Caring for Paper Collections is an AASLH Continuing Education recorded webinar. This webinar is about suitable housing supplies, environmental parameters for storage, proper labeling techniques, and safe handling techniques.This event is presented by Samantha Forsko. Paper artifacts are sensitive materials that require special housing to ensure their longevity. Common issues with condition and identification of different types of damage will also be discussed.

Caring for Photograph Collections is an AASLH Continuing Education recorded webinar. This webinar is about suitable housing supplies, including paper, plastics, interleaving papers, boxes, and more. Photographic media are sensitive materials that require special housing to ensure their longevity. Environmental parameters for storage, proper labeling techniques, and safe handling of photographs will also be discussed.

The How-Tos of Digital Collections Management is an AASLH Continuing Education recorded webinar. This webinar is about the process of selecting which collections to digitize, policy and strategy development, and caring for digital collections regardless of whether they are born digital or reformatted. This event is presented by Leigh Grinstead and is part of the StEPs Lab Webinar Series. This is StEPs Lab 11.

Do your organization’s collections hold a treasure trove of photographs, correspondence, diaries, scrapbooks, oral histories, videos and other materials that contribute to the rich interpretation of your mission?  Many organizations are interested in digitization for collections preservation and increased access and sharing. But knowing where to begin with digitization is difficult for even the most sophisticated museum, archive or library.

Whether your organization is new to digitization or it has been digitizing materials for years, it is critical that you have guidelines, policies and strategies in place to prioritize the work. The other issue of equal—and sometimes even larger concern—is what to do with collections that originate in digital form, known as “born digital.” How do you evaluate and assess those collections?

Join us for the webinar, “The How-Tos of Digital Collections Management,” presented by AASLH’s StEPs program. Guest speaker Leigh Grinstead will walk us through the process of selecting which collections to digitize, policy and strategy development, and caring for digital collections regardless of whether they are born digital or reformatted. Leigh will highlight organizations that can model good practices in each of these three subject areas. She will also discuss lessons learned by organizations that made early mistakes but managed to “right the ship” and transition to a successful digitization program.

How to Plan Your Digitization Project is an AASLH Technical Leaflet. AASLH Technical Leaflets are brief, practical guides on how to do history. Technical Leaflet #246 by Leigh A. Grinstead tackles outlines the steps necessary to undertake a digitization project, from considering audience and funding to the continued support and sustainability of the project. Digitization projects require research and feasibility studies just like any other museum project. Grinstead emphasizes understanding audience and collaboration for increased access to the digitized content. This leaflet explains the necessary steps for planning a digitization project and how to manage the workload rather than the technical tools for creating a digital database.

Copyright Issues, Rights Management, and Licensing Programs for Digital Collections is an AASLH Technical Leaflet. AASLH Technical Leaflets are brief, practical guides on how to do history. Technical Leaflet #251 by Fred Poyner IV provides a detailed explanation of the difference between born digital and digitized collections and the laws applied to these two distinct types of content. As more museums digitize their collections, new questions surrounding copyright laws continue to surface. Poyner explains the current copyright law, the application of fair use, and how to license collections. The "Licensing Collections" section provides step-by-step instructions for licensing content within collections by first defining the rights of the collection and finally investigating and enforcing violations of the copyright.