Native American Languages Collection Archival Best-Practice:
The Native American Languages collection accepts materials in a wide variety of file formats, including most types of analog media. The following sets of guidelines are meant to help those planning projects to employ digital media specifications that best comply with archival standards. The general guiding principals behind these standards are to avoid recording in highly compressed formats and to avoid proprietary formats.
For audio
The Native American Languages collection asks for master copies of audio files to be in WAV format, preferably with a sample rate of 96 kHz and a bit depth of 24. We also accept 44.1 kHz/16-bit. We make/accept access copies for easy online viewing and download in AAC format.
For video
Because there are so many file format options for video, and what is produced depends to a large extent on the equipment used, we ask that depositors make video recordings that are of the highest resolution and lowest compression possible, preferably in non-proprietary formats. We prefer MOV or QT formats, or raw video, and prefer access copies to be AVI files. Avoid, if possible, MP4, WMV, AVCHD, MPEG-1-4/H.264, and anything recorded in PAL. With respect to resolution and frame rate, video should be recorded anywhere between 24-30 FPS, and in HD (1920×1080) or better.
For documents
We ask for digital documents in the following formats: XML, PDF, PDF/A, TXT, and CSV. We also accept documents in DOC/DOCX, and PPT/PPTX if the depositor would like those files to remain in an easily editable medium.
For images
We ask that master copies of digital images be in TIFF format. We also create/accept PNG files as access copies. If you
Other formats
We also accept some file formats specific to language documentation software, namely EAF files produced by ELAN and FWBACKUP files produced by SIL Fieldworks (FLEx). If you have materials in other file formats which you think would be most useful to others in a format that does not appear on this list, please contact us to discuss options.
Digitization
We also have the capability to digitize various analog media types in-house, which are listed below. If you have older media which has Native language content and you would like digitized, but it is not on this list, contact us at language.samnoblemuseum@ou.edu and we can discuss options for getting your materials digitized.
Reel-to-reel
MiniDV
Cassette tape
Hi-8
CD
DVD
Vinyl Records (all sizes)
