Getting Started

Who can participate

Libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural heritage institutions from anywhere in Illinois that would like to contribute to the IDHH may share access to their digital collections’ metadata.

How to get started

If your digital collections are already part of CARLI Digital Collections or the Illinois Digital Archive, please speak with your contact at CARLI or the Illinois State Library to find out how to participate in the IDHH.

All other institutions who wish to contribute new items, including those who have already provided collections to the IDHH, should begin by completing the Contributor Agreement form and returning it to the IDHH Coordinator. Once the form has been completed, IDHH staff will work with your institution to gather technical information about your collections and metadata and begin testing. Once again, institutions that have already completed contributor agreement forms for collections already provided will need to complete new agreement forms for any and all new collections they wish to contribute.

New providers or current contributors whose OAI endpoints have changed should complete a technical information form and return it to the harvesting manager and metadata manager. This form provides IDHH staff with information they need to begin gathering and assessing your collections’ metadata.

How it works

Institutions provide their metadata to the IDHH, usually via OAI-PMH 2.0. If your institution’s system is capable of providing an OAI feed but you’re not sure how to set it up, we can help. If your system is unable to provide an OAI feed or if you’re unsure, we can also accept XML files. All metadata should be mapped to Qualified Dublin Core. If your metadata is not currently mapped to Qualified Dublin Core, the IDHH can work with you to begin the mapping process.

The IDHH uses the open-source application REPOX to harvest and aggregate collection metadata from all contributing institutions. DPLA then harvests a single stream of all aggregated metadata from the IDHH REPOX server for inclusion in the DPLA catalog.