All content types

Still Image

Resources predominantly visual in nature, such as two-dimensional visual arts (drawing, painting, graphics, photographic prints and negatives, plans), manuscript books and archival documents, early printed books, or books printed in alphabets or fonts for which Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is cannot be implemented.

Minimum Specifications

* The resolution should be calculated from the dimensions of the object.

** Whenever possible, capture at 48-bit RGB (for color, monochrome, objects with stains or marks) and save at 24–bit RGB.

Textual

Resources that are expressed through a form of notation intended to be read, especially printed documents (books, serials, pamphlets, posters, broadsides, etc.) for which OCR (Optical Character Recognition)-extracted text should be provided as an output of the digitization workflow.

Minimum Specifications

* The maximum size for PDF files shlould not exceed 100 MB.

** The resolution should be calculated from the dimensions of the object and the size of the text. For large text, 10pt or higher, 300 PPI should suffice. A document with smaller text, 9pt or lower, may require 400-600 PPI.

*** Whenever possible, capture at 48-bit RGB (for color, monochrome, objects with stains or marks) and save at 24–bit RGB. Or capture at 16-bit grayscale (for most objects where color is not a concern) and save at 8-bit grayscale. Use 1-bit bitonal for clean, high-contrast documents with printed type only. 

Audiovisual

Audiovisual materials at Yale University Library include analog audio and video formats, digital audio and video formats, and film. Below is a chart showing AV preservation format recommendations YUL is considering adopting in accordance with a consulting report submitted by Audiovisual Preservations Solutions in June 2013. Two competing standards are currently in use at YUL: (1) uncompressed 10-bit video, which results in large files, and (2) mxf-wrapper motion JPEG 2000, which is not 100% open source.

Minimum Specifications

3D Objects

Objects, artifacts, and three-dimensional works of visual art encountered in archives, galleries, and museums (medals and badges, physical evidence from legal archives, some works of art).

Although the Yale Library collections include three-dimensional objects (such as artists’ books in the Arts Library Special Collections, or globes in the Map Collections), guidelines for this format type are to be developed at a later time.

Born Digital

Born-digital materials arrive at Yale University Library from a variety of sources. Curators at different libraries acquire data tapes, floppy disks, CD-ROMs or hard drives from donors. Staff in different Yale offices transfer born-digital records to University Archives. Researchers work with staff at Marx Science and Social Science Library to preserve their datasets. The file formats and genre of these materials vary widely.

Born-digital objects should be preserved in their native file formats whenever possible. In addition, different preservation master copies and/or access copies may be created. The format of these copies will vary depending on the needs of staff and researchers, the library’s digital preservation policy, and available resources. Guidelines about preferred file formats may be developed at a later date.

Minimum Specifications