Recommended Resources

Minnesota State Archives

Electronic Records Management Guidelines
The Electronic Records Management Guidelines provide information on a variety of topics, such as file formats and file naming, electronic records management strategies, electronic document management systems, digital media, storage facilities and procedures, e-mail and web content management, and electronic and digital signatures.

Trustworthy Information Systems Handbook
The Trustworthy Information Systems (TIS) Project produced this Handbook, which details the TIS criteria set and a methodology to evaluate government information systems for trustworthiness.

Minnesota Recordkeeping Metadata Standard
The purpose of the standard is to facilitate records management by government entities by providing a standard set of metadata elements that address, among other things, access restrictions and records retention and disposition.

Metadata Resources
This annotated list of metadata resources provides links to various non-MHS sites.

Minnesota Digital Libraries Standards and Best Practices

These practices have been adopted by the Minnesota Digital Library, the MINITEX Advisory Committee, and the Advisory Council of State Library Services and School Technology, a unit of the Minnesota Department of Education. These documents were developed by the Collaborative Digitization Program's Metadata and Scanning Standards working groups, in which the Minnesota Digital Library Coalition participates.

• Collaborative Digitization Program Dublin Core Metadata Best Practices

• Collaborative Digitization Program Digital Imaging Best Practices

• Quick Reference Guide: Digital Imaging Best Practices

• Collaborative Digitization Program Digital Audio Best Practices

Digital Projects Guide

The following guide has been prepared by a working group of the MINITEX/State Library Services and School Technology Joint Standards Review Task Force in collaboration with the Minnesota Digital Library Coalition to provide a companion to the Western States Digital Standards Group best practices documents and to provide other information for organizations involved in digitization activity.

• Guide to Digital Projects

Other Resources

• Local History Blog - http://discussions.mnhs.org/MNLocalHistory/
  share ideas and information with colleagues and other professions working at local historical organizations.

• Techsoup - http://www.techsoup.org/stock/default.asp?cg=gsem&sg=npsoftware&visit=1 TechSoup Stock is the technology product philanthropy service for nonprofits. Their mission is to foster social change in two ways: by helping nonprofits to save money for mission-critical work when acquiring technology, and by helping nonprofits use this technology even more effectively.

• Common Craft Show - http://www.commoncraft.com/show
  Short videos which make complex ideas easy to understand.

• Canadian Heritage Information Network (CHIN) - http://www.chin.gc.ca/English/index.html
  CHIN's Mission is to promote the development, the presentation and preservation of Canada's digital heritage content for current and future generations of Canadians.