9 Guiding Principles - A Framework of Guidance for Building Good Digital Collections

According to the National Information Standards Organization (NISO), there are no absolute rules for creating good digital collections! 

NISO knows every digital collection-building initiative is unique, with its own users, goals, and needs. 

Ask The Experts
The National Information Standards Organization, a non-profit association accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), identifies, develops, maintains, and publishes technical standards to manage information in our changing and ever-more digital environment. NISO standards apply both traditional and new technologies to the full range of information-related needs, including retrieval, re-purposing, storage, metadata, and preservation.

NISO’s solution to a successful digital collection project is not to strictly and unquestioningly follow any particular path, but to plan strategically and make wise choices from an array of tools and processes to support the unique goals and needs of each collection.

Build a Framework of Guidance
NISO’s approach to building good digital collections is to provide a ‘Framework of Guidance’ offering the major components and activities involved in creating, identifying, organizing, and applying existing knowledge and resources to support the development of sound local practices for creating and managing good digital collections. While the initially intended audience was cultural heritage, and funding organizations that want to encourage the development of good digital collections, these guiding principles include fundamental precepts benefiting everyone with digital collections of images, photographs or objects.

The Framework of Guidance provides criteria for goodness organized around four core types of entities:

• Collections - Organized groups of objects. Includes 9 guiding principles. 
• Objects - Digital materials. Includes 6 guiding principles. 
• Metadata - Information about objects and collections. Includes 6 guiding principles. 
• Initiatives - Programs or projects to create and manage collections. Includes 6 guiding principles. 

9 Guiding Principles of Collections
This free PDF article of A Framework of Guidance for Building Good Digital Collections offers a complete insight into all of NISO’s guiding principles for digital collections. Here are the 9 specifically associated with ‘collections’;

A digital collection consists of digital objects that are selected and organized to facilitate their discovery, access, and use. Objects, metadata, and the user interface together create the user experience of a collection. Principles that apply to good digital collections are:

Collections Principle 1: A good digital collection is created according to an explicit
collection development policy.

Collections Principle 2: Collections should be described so that a user can discover
characteristics of the collection, including scope, format, restrictions on access,
ownership, and any information significant for determining the collection’s
authenticity, integrity, and interpretation.

Collections Principle 3: A good collection is curated, which is to say, its resources are
actively managed during their entire lifecycle.

Collections Principle 4: A good collection is broadly available and avoids unnecessary
impediments to use. Collections should be accessible to persons with disabilities,
and usable effectively in conjunction with adaptive technologies.

Collections Principle 5: A good collection respects intellectual property rights.

Collections Principle 6: A good collection has mechanisms to supply usage data and
other data that allows standardized measures of usefulness to be recorded.

Collections Principle 7: A good collection is interoperable.

Collections Principle 8: A good collection integrates into the users own workflow.

Collections Principle 9: A good collection is sustainable over time.

To learn more about the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) and its Framework of Guidance for Building Good Digital Collections, click here.

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Your photos and treasured documents are a vital link to the past. Digitizing them allows you to keep, protect, share & connect with them in new and exciting ways. Visit E-Z Photo Scan to learn more about the possibilities for achieving your digital preservation goals. E-Z Photo Scan is also part of the National Digital Stewardship Alliance and member of its Outreach Working Group.