The following criteria also apply to digital donations.
Born Digital and Media Formats Accepted
The Carnegie Library is committed to providing long-term access to the digital works held by the archive by adhering to digital preservation best practices. The level of preservation support provided for a donation is determined by the file format in which it is donated. Software, hardware and file format obsolescence is a complex issue with outcomes that are difficult to predict. This includes the future ability of the library to convert obsolete file formats without any loss to the ‘look and feel’ of the original material.
Staff will advise donors in creating, converting, and depositing items of the quality necessary for full information capture and the highest degree of preservability over time. Converting items to proper format (below) will be the donor’s responsibility and expense. In addition to current industry standards for media types, staff will also consider floppy disks, reel to reel tapes, hard drives, etc. on a case by case basis provided that suitable technology to read the original and convert it to the appropriate modern format is available to the archive.
- The number of digital images per donation may be limited to 25 items.
- Appropriate descriptive, administrative, structural, technical and preservation metadata must be submitted with donation.
Born Digital and Media Formats Accepted
The Carnegie Library is committed to providing long-term access to the digital works held by the archive by adhering to digital preservation best practices. The level of preservation support provided for a donation is determined by the file format in which it is donated. Software, hardware and file format obsolescence is a complex issue with outcomes that are difficult to predict. This includes the future ability of the library to convert obsolete file formats without any loss to the ‘look and feel’ of the original material.
Staff will advise donors in creating, converting, and depositing items of the quality necessary for full information capture and the highest degree of preservability over time. Converting items to proper format (below) will be the donor’s responsibility and expense. In addition to current industry standards for media types, staff will also consider floppy disks, reel to reel tapes, hard drives, etc. on a case by case basis provided that suitable technology to read the original and convert it to the appropriate modern format is available to the archive.
| Donation Type | Preferred File Type | Alternative File Type |
|---|---|---|
| Photos | TIFF | JPEG 2000, JPEG |
| Audio/Video | MP4, WAV | MP3 |
| Documents | PDF/A, PDF | Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Powerpoint |