Initiatives to Encourage Standards and Practices.

The DLF identifies, documents, endorses, and promotes adoption of standards and best practices that support the effective acquisition, interchange, persistence, and assessment of digital library collections and services.

DLF Electronic Resource Management Initiative, Phase 2

This project capitalizes on and extends the visibility and success of ERMI Phase 1 (below), with a particular focus on data standards, issues related to license expression, and usage data. more>>

DLF Electronic Resource Management Initiative, Phase 1

This project successfully developed common specifications and tools for managing the license agreements, related administrative information, and internal processes associated with collections of licensed electronic resources. more>>

Guide to Good Practice: Cataloging Standards for Describing Cultural Objects and Images

The review and evaluation of existing data content standards and current practice in order to compile a manual that may be used to describe, document, and catalog cultural objects and their visual surrogates. more>>

Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard (METS).

Refined and extended work on mechanisms for describing technical, structural, and administrative characteristics of digital objects. more>>

The Open Archives Initiative

An international initiative that is developing a technical framework for facilitating the efficient dissemination of content via the network. more>>

Z39.50

Z39.50 is an international standard search and retrieval protocol that has been widely adopted by libraries as a means of integrating access to information maintained in distributed databases. more>>

Archival Authority Control

Report of a meeting involving an international group of archivists to develop a standard encoding format for the recording and exchange of archival authority information. more>>

The Exchange of Serials Subscription Information

This new White Paper reviews the current state-of the-art, identifies opportunities and barriers, and presents several recommendations. more>>

Framework of Guidance for Building Good Digital Collections

The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) convened a forum to develop a framework for considering and promoting standards and good practices to guide the development of good digital collections. more>>

The Liblicense Model Licensing Agreement

The license attempts to reach consensus on the basic terms of contracts to license digital information between university libraries and academic publishers. more>>

TEI Text Encoding in Libraries

Recommendations pertaining to the application of the TEI Guidelines and particularly "best practices" for the encoding of electronic texts developed for different purposes. more>>

Methods to Evaluate the Quality of Images and Imaging System

Evaluate methods for evaluating the quality of images and image systems in order to determine whether common evaluation criteria might be developed to guide assessment in any domain. more>>

Guides to Quality in Visual Resource Imaging

These guides are designed to serve the growing community of museums, archives, and research libraries that are turning to digital conversion to provide greater access to their visual resources as well as to help preserve the original materials. more>>

The Making of America, Part II
Structural Metadata

This project focused on special collections and the linkages between encoded finding aid descriptions of the collections and digitized versions of collection objects. more>>

Making of America, Part IV
The American voice, 1850-1870

Although not a DLF project per se, MOA IV, establishes benchmarks and guidelines for the provision of online access to preservation-quality digital books. more>>

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