Content Partner FAQ

What’s a Content Partner?
Recollection Wisconsin Content Partners are cultural heritage institutions that share descriptive information (metadata) about their unique historical and cultural resources. Content Partners include university and college libraries, public libraries, archives, museums, historical societies, schools and other organizations from across Wisconsin. View a list of all of our Content Partners.

What types of content can my organization share with Recollection Wisconsin and DPLA?
Recollection Wisconsin collects metadata describing content related to state and local history as well as national and international topics. Formats include photographs, postcards, maps, letters, diaries, articles, books, artifacts, artwork, audio and video. See our Collection Policy for more information.

Why should my organization participate in Recollection Wisconsin and DPLA?
The easier it is to find your organization’s curated collections online, the more your organization and its community benefit.
Contributing to Recollection Wisconsin and DPLA:

  • Expands the reach of your collections to statewide, national and international audiences
  • Adds your community’s stories to the rich tapestry of American history
  • Enhances the information available about your collections

How can my organization participate?
See Partner with Us for more information, or contact us at info@recollectionwisconsin.org.

Can I post my personal collection of historical materials?
Recollection Wisconsin brings together digital collections contributed by collecting institutions, not private individuals. If you have a personal collection you’d like to share, we encourage you to connect with your local library or historical society to discuss options for providing access to your content.

What resolution should we use to scan our photos? How should we describe our images?
See our Digital Projects Toolkit for help in planning and implementing a digitization project.

How is content shared with Recollection Wisconsin and DPLA?
We partner with the UW-Madison General Library System to harvest metadata (descriptive information) and preview images (thumbnails) from Content Partners using OAI-PMH (Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting).

I added new content to my collection. Why am I not seeing it in Recollection Wisconsin or DPLA?
Metadata harvests to add new collections and update existing collections take place quarterly. That means it may take up to three months before new content or changes to existing content are available in the Recollection Wisconsin and DPLA search portals.

If it’s been longer than three months and you’re still not seeing your content, please let us know. If you are ready to start an initial harvest, have added a new collection to your server for harvesting or if there is a change in your server URL, please notify us at least one month in advance of the next quarterly harvest.

If we participate in Recollection Wisconsin and DPLA, who owns our content?
Ownership of digital objects and physical objects remains with Content Partners. Neither Recollection Wisconsin or DPLA store or claim ownership of digital objects from Content Partners. Users are referred to digital objects provided by Content Partners via URLs provided in Partners’ metadata.

All metadata provided to Recollection Wisconsin and DPLA by Content Partners is considered to be in the public domain under a Creative Commons Zero Public Domain Dedication. The CC0 Dedication is not applied to your digital content (photographs, documents, artifacts, etc.), only to the metadata used to describe it.

For more information, see our Copyright Policy and CC0 notification letter.

Where is our digital content stored?
Content Partners are responsible for managing their own storage of archival digital master files and access copies. Aggregated metadata and preview images are harvested and stored by the University of Wisconsin-Madison General Library System and by the Digital Public Library of America.

What can users do with our digital content?
Your content may be used for non-profit research or teaching purposes or other Fair Use as defined by Section 107, U.S. copyright law. If users want to copy, adapt, publish (including blogs or other publication for the web) or otherwise distribute your content, it is their responsibility to determine copyright status and obtain permissions for use. See our Terms of Use for more details.

I don’t see my question on this list. How can I find out more information?
For assistance, please contact us.