About This Program
In order to promote and support the responsible and trustworthy management of the Library’s vast digital collections, the Digital Collections Management and Services Division (DCMS) of the Library of Congress works to identify, collocate, document, and coordinate guidance across the Library’s various departments of collection custodians. Guidance may be developed from policies, guidelines, best practices, and specifications that govern the Library’s digital collections management activities. These pages present the resulting product of this coordinative work: the Digital Collections Management Compendium (DCMC). In some cases, this effort identified already-written and implemented policies or guidance from separate offices; in other cases, it surfaced practices that were implicit within existing systems but not documented through policy or guidelines; and in yet others, the guidance represents a summary or overview of common practices across Library units. To the extent possible, the DCMC aims to draw together or summarize relevant, high-level guidance and policy that forms the Library’s digital collections management practices.
The DCMC is managed by the Digital Content Management Section (DCM) within Digital Collections Management and Services Division (DCMS).
Digital Formats
Learn about the Library’s approach to managing digital file formats over time.
Inventory and Custody
Learn about how the Library inventories and allocates custodial responsibilities for digital content.
Access
Learn about the Library’s