New Provider Readiness
Do you have digital collections publicly available on the web? If your institution holds physical collections that it would like to digitize, you may contact the Illinois State Library for information on Digitization Initiative Grants.
Is your institution able and willing to provide permission for the IDHH and DPLA to harvest and publish your collections’ metadata?
Do the collections you wish to contribute meet with the DPLA’s Collections Development Policy? The following materials are generally not accepted by the DPLA:
- Scholarly materials, such as electronic theses and dissertations, academic journals, and/ or articles
- Finding aids or archival collection guides
- Embargoed, hidden, or restricted items. (Note that the IDHH can omit any restricted items within a collection if they are flagged in the metadata. Work with us to find out how.)
Are your collections a part of the Illinois Digital Archives or CARLI Digital Collections? Otherwise, can your online digital collections be shared through an OAI-PMH feed or XML files?
Is your metadata Qualified Dublin Core (DCMI Terms)? If not, we can work with you to map your metadata locally.
Do each record in the collections you wish to contribute include the following metadata?
- a unique web-accessible URI (a link to the item in the Illinois Digital Archives, CARLI Digital Collections, or your institution’s own digital collections system)
- title field
- a valid rights statement
- name of your institution
Does your digital collections system provide thumbnails for each item?
Does your institution have a specific staff member who can work with the IDHH on any issues related to contributing your collections’ metadata? This is not a requirement but please let us know if the contact person for metadata and harvest issues is different from your institution’s main contact.
This document was adapted from PA Digital's Readiness Checklist. Thanks to PA Digital for developing this document and fostering re-use.