Library Digital Collections

Digital Content Policies

Three distinct but related policies govern content selected, accepted, and managed by UC San Diego Library. The Digital Collections Development Policy covers digital collections and objects transferred to or created by the Library. The Research Data Collection Policy is a parallel policy governing research data collections generated by the UC San Diego research community and curated by the Research Data Curation Program. The Digital Preservation Policy governs preservation practices around digital collections stewarded by the Library, with the goal of ensuring access to authenticated content over time.

  1. Digital Collections Development Policy
  2. Research Data Collection Policy
  3. Digital Preservation Policy
  4. Library Preferred File Formats

1. Digital Collections Development Policy

Document Status: Final

Prepared by: Laurel McPhee (Chair), Marlayna Christensen, Cristela Garcia-Spitz, Tori Maches, Scott McAvoy, Laura Schwartz, and Annelise Sklar

Reviewed by: Digital Collections Group, Digital Steering Committee and RDC Program with opportunity for public comment by all Library digital committees.

Approved by: Digital Steering Committee

Date Approved: December 2021

Revision Cycle: 3 years

Last reviewed: December 2021

Next Revision: December 2024

1.1 POLICY SUMMARY

This document describes the policies governing the selection, acquisition and curation of the UC San Diego Library's unique digital collections.

1.2 DIGITAL COLLECTIONS PURPOSE

The UC San Diego Library collects, describes, manages, preserves, and provides access to unique digital resources in support of its mission to support research and learning. This policy addresses the development and management of digital collections for which the UC San Diego Library is the primary custodian.

1.2.A SCOPE

For the purpose of this policy, a digital collection is defined as an aggregation of unique digital objects managed collectively and based on provenance, function, or subject that has been transferred to or created by the Library, regardless of carrier or format. This includes digital content found in or related to University or organizational archives, personal papers and manuscript collections, visual materials, exhibits and event documentation, reformatted content and transformations, audiovisual recordings, and web archives.

This policy excludes other types of electronic resources collected, preserved or disseminated by the Library, such as:

1.2.B PRINCIPLES

Through its digital collections, the Library affirms the University's commitment to the advancement and dissemination of knowledge in a facilitative, accessible, inclusive environment. Through its diverse digital collections, the UC San Diego Library seeks to:

1.2.C AUDIENCE

The UC San Diego Library digital collections serve a broad audience, including:

1.3 SELECTION CRITERIA ðŸ”¼

The Library's unique digital collections are acquired, managed and preserved through the collaborative work of many librarians, staff, and programs in the Library. Individual expert subject, format, or service providers in the Library may utilize their expertise to make an initial recommendation to determine if content is in scope for collecting. The Digital Collections Group and the Digital Library Steering Committee are the collection development and management bodies, respectively, that approve acquisitions and oversee policies regarding collecting and preserving digital content.

1.3.A GENERAL SELECTION CRITERIA

Selection is based on traditional academic collection development principles, including: relevance to research and learning; originality and uniqueness; authority; timeliness; breadth and/or depth of coverage; anticipated use, or current demand; and support of UC San Diego Library's established distinctive collections.

Managing digital materials and ensuring their accessibility over time is a highly collaborative and resource-intensive process. Accordingly, the Library's selection of digital materials may also be influenced by:

1.3.B CURATORS AND SELECTORS

UC San Diego Library staff have varying degrees of responsibility for collecting and managing digital collections. "Curator" or "selector" is a role rather than a specific individual, and it is understood that, over time, different individuals will fulfill this role for specific collections and subject areas. They ensure sound stewardship of collections and appropriately manage these digital objects over the long-term through the following:

1.3.C COLLECTING STRENGTHS

In accordance with stated selection criteria, the Library collects digital content to support learning and research through additions to distinctive areas of excellence, while also seeking content in diverse and emerging growth areas. The following subject areas reflect the Library's current collecting strengths and places where further development is particularly sought. Materials on other topics that meet the Library's selection criteria may also be considered.

1.3.D COURSEWORK AND STUDENT WORK

The UC San Diego Library encourages robust participation in the California Digital Library's eScholarship® repository, which provides scholarly publishing and repository services that enable departments, research units, and individual scholars associated with the University of California to have direct control over the creation and dissemination of the full range of their scholarship. As an institutional repository, eScholarship provides open access to student research and scholarly works.

