Best Practices

This page collects best practices from various institutional repositories which may assist in forumlating best practices/policies for members of Arca.  

Policy examples

BC repostiories

• Arca submission form template
• KORA Policies (KPU - Digital Commons)
• cIRcle Policies (UBC - Dspace)
• Summit Submission Guidelines (SFU - CONTENTdm, Islandora)

Other repositories

• Loyola E-Commons (Loyola University - Digital Commons)
• Apollo - University of Cambridge
• Open Commons @ UConn - University of Connecticut

Other resources

• OpenDOAR Policies Tool ("OpenDOAR has created this simple tool to help repository adminstrators to formulate and/or present their repository's policies. It provides a series of check boxes and pick lists for all the key policy options")

Digitization Best Practices

Arca does not have any formal guidelines for digitizing your materials, however some suggested best practices for digitizing images and documents are:

• Capture TIFF files, at a minimum resolution of 400 pixels per inch (ppi)
• Capture using 8-bit grayscale or 24-bit colour

For more details and information on other formats (audio, video, etc.) some suggested resources are:

• Association for Library Collections & Technical Services Minimum Digitization Capture Recommendations
• Federal Agencies Digitization Guidelines Initiative Draft Technical Guidlines for Digitizing Cultural Heritage Materials

​For a useful general overview of the digitization process:

• Northeast Document Conservation Center's Preservation 101 Online Textbook: Session 7 Digitization

Digitization companies in BC and the rest of Canada:

• This list of digitization companies was generated by BCLA members. Note that this is just a directory of available services; they are not necessarily recommended.