Digital Archiving Cheat Sheet

Before You Begin

  • Choose 2-3 objects that you would like to publish on your site

Naming Conventions

  • Establish a file naming convention for all files associated with an object. Files will typically include an image file (.jpg, .png, etc.), a transcript file (.docx, etc.), and an audio file (.wav, .mp3, etc.)
  • The three files must have the same name because this will link them together on the webpage
    • For example:
      • Photo: 2025-05-31-0001.jpg
      • Audio Recording: 2025-05-31-0001.mp3
      • Transcript: 2025-05-31-0001.docx
    • Note that the only distinction is the file extensions (.jpg, .mp3, .docx)
  • Choose a naming convention that is easy to remember for you and your community members. If you have something established for image files of an object, you can carry that same naming convention to the other files.
  • If you need more support, visit our documentation page.

Transcripts

  • Generate a transcript from the oral history recording
  • You can use voice-to-text options on Google Docs or Microsoft Word to help you generate the transcripts.
  • If you need more support, visit our documentation page

Photo Editing

Photos and other forms of visual culture (a broad category that encompasses images, art, objects, and other everyday visuals) contain a lot of information. For memory preservation, archivists try to retain as much of that visual information as possible, and photography is one tool for doing so. Summarized below, these fundamental photo editing and naming techniques will help you to make your digital archive legible to future generations and people outside of your community.

You may have multiple images of an object—choose the best photo of the object. Determine if the image of the object you will share on the community digital archive needs to be edited in any way.

If you need more support, visit our documentation page.

TIP: Think of yourself as a photojournalist who is communicating information through photography, not an artist who is expressing themselves.

You can edit photos without downloading any external software, such as Photoshop. These external links explain how to edit photos:

Photo Editing Do’s & Dont’s

DO

  • Crop your image to focus on the subject, edit out distracting objects (but use your best judgment)
  • Save as .jpg or .png
  • Blur out sensitive material such as mailing or email addresses
  • Rotate the photo to make horizon lines and other straight lines straighter and to gently crop it
  • If you are taking a photo of a scrapbook page, capture the whole page (to show the arrangement of photos) rather than making individual photo files for each of the photos on the page

DON’T

  • Don’t use filters
  • Don’t save as HEIC or PDF
  • Don’t edit, crop, or blur out the image so much that it becomes misleading
  • Don’t use photos from the internet or other sources that do not come from you, your collaborators, or the participants in the history harvests
  • Don’t disrupt the aspect ratio (that is, don’t stretch or shrink your image; sometimes this is mistaken for cropping)
  • Don’t undo assemblages of photographs made in photo albums or recipe books, for example

Remember that every detail in a photograph or a photo of an object—the framing, subject, any signs of damage, use of color, posing, etc.—opens new avenues for asking questions that lead to remembering the past and/or research. Your aim should not be to make the photos “beautiful,” but rather to honor their complexities by striving for objectivity in your editing. Always use your best judgment and remember that your approach for editing your archive can also be analyzed, not just the photograph itself.

Metadata

  • If you have not yet, copy our metadata spreadsheet to your Google Drive
  • Think about some of the following questions:
    • What would you call this item?
      • Also, what kind of item is it (photo, journal, jewelry, etc.)?
      • This information would populate the title and type fields
    • Who created this item and when?
      • This information would populate the creationdate and author/contributor fields
    • Is it like any other items that you have?
      • Keeping this in mind will help you come up with grouping/browsing categories for your items once you have created metadata for the bulk of your items.
    • If you’re unsure of any of the answers, “Unknown” is fine
  • Using those answers, fill out the format, title, author, contributor, creationdate, type, and categories fields
    • These fields are required for the webpage to build correctly
    • Note: for the format field, use one of the following:
      • photo : if the item you are posting is a photograph
      • document : if the item you are posting is a journal, newspaper article, etc.
      • media : if you are uploading audio or video
      • outsidelink : if you are linking to a social media post, digital article, etc.
  • The itemID field should reflect the first part of your file name, e.g.
    • 2025-05-31-0001.jpg => 2025-05-31-0001
    • Make sure to include this information so you can easily track the items that you have already described for publication.
    • It also helps you reference the items if you need to verify or add metadata.
  • Optional: Fill out the remaining fields to the best of your knowledge

For more on metadata, see our documentation.