Resources
We have created a series of short “how-to” guides to help venues identify, organise and preserve their artefacts and materials. The results of our questionnaire helped us to identify priority areas for these resources. We have initially chosen to focus on the most common types of materials help by venues, including photographs, ephemera, social media and websites.
How-to guides
Getting started with your digital archive
How to digitise physical photos and ephemera using a smartphone
How to archive your websites and social media
How to digitise text-based documents with a smartphone scanner (coming soon)
How to add descriptive metadata to your digital images
How to choose the right file formats for your files
How to organise your digital archive
How to store your digital archive
How to maintain your digital archive (coming soon)
If you have used one of our guides, we would love to hear your feedback. Please get in touch with any comments, suggestions, or requests for future guides.
Other recommended resources
We will be adding more “how-to” guides soon. In the meantime, explore recommended resources on a range of topics and challenges below. Please get in touch if you’d like to suggest an addition to this section.
General resources
Manchester Histories, Creating your own archive
Book Bunk, How to build a personal archive
The British Library, Introduction to Digital Archiving
Denver Art Museum, How to Preserve and Archive Digital Photos, Videos, and Documents
University of Westminster, Managing your personal digital archive
Audio-visual materials
Library of Congress, Transferring Video from Tape, DVD or Camera to Your Computer
University of Michigan Library, Best practices for producing quality digital video files
Kara Van Malssen, Digital Video Preservation and Oral History
Maintaining your archive (digital preservation)
Community Archives and Heritage Group, Digital Preservation for Community Archives
Digital Preservation Coalition, Digital Preservation Handbook
Digital Preservation Coalition, Novice to Know-How training