Glossary

Aggregation: The formation of a number of things into a cluster; in particular the process when links and data from data records are gathered from multiple sources and organisations to form a single database.
Born digital: Materials that originate in digital form and which, in their original form, require a digital device to be utilised. Collection examples may include emails, word documents and digital photographs owned by private collectors or members of the community, or digital manuscripts and photographs held in state organisations..
Cloud storage: (Definition from Techopedia) Cloud storage is a cloud computing model in which data is stored on remote servers accessed from the Internet, or “cloud.” It is maintained, operated and managed by a cloud storage service provider on storage servers that are built on virtualization techniques.
Collection digitisation: The process of capturing an analogue collection item in a digital format and enabling an organisation to use that digital material in a variety of ways. Digitising a collection occurs when the analogue collection item is converted to an electronic or digital format or version.
Collection management system: Collection management systems (CMS) are software programs used to organise and manage items in a collection. They range from simple spreadsheets and common database programs to specialist proprietary products. CMS securely record information such as object location, provenance, curatorial information and conservation reports; some also act as an online sharing platform.
Digital access plan: A digital access plan sets out details such as what will be digitised, the resources and equipment needed, and how it will be made accessible to the public.
Digitisation: Digitisation is the process of converting an item from the existing analogue format to also exist as a digital format. The new version is referred to as ‘turned digital’. Some material held in collections is what is known as ‘born digital’, meaning that it never existed in physical or analogue format.
Discoverable: Discoverability or discoverable data are items that can be discovered via search engines or within a website by users who use both broad or specific terminology when browsing. Note this is different to searchability or searchable data.
DPI (Dots Per Inch): Dots per inch denotes the physical dot density of an image when it is physically reproduced, for example being printed to paper.
GLAM: GLAM is an acronym that refers to galleries, libraries, archives, museums (and historical societies). GLAM organisations may be large or small, operated by volunteers or paid employees, located in the centre or suburbs of a capital city, or in country towns and villages. The term also refers to any other organisations that care for collections of any kind, including Returned Services Leagues, sporting clubs, Indigenous keeping places and natural science collections.
Metadata: (Definition from State Archives and Record NSW) Metadata is the structured data about data: the who, what, where and when. There are two types of metadata: the technical aspects and the descriptive information. Metadata brings context to digital files and helps make them ‘discoverable’ when searching online.
PPI (Pixels Per Inch): Pixels per inch refers to the pixel density (or resolution) of an image when an image is displayed on an electronic device, such as a computer monitor.
Searchable: Searchability or searchable data are items that can be specifically searched for. This is often depended on users generating correct terminology to find an item rather than it being discoverable by a user.
Significance: ‘Significance‘ can be used to identify and prioritise collection items for digitisation by considering the item’s historic, artistic or aesthetic, scientific or research potential and social or spiritual significance. Other factors to consider are the provenance, rarity or representativeness, condition or completeness and interpretive capacity of an item.
Turned digital: Materials that were created in analogue or physical form and later converted to a digital format.