Central Registry for Digital Materials Now Available

The DLF/OCLC Registry of Digital Masters now provides a central place for library staff to search for, and find, digitally preserved materials.

As such, the Registry broadens access to your organization’s publicly-available digital books and journals. The Digital Library Federation http://www.diglib.org/ (DLF) and OCLC developed the Registry, which functions as a subset of WorldCat:  http://www.oclc.org/worldcat/default.htm.

To be included in the Registry, an item must be available in a digital format. Typical items include monographs and serials. A registered object ensures that the digital object (or soon to be digitized object) follows established standards and best practices for digitization and that the institution that digitized it has made a commitment to digital preservation of this object.

Benefits of the Registry

Adding records to the Registry of Digital Masters provides:

• Easier access to digital or to-be-digitized materials for staff
• The ability to find digital materials that are available elsewhere
• Assurance that there may be no need to digitize certain materials (If they are already in the Registry, you save resources and can direct your efforts to other materials.)
• Original credits for new records (or database enrichment credits for updates)

The Registry of Digital Masters also provides information about:

• Digital or to-be-digitized materials
• The level at which materials have been digitized-Is it adequate enough that another digital copy is not required?
• The institution responsible for the digitization

Guidelines for best practices

The Registry of Digital Masters is a joint DLF/OCLC venture. Members of both the DLF and OCLC are helping to establish best practices. Based on DLF functional requirements for both digitally reformatted and born-digital materials, guidelines for creating or editing records are available, providing Registry elements mapped to MARC 21 elements.  Also provided are: a few examples, a glossary and a "cheat sheet" of minimal requirements needed to create a Registry record.

Learn more about the guidelines and how to get involved: http://www.oclc.org/digitalpreservation/why/digitalregistry/getinvolved/default.htm

Learn more about the development of the Registry of Digital Masters:  http://www.diglib.org/collections/reg/reg.htm 

How to find Registry records

Search WorldCat: http://www.oclc.org/firstsearch/default.htm

 or the Connexion browser: http://www.oclc.org/connexion/interface/browser/default.htm

 to find digital items in the DLF/OCLC Registry.

To search for Registry records, use ac=dlr as a keyword search in WorldCat.

Connexion browser users may also find these items using ac=dlr in the Command line or dlr as a keyword search.

Before beginning

Before beginning work with the Registry of Digital Masters, decisions should be made about the standards used to digitize materials. To find out more about the Registry and how to get started, go to:  http://www.oclc.org/digitalpreservation/why/digitalregistry/default.htm.

(2005 02 11)