Digital Initiatives: Services for the Public

Consultation

Digital Initiatives will offer guidance and resources on such issues as:

• Starting a digitization project
• Digitization standards and best practices
• Creation of metadata
• Choosing the appropriate software and hardware
• Digital preservation and personal digital archiving
• Copyright
• Digital collection management (including file naming and organizing)

Have additional questions that are not on this list? Uncertain about scanning or scanner settings? Feeling overwhelmed with your digital project? Digital Initiatives is here to help! Consulting can take place by email, over the phone, or in-person (at the ND State Library via appointment). To get started, contact Digital Initiatives.

Digital Collections

The digital collections of the ND State Library are publicly accessible and searchable online on Digital Horizons. The collections contain thousands of items (photographs, documents, objects, etc.) relating to the history and culture of North Dakota and the Great Plains, as well as state government. The ND State Library supports open access to its digital collections and strives to allow users to access and search high-quality representations of the original items.

Resources

Digital Initiatives provides resources on topics such as genealogy, hardware & software, oral histories, archiving & preservation, copyright, digitization, and much more!

ScanDay

• ScanDay
  • ScanDay is an event hosted with or in libraries (public, academic, school, special, etc.) across the state, in which Digital Initiatives staff from the ND State Library bring scanning and photography equipment to a community and digitize photographs, documents, objects, etc. from the collections of local institutions and private citizens. After digitization, the items are returned and each participant is given a flash drive containing digital copies of their items.
  • Members of the public are welcome to attend any local ScanDay.
  • If you would like to see a ScanDay event in your community, encourage your local library to contact Digital Initiatives to set one up.
  • If you are unable to attend a ScanDay but would still like to contribute materials to the ND State Library's online archive, contact Digital Initiatives to discuss options.
• Virtual ScanDay
  • This is a spinoff program of ScanDay. It was started during the COVID-19 pandemic as a way for citizens and organizations to contribute copies of their items to the North Dakota Memories collection. It has since been made into an ongoing program/ service.
  • The only caveat (and this is the biggest difference from a traditional ScanDay) is that items must be digitized already. Digital Initiatives will not travel to a local library and scan the items for you. For example, items (like photographs) need to be in a digital format (like JPEG or TIFF) in order for them to be virtually submitted.

Training

Digital Initiatives provides many different training opportunities. Some of these come directly from the North Dakota State Library, and others come from a variety of reputable sources. These trainings also come in different formats (such as webinars, workshops, tutorials, guides, presentations, etc.).