Digital Publishing Best Practices

General considerations

• Copyright​
  • Do not publish copyrighted material: always find licensing information for images and media you use and make sure you have permission.
• Accessibility​
  • Use alternative text, high-contrast font colors, and heading/list structures to make your content accessible to users with disabilities. The WAVE tool is a great resource for testing.
• Privacy & Permission​
  • Never publish a person’s photo, name, or any personal information without their consent. Make sure all collaborators are represented the way they wish.​
• Credit & Attribution​
  • Always credit the source of media and data that you use, including museums and libraries holding primary source material, and individual creators if relevant.
  • Include metadata, links, and a bibliography/works cited page if relevant.
• Design & Style​
  • Think about your audience: try to make the presentation eye-catching and easy to understand.
  • Information should be organized in a logical manner.​
• Reviewing
  • ​Test your site on different browsers and devices.
  • Have someone else view and interact with your content if possible and build in time to fix any issues.​
• Writing
  • Remember that you are writing for an audience. What context do they need to understand your work? What can you do to make their experience as seamless as possible?

Using media

• Always be careful about whose content you put on website: only use resources you have the right to use.​
• Look for material in the public domain or using a Creative Commons license that enables reuse. ​
• Assume images are in copyright unless they say otherwise
• Cite your media! Include attribution of the photographer, the source, and the license information​.

Finding rights-free media

• Wikimedia Commons: user-contributed media without known copyright
• Creative Commons search: you can search by license type
• Unsplash, Pexels, Pixabay: professional quality stock photo repositories, free to use with attribution
• Museum and library collections: institutions such as Library of Congress, The Met, The Getty, and more have resources in the public domain

Metadata

“Metadata is a love note to the future” (Rachel Lovinger, “Metadata is a love note to the future”, 2015)

• Creator/author: person(s) who created the work – photographers, writers, artists, directors, etc.
• Date: when it was created (even approximate)
• Title: what is it called (even if it’s long)
• Format: book? jpeg? Painting?
• Rights information/license: is it in copyright? Is it public domain? Creative Commons? Fair use? What legal terms govern its use on your site and elsewhere?
• Source: where did you get it and/or where is it found - museum/archive? Collection? Wikimedia?
  • Include multiple if relevant (ie Amsterdam Museum of Art via Wikimedia Commons)
    • Link to item record if possible
• Identifier:
  • DOI, call number, accession number: any unique string that distinguishes it