In general, student work and coursework produced for classes and seminars should be deposited in eScholarship and will not be acquired by the Library. Exceptions may be granted for special curated collections, and must be approved by the Digital Collections Group.

Students responsible for research data are encouraged to contact the Research Data Curation Program for a full range of Library services and support, including deposits and preservation.

1.4 DONATIONS, DEPOSITS & TRANSFERS OF DIGITAL COLLECTIONS ðŸ”¼

The UC San Diego Library accepts donations of unique digital materials and records of enduring value in accordance with Library collection development policies. All digital gifts must follow the Library's gift policy. All digital gift material covered under the scope of this policy, regardless of format, will be evaluated by a subject specialist and the Digital Collections Group, and when necessary, a technologist.

Digital materials are often easy to copy, duplicate, and share. The Library discourages donations of material that fall into the categories below. Exceptions may be approved in consultation with the appropriate curator/selector and the Digital Collections Group.

Donations are accepted with the understanding that all materials become the property of The Regents of the University of California; deposits are subject to the terms of deposit agreements. Donors and depositors will be asked to document the transfer of materials with a signed agreement, or transfer form (for University Records). A deed of gift is a formal legal agreement between the donor and the Regents which transfers ownership of the materials. The Library will not attempt to process, preserve, or make available digital content if explicit authority to do so has not been transferred to the Library.

1.4.A ACQUISITION AND POST-ACQUISITION PROCESSING

The Library is currently equipped to do the following upon acquisition:

The Library is committed to responsibly stewarding digital collections in its care and ensuring appropriate levels of preservation, description and access. The means of access to digital records are subject to change as tools for preservation and discovery evolve over time. Technological limitations and other dependencies that may prevent the Library from preserving or providing access to files include, but are not limited to:

1.4.B RIGHTS MANAGEMENT

Rights management, licensing, and access provisions are essential elements of the acquisitions process for digital collections. Creators and their agents should consider not only what they are donating or transferring, but how users will discover and engage with the content, including open access and ability to download. The Library's digital collections are developed to support research, teaching, and learning, but openly available content may be used by anyone in the world.

Rights and Licenses

In many cases, digital content owners hold copyright to their material and this designation stays with the donor after the license agreement and/or deed of gift is signed. The standard license agreement allows the UC San Diego Library to display, reproduce, and sublicense the work to provide access and facilitate long-term preservation. In some cases, donors or content creators transfer ownership completely to the Regents of the University of California.

Access to Digital Collections

The Library strives to make digital collections as openly available as possible, without restrictions. Digital collections managed in the Library's Digital Asset Management System (DAMS) with a public access setting can be found on the Digital Collections website. Digital collections may be ingested into the DAMS with more restrictive settings, as well, for example: limiting access to the UC San Diego community; displaying descriptive text only (downloading not permitted); or requiring users to register and request mediated access through the Library's Virtual Reading Room service. Materials with restrictions may not be viewed and downloaded by the general public (for example, as results in a Google search), but are still discoverable through catalog records and finding aids.

Publishing with Digital Collections

The Library's digital collections are intended to support research, teaching and private study under fair use. All items are protected by the U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.) unless they are in the public domain. The copyright status for objects on the Digital Collections website is displayed in the item record. To request permission to publish or obtain a reproduction of a particular item, contact us.

Commercial Licensing

The Library will evaluate all requests for commercial reuse of digital objects, and may extend permissions based on existing rights documentation. Digital objects found on the Digital Collections website are generally identified as being made available by the UC San Diego Library (a general designation), or one of two programs within the Library: Special Collections & Archives, and Research Data Curation. Requests for reuse can be directed to the program director of the unit responsible for curation of the object, with Scholarship Tools & Methods (STM) representing the broader unit of the UC San Diego Library. Questions may be escalated to the AUL for Scholarly Research Services (AUL-SRS).

1.5 REFORMATTING ðŸ”¼

The Library selectively plans and engages in digitization projects, creating digital surrogates of Library-owned materials via scanning or reformatting. Reformatting projects are subject to the same selection criteria as all digital collections. Project plans for digitization will reference all existing metadata and access points and identify strategies for enhanced description and discovery. These projects typically fall into one of the following categories:

1.6 DEACCESSIONING

Deaccessioning is the process of formally removing an object from the inventory of a repository. This may be by returning it to the depositor, transferring the content to another repository, or by permanent deletion.

As a vital and growing component of the Library’s research collection, the Library’s digital collections are subject to active assessment and revaluation, which may result in deaccessioning. Library staff may recommend removal (deaccessioning) or suppression (restriction from public view) of content within the Library’s digital collections following a reappraisal process. Material may be deaccessioned for routine maintenance reasons (i.e., a digital object is discovered to be a duplicate, or a high-res scan is replacing a lower-quality object), or following a reassessment of the value of a collection in light of selection criteria. Reasons for the recommendation must be clearly stated in writing. Routine maintenance requests may be approved by Program Directors. Deaccession requests based on an intellectual reappraisal of content require review by the Digital Collections Group, with final approval required by the AUL for Scholarly Research Services (AUL-SRS). Full consideration will be given to retaining content, to provide the opportunity for future reevaluation.

Deaccessioned material will be treated in one of the following ways:

Note that the Library’s Digital Collection Takedown Policy governs process and policy for outside requests received to remove or suppress access to content.

🔼


2. Research Data Collection Policy

Document Status: Final

Prepared by: Ho Jung Yoo, David Minor, Sibyl Schaefer

Reviewed by: Digital Collections Group, Digital Steering Committee and RDC Program

Approved by: Digital Steering Committee

Date Approved: February 2022

Revision Cycle: 3 years

Last reviewed: February 2022

Next Revision: February 2025

2.1 POLICY SUMMARY

This document describes the policies governing the acceptance and management of the UC San Diego Library's research data collections.

2.2 PURPOSE

The UC San Diego Library collects, describes, manages, preserves, and provides access to digital resources in support of its mission to support research and learning. This policy addresses the development and management of research data collections for which the UC San Diego Library is a primary custodian.

2.2.A SCOPE

For the purpose of this policy, a research data collection is defined as an aggregation of digital materials that has been curated by the Research Data Curation Program, regardless of carrier or format. This includes research datasets, software, visual materials, audiovisual recordings, documents, and other research output generated by the UC San Diego research community or sponsored by UC San Diego.

This policy governs research data collections curated by the Research Data Curation Program. For policy covering other digital materials transferred to or created by the Library, refer to the Digital Collections Development Policy. UC San Diego researchers also have the option of depositing content to Dryad through services maintained by the California Digital Library (CDL). Content deposited to Dryad is governed by policies set by the CDL.

2.2.B PRINCIPLES

The Library affirms the University's commitment to the advancement and dissemination of knowledge in a facilitative, accessible, inclusive environment. Through its research data collections, the UC San Diego Library seeks to provide research data curation services to the UC San Diego community to enable long term stewardship, access, and preservation for research outputs. The Library aims to:

2.3 ACCEPTANCE CRITERIA

The Library provides a repository service for campus and considers all research data generated by UC San Diego affiliates or funded through awards sponsored by UC San Diego to be eligible for deposit. Beyond this requirement, acceptance will largely depend on the size of storage needed, i.e., larger collections will require greater discussion about value for reuse than will smaller collections, due to their impact on resources. The Library is permitted to store data under University of California Protection Levels 1 or 2 (see UC Protection Level Classification Guide), but not under Protection Levels 3 or 4. 

2.4 RIGHTS MANAGEMENT ðŸ”¼

The research data collections are intended to support research, teaching and private study under fair use. All collection items are protected by the U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.) unless they are in the public domain. Copyright assignment to submitted material complies with guidelines set by the University of California Policy on Copyright ownership. This content is typically licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. The copyright status and license (reuse permissions) for collection items are displayed in item records.

2.4.A DEPOSIT TERMS

Research data submissions are subject to the Deposit Terms of Agreement, which depositors will be required to sign. The Deposit Terms of Agreement allows UC San Diego to display, reproduce, and license the work to provide access and facilitate long-term preservation. The Library will not attempt to process, preserve, or make available digital content if explicit authority to do so has not been transferred to the Library.

2.4.B ACCESS TO RESEARCH DATA COLLECTIONS

The Library strives to make research data collections as openly available as possible, without restrictions. Research data collections managed in the Library’s Digital Asset Management System (DAMS) with a public access setting can be found on the Digital Collections website. Under limited circumstances, research data collections may be ingested with more restrictive settings.

2.5 TAKEDOWN POLICY

The Library’s Digital Collection Takedown Policy governs process and policy for requests received to remove or suppress access to content.

🔼


3. Digital Preservation Policy

Document Status: Final

Prepared by: Sibyl Schaefer (Chair), Tori Maches, Laurel McPhee, Jack Neves, Ho Jung Yoo

Reviewed by: Digital Preservation Committee, Digital Collections Group, Digital Products Group, Digital Steering Committee

Approved by: Digital Steering Committee

Date Approved: November, 2021

Revision Cycle: 3 years

Last reviewed: November, 2021

Next Revision: November, 2024

3.1 INTRODUCTION

The UC San Diego Library’s Digital Preservation Policy supports sustainable access to and use of select digital collection content for the foreseeable future. This document is intended for users of the UC San Diego Library, for all librarians and staff that manage and work with digital collections, and for those who donate or deposit material to the Library. The purpose of this policy is to:

For the purposes of this policy, “digital preservation” is defined as the combination of policies, strategies and actions to ensure access to reformatted and born digital content regardless of the challenges of media failure and technological change. The goal of digital preservation is the accurate rendering of authenticated content over time.(1)

The UC San Diego Library follows a practice of active preservation with the aim of ensuring the authenticity, reliability, and integrity of the digital collection assets entrusted to and under their care, while attempting to provide usable versions for research, teaching, and learning. The digital preservation of items in the UC San Diego Library’s care is key to the Library's mission "to advance the University’s educational, research, and public service objectives by providing the UC San Diego community the world-class information resources and services it needs – expertly managed and expediently delivered."(2)

Digital preservation is a constantly evolving practice due to new and emerging technologies. Therefore, this policy is subject to change.

3.2 SCOPE

UC San Diego Library’s digital preservation activities are intended to preserve the digital collections of the Library. This includes content that originated in digital form (born digital) and content that has been converted to digital form through digitization. UC San Diego Library is responsible for acquiring, providing the means to preserve, and ensuring long-term access to the Library’s digital collections. Not all of the digital content the Library acquires or creates can be preserved, due to technical dependencies or limited resources. Long-term preservation is subject to the Library’s selection criteria and archival appraisal of the content for long-term retention. For more information about content that the Library may acquire, please refer to the Digital Collections Development Policy and the Research Data Collection Policy.

3.3 PRINCIPLES

Preservation activities at the Library adhere to the following principles:

3.4 LEVELS OF PRESERVATION ðŸ”¼

The Library has outlined levels of commitment to preserving different categories of materials, with the understanding that digital preservation is a complex, ongoing, and resource-intensive task.

1 - Born-digital material: Rigorous effort will be made to ensure continued access to born-digital material selected for long-term preservation.

Note: Some born-digital material collected by the Library is stored on obsolete media, encoded on obsolete systems or formats, or is otherwise difficult or impossible to access. Appropriate efforts will be made to recover and evaluate this material for preservation, with the understanding that recovery may not be possible due to the condition of the materials, or technical or resource limitations.

2 - Digitized material (no analog available): Every reasonable effort will be made to preserve digitized material where no analog versions exist, or where re-digitization is not feasible. This also includes digitized materials with value-added features that would make them difficult or impossible to recreate, and digitized audiovisual materials.

3 - Digitized material (analog available): In many cases, the analog version will be considered the preservation copy. Appropriate steps will be taken to preserve digitized material where an analog version is available, weighing the cost of re-digitization against the cost of long-term preservation. Digitized materials will be created in file formats conducive to long-term preservation.

4 - Licensed or commercially available material: The Library is not responsible for preserving licensed or commercially available material. However, preserving content included in the scope of this policy may involve maintaining copies of commercial material such as proprietary software.

5 - Other material: No steps will be taken to preserve material created by the Library for short-term use (i.e. scans for digital delivery), material that is not selected for preservation, and material not included in the scope of this policy.

3.5 KEY CHARACTERISTICS OF DIGITAL OBJECTS FOR PRESERVATION

In order to ensure long-term access to digital collections that UC San Diego Library stewards and/or owns, the Library prioritizes key characteristics of digital objects for preservation. These characteristics must be preserved over time in order to ensure continued accessibility, usability, and meaning. The key characteristics of digital objects are:

3.6 PARTNERSHIPS AND COLLABORATION ðŸ”¼

Many digital preservation activities and projects involve partnerships and collaborations. The UC San Diego Library is committed to collaborating within the Library, across campus, within the University of California, nationally, and internationally in order to: lead the advancement and practice of digital preservation, advance the development of the Library’s digital preservation capabilities and offer sustainable preservation services through Chronopolis.

3.7 ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Digital preservation reaches across different functional areas of the Library, and directly includes content creators and their representatives, depositors and researchers.

3.7.A CONTENT CREATORS AND DEPOSITORS

Campus faculty, departments, and offices, and other members of the campus community; other content creators; and representatives or heirs of content creators who are licensed to act on their behalf; and vendors (such as booksellers).

3.7.B LIBRARY PROGRAMS AND STAFF

Programs and employees responsible for acquiring, preserving, and/or providing access to digital materials.

Special Collections & Archives Program

Research Data Curation Program

Scholarship Tools and Methods Program

Metadata Services Program

Subject Specialists

Technology and Digital Experience Program

AULs and Program Directors

Committees

3.8 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The UC San Diego Library consulted a variety of digital preservation policies and would like to acknowledge the following:

(1) Definition from the ALCTS Preservation and Reformatting Section, Working Group on Defining Digital Preservation, https://www.ala.org/alcts/resources/preserv/defdigpres0408.

(2) Mission statement from The Library, UC San Diego 2015-18 Strategic Plan

(3) A digital object is defined as: “An entity in which one or more content files and their corresponding metadata are united, physically and/or logically, through the use of a digital wrapper. See also complex digital object, simple digital object.” California Digital Library. Glossary of Digital Library Terms. https://cdlib.org/resources/technologists/glossary-of-digital-library-terms/#D

(4) PREMIS Data Dictionary for Preservation Metadata, v3.0. June 2015, revised November 2015. https://www.loc.gov/standards/premis/

🔼


4. Library Preferred File Formats

UC San Diego Library recommends the use of certain file formats to support long-term preservation of digital content. As file format specifications and usage trends change over time, it can be challenging to find the necessary applications to open files, and some formats will become difficult or impossible to read. Choosing formats with better chances of survival facilitates long-term preservation of your files.

Although it's not possible to create a definitive list of format recommendations for all use cases, this list provides general guidelines to use as a starting point when creating or migrating files. While we will make our best effort to preserve your files, please use the recommended formats where possible, or other formats with open (not proprietary) specifications and/or in wide use. Also, be careful with digital rights management (DRM) tools, as these can make it difficult or impossible to access your files in the future.

If you have any questions, or your files are in a format that is not on this list, please contact the Digital Preservation Committee at Library_Digital_Preservation_Committee@ad.ucsd.edu to discuss options for preserving your files.

Although this policy lists file extensions for convenience and ease of recognition, the policy applies to file formats, with file extensions serving as proxies for format.

Format Category Preferred Acceptable
Audio
  • wav / bwf
  • aif / aiff
  • mp4a
  • mp3
  • flac
Containers/Archive File Formats
  • zip
  • gzip
  • tar
  • 7z
  • tgz
Databases
  • siard
  • sqlite
  • dBASE (dbf)
Design and 3D
  • x3d
  • E57
  • ply
  • obj
  • gltf / glb
  • stl
  • stp / step
Email
  • mbox
  • eml
  • pst
  • msg
Geospatial
  • GeoTIFF (tif)
  • GeoPackage Encoding Standard (OGC) Family (gpkg)
  • ESRI Shapefile (making sure all component files are present) (shp, shx, dbf)
  • GeoJSON
  • KML / KMZ
  • GML
  • ESRI Database file
Images (raster)
  • tif / tiff (uncompressed)
  • png
  • jpg / jpeg
Images (vector)
  • odg
  • svg
 
Presentations
  • PDF/A (pdf)
  • pptx
  • pdf (other than PDF/A)
Software/code * Consult with Digital Preservation Committee.
Tabular and Structured Data
  • csv
  • tsv
  • NetCDF
  • HDF5 (hdf)
  • xlsx
  • HDF4 (hdf)
Text
  • plaintext (e.g. txt, asc)
  • PDF/A (pdf)
  • odt
  • doc (97-2003)
  • docx
  • pdf
Text (structured)
  • xml
  • json
  • html, css
  • LaTex (tex)
  • md
Video
  • dpx
  • avi (uncompressed)
  • mov
  • mp4
  • mkv
Websites and social media * Consult with Digital Preservation Committee.

🔼


For questions about the content or rights of our collections, please see the Statement on Historical Context & Cultural Sensitivity in Collections and Take Down Policy.