Thank you for your interest in sharing digital images of historical photographs that you have in your personal collection. Even with the extensive collection of photographs preserved at the Institute for Regional Studies & University Archives, there are subject areas for which we lack images and are thus eager to add related images to our collection. By donating original prints or digital images you will be helping future researchers.
If possible, we encourage individuals to loan temporarily the original photographs to the Institute from which the staff would make digital copies. A courtesy copy of the digital images will be returned with the original images.
When the Institute for Regional Studies & University Archives accepts digital images created by individuals, it makes a commitment to their long-term preservation and their accessibility to the research public. As with all donations to the Institute for Regional Studies & University Archives, digital images must fit within our photography collecting policy. We reserve the right to retain permanently only those digital images that meet our collecting policy guidelines. Copyright issues also must be addressed, which may prevent us from accepting certain digital images.
In sharing digital images of historical photographs, you are agreeing that they are a donation to the Institute for Regional Studies & University Archives, and that they become the property of the archives. For each donation a deed of gift is prepared by the archives staff to be signed by the owner of the original photographs. It is also understood that the Institute will, in turn, make these digital images available to researchers and that digital copies may be made for a researcher if requested. Image that you donate may appear in publications, websites and other media.
Digitizing Guidelines
The Institute for Regional Studies & University Archives’ requirements in digitizing images likely are different than your immediate needs when scanning photographs. Thus we have developed the following guidelines outling our required benchmarks for the type of digital copies we will accept, together with the necessary documentation and donation information.
We would encourage you to contact the archives staff before digitizing any images that you intend to donate. You may use the contact links at the bottom of this page or send an e-mail to NDSU.Library.Archives@ndsu.edu.
Benchmarks for Digital Capture:
| Photographic Prints* | DPI | File Format | Bit-Depth |
| Smaller than 8 x 10 in. | 800 dpi | tif | 24 bit RGB |
| 8 x 10 in. or larger | 600 dpi | tif | 24 bit RGB |
*If image is on a cardboard mount, apply DPI criteria to the actual image not the entire mount.
| Photographic Film | DPI | File Format | Bit-Depth* |
| 35mm film & slides | 5000 dpi | tif | 24 bit RGB |
| Medium size film | 2000 dpi | tif | 24 bit RGB |
| 4 x 5 in. | 1000 dpi | tif | 24 bit RGB |
| 5 x 7 in. | 800 dpi | tif | 24 bit RGB |
*For black and white film use 16 bit grayscale
The entire photogaph print image, including any cardboard mount, must be part of the scan. This provides better contextual information for the image that would be lost if not part of the scan.
Photocopy of Original Image
If any information is recorded on the back of the photograph, a photocopy of the back and front should be provided with the digital scan. If the mount is too dark or the writing is difficult to read to prevent making a legible photocopy, please transcribe all printed and handwritten information from the back to the Information Sheet. We would appreciate reference photocopies for all original photographs that are scanned.
Information Sheet
Please complete our Information Sheet for each image scanned. This includes critical information that likely is not recorded on the image, but about which you may have knowledge. This data will be preserved and made part of the description record for the image that is shared with researchers.
To Contact Us
Consult our Contact Information page.