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Illinois Digital Archives
Collection Development Policy

Mission and Collection Criteria:

The collections of the Illinois Digital Archives (IDA) are created and maintained as shared resources for the citizens of Illinois as well as others accessing them via the Internet, in accordance with the mission of the Illinois State Library:

"The Illinois State Library promotes excellence in information access and innovative services for government, libraries and people."

The collections in IDA support access to local history materials and other significant collections in libraries, museums, archives and related cultural heritage institutions in the State of Illinois. To acquire such content for IDA the Illinois State Library provides grant funds to Illinois libraries and their partnering organizations that have developed robust plans to digitize these materials and make them freely available through the Internet.

Collections included in IDA must meet these essential criteria:

Copyright: All materials made available through IDA must be in the public domain or the contributing institution must have the copyright owner's permission to make the material openly available. Each contributing institution is responsible for maintaining documentation of ownership and/or digitization rights for their digital collection(s).

Ownership: IDA collections are made available for educational and fair use purposes but the Illinois State Library does not claim ownership of the content in the digital collections in IDA, excepting materials contributed by the Illinois State Library. Ownership of the digital content in the IDA collections remains with the contributing institution.

Technical Standards and Quality Control: Institutions contributing content for IDA collections are responsible for the technical quality of the digital objects, and accuracy of the metadata and finding aids for their collection(s). All collections contributed to IDA should be created, organized, and maintained according to best practices recommended or adopted by the Illinois State Library. Contributors should adhere to technical standards for digitization and metadata that provide the highest image quality and most comprehensive access points for items in their collections.

Digital collections may be in a variety of formats including but not limited to: manuscripts, diaries, letters and published text; visual images such as photographs, postcards, maps, art reproductions, and illustrations; audio or video; and representations of 3-D items. Top priority will be given to these materials, for inclusion in IDA.

Materials in other formats - including but not limited to: yearbooks, telephone directories, city directories, school report cards, and similar resources - will not currently be considered for inclusion in IDA.

Resources:

• Illinois State Library Digital Imaging Best Practices (http://www.cyberdriveillinois.com/departments/library/who_we_are/bestpractices.html)
• Library of Congress Technical Standards for Digital Conversion of Text and Graphic Materials (http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/about/techStandards.pdf)
• National Digital Library Program: Digital Formats for Content Reproduction (http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/formats.html)
• National Archives and records Administration: Technical Guidelines for Digitizing Archival Materials for Electronic Access (http://www.archives.gov/preservation/technical/guidelines.html)

Preservation: The preservation of both the digital master and the original analog material is the responsibility of the contributing/owning institution. Digitization, as currently practiced, does not meet preservation standards. Digitization is not a substitute for preservation of original materials, although it may contribute to preservation efforts by minimizing handling of the originals. IDA provides storage space for access images and metadata, and provides periodic back-ups of this data. Storage of master digital images is the responsibility of the contributing institution.

Accuracy: The accuracy of data, facts, and information contained in the digital collection are the responsibility of the contributing institution.

Accessibility: The Illinois State Library encourages access to the digital collections for the visually impaired. Such access should be planned for and implemented whenever possible and may include, but is not limited to: audio descriptions of individual images or audio transcription of text documents.

The Illinois State Library advocates compliance with accessibility standards developed as part of the Web Access Initiative of the World Wide Web Consortium (http://www.w3.org/WAI). Conforming to these standards is the responsibility of each contributing institution. IDA does not guarantee that all collections or sites linked to by collections will comply with these accessibility standards.

Duplication of effort: Materials that are available publicly in digital form elsewhere, at the level of quality required by IDA, will not be considered for inclusion in IDA unless the materials have added value through audio description of images, audio transcription of text or other enhancements.

Collection Development Criteria

Content selected for IDA, by all contributors, should meet these criteria:

• Materials documenting the history of Illinois and especially rare or unique materials are a high priority." Materials have strong, immediate yet persistent interest and research value within Illinois and beyond.
• Photographic representations of the original are acceptable for inclusion in IDA, providing the image is at the level of quality required.

Content selected for IDA, by the Illinois State Library, should meet this additional criteria:

• Materials published by the State of Illinois are the highest priority

Technical considerations for materials selected for IDA:

• Materials must display well, in digital form, using current, readily available technologies.
• Oversize or barely legible items require extremely high resolution and/or true color representation. These items may not be suitable for inclusion in IDA.
• Delivery of digital content to users, with reasonable speed, may be affected by file size and network capacity.
• Care must be taken during the digitization process to protect original materials from damage.

Removal Policy

A collection may be removed from IDA, at the discretion of the Illinois State Library, in case of one or more of the following conditions:

• Proven violation of copyright laws
• Inaccurate information, facts or data
• Collection content is not consistently available and reliable
• Collection or its content is no longer available or free to the public
• Collection does not conform to standards and/or recommended best practices for digitization and metadata established by the Illinois State Library

The collection publisher will be notified of this decision in writing.

Policy Review

The Illinois State Library will review and revise this policy annually in order to incorporate changes in technology or statewide collection goals.