Digital Exhibits Guide

Images

We recommend that you search for images first in EXPLORE Chicago Collections for several reasons:

• They are guaranteed to be digitized and have standardized metadata
• Most already have display rights
• They are optimized for display online.  EXPLORE automatically scales images so they will work well for web display and not cause slow loading time

Once you find an image or images in EXPLORE Chicago Collections, use the metadata spreadsheet template to copy the metadata over. This will then be ready to import into Scalar as a bulk upload. Do note that you will need to link to the media files within EXPLORE. More information can be found in the Workflow for Uploading to Scalar.

If you find an image or images not in EXPLORE, you'll need to ensure that the file(s) meet some basic minimum requirements and gather a certain amount of required metadata.  See the next section, Using Media Not in EXPLORE, for information on contacting institutions directly and digitization and metadata standards.

When you've gathered all of your media files and metadata, go to the last section, Workflow for Uploading to Scalar, for instructions on bulk uploading this material to your Scalar media database.

Audio, Video, Text

Currently EXPLORE cannot store audio, video, or textual documents like books and newspapers, but this doesn't mean you can't use them in your exhibit!  It simply means that you'll need to find them on your own. If you'd like to use audio or video files or textual documents in your exhibit, you'll need to ensure that the file or files meet some basic minimum requirements and gather a certain amount of required metadata.  See the next section, Using Media Not in EXPLORE, for information on contacting institutions directly and digitization and metadata standards.

Requesting Materials from other Chicago Collections Members

If you would like to ask other Chicago Collections members for materials on a certain topic, please let your Digital Exhibits liaison know. They can advise you whether it would make sense to send out a standalone request to the entire community, or put the request in our quarterly newsletter to community members; or target specific institutions that have that type of material. As mentioned elsewhere, you will want to schedule plenty of time for the institution to process the request, so make sure to ask for materials early in the process.