This section of the Toolkit is all about access. Who will access the digital content you’re creating or acquiring? Where and how will they access it, and for what purpose? The appropriate level of access may vary depending on the content. You might share some items openly online with no restrictions. Other materials might be made available to certain researchers on-site only, due to copyright considerations, cultural protocols, or other factors.

SHARE: BRONZE LEVEL

Choosing a Collection Management System

There is an ever-growing number of options for providing online public access to digital collections. Sharing items on Facebook or Instagram, adding them to a blog or webpage, or loading them to the Internet Archive are all ways to get your digital materials in front of more people. But adopting a Collection Management System (CMS) — a software program to organize, manage, and share your digital files and metadata — will give you the most control, flexibility, and reliability into the future.

Some questions to consider when choosing a CMS^[1]:

• How long has the system been around? Is it used by other organizations similar to yours?
• Is there a trial or demo version available for you to try out?
• What infrastructure is needed to install and run the system? For instance, will you need a local server or a cloud hosting provider?
• Will the system work on your computer stations? Some programs don’t run well on computers with little working memory.
• Will the system support your chosen metadata standard? Can the metadata fields be customized?
• Can you import existing files and metadata into the system?
• Can you perform batch edits across multiple metadata records?
• Can you export files and metadata if you choose to migrate to a different system?
• What kind of support is available? Can you ask or pay an organization to fix things for you? Is there a large community using it, and support potentially found there, such as through a user forum or email list?
• What are the costs for the system, both up front and ongoing?

See Appendix E: Choosing An Online Platform for Audiovisual Materials for more A/V-specific information.

SHARE: SILVER LEVEL

Restricting Use

A common question we hear is how to share digital items online in such a way that they can’t be downloaded or shared without permission. Ultimately, it is impossible to fully prevent someone from copying or saving your images if they wish to do so.

However, there are several strategies an organization can undertake to mitigate this concern:

• Use a small-sized, lower-quality image (access copy) for public sharing
• Add watermarks to digital images
• Add a code or plugin to your website to disable right-click saving
• Post a Creative Commons license that requires users to credit the source of the material and does not allow for commercial use or making changes^[2]

SHARE: GOLD LEVEL

Web Content Accessibility

Making your digital content accessible to all potential users means putting in place tools and features to make web content available to people with disabilities. For instance, a user who is Deaf or hard of hearing may make use of text transcripts of audio or video recordings. A user who is blind or visually impaired may rely on a screen reader to access websites.

Web accessibility is a complex issue. A few core features you can implement to improve the accessibility of digitized archival materials and historical resources are described below.

Photographs, postcards, and other visual images:

• Provide concise and meaningful text descriptions of all visual items. You can put these descriptions in a “Description” field in your metadata. Or, for images included on a web page, put the description in the alt attribute (alternative text) within the HTML <img> element. For example, a picture of a house with two people in front of it might have the alt text “log cabin in rural Wisconsin with two people standing in front of it, circa 1880s.”
• If there is text in an image that is important for understanding the meaning of the image, like writing on a storefront or a photographer’s handwritten title, transcribe that information and include it in the description.

Book pages, articles, letters, diaries, and other texts:

• Use OCR software to generate a searchable transcript of any printed text. OCR may be a feature of your CMS or your scanning software, or you can use a program such as Adobe Acrobat.
• Create a searchable transcript of any handwritten text in a text file or pdf.
• When creating new digital documents, such as a handout or meeting agenda, use properly nested headings to create an outline of the content. Add bullets or numbers to any items in a list, and if using tables, make sure row and column headers are clearly labeled.

Oral history interviews, performances, or other recorded sound, video, or film:

• Provide transcripts of audio recordings. Transcriptions may be auto-generated using speech-to-text recognition software, created by volunteers, crowdsourced, or outsourced to a vendor.
• Provide captions for video content. Include text-based descriptions of non-audio content as well as captions for spoken words.