Guidelines: Content Categories & Digitization Objectives: Reformatting
Historical Printed Matter, Documents and Manuscripts, and Pictorial Materials
— Content Categories Overview
Still Image Working Group

Also see Content Categories and Subcategories table and Explanatory Notes.

Content Categories Overview

T —Textual and illustrated printed matter (books, journals, manuscripts, some maps). Visual-arts elements of limited significance and generally consisting of printed halftones, line art, explanatory tables and drawings, and the like.

PR — Visual/pictorial items (photographs, prints, some drawings and paintings, some maps). Generally greater visual-art significance than category T. Two-dimensional, many with continuous tone images (and occasional halftones). Viewed by reflected light.

PT — Photographic negatives and transparencies. Significant visual-arts elements. Viewed by transmitted light.

AR — Special-purpose images produced by reformatting aerial, medical, and scientific images, architectural and engineering line drawings and blueprints, where the originals are viewed by reflected light.

AT — Special-purpose images produced by reformatting aerial and medical images, where the originals are viewed by transmitted light.

3D — Objects, artifacts, and three-dimensional works of visual art encountered in archives, galleries, and museums (medals and badges, physical evidence from legal archives, some works of art). See also category SPA.

SPA — Specialized imaging of works of art and other objects and artifacts. For future development. To include such examples as two-and three-dimensional works, art in a frame, items with and without gilding, three-dimensional objects in history and science museums, etc.

SPR — Special-purpose imaging for research and analysis (multi- or hyper-spectral, X-ray, other technologies). In libraries and archives with a cultural heritage emphasis, this category pertains to the creation of specialized images for the analysis of the physical properties of item the institutions' collections. This category is also a placeholder for the large and important category of born-digital (i.e., not reformatted) scientific and medical imaging, carried out by a number of federal government agencies. For future development.

Working Groups

Still Image Working Group
This group is involved in a cooperative effort to develop common digitization guidelines for still image materials.

Audio-Visual Working Group
The goal for this working group is to identify, establish, and disseminate information about standards and practices for the digital reformatting of audio-visual materials by federal agencies.