those who have in-depth knowledge about your collection or community.
Turn existing interviews from cassette to digital by converting the format.
Use video recording equipment built in to most phones and computers to capture digital stories.
Ensure permissions are granted by interviewees and interviewers for online access.
Take a photo of interviewees.
Store files on a computer and backup files with a portable hard drive/USB/disk.
Remember that audio files can be quite large.
Check out SLQ Standards for oral histories and digital stories [PDF 340kb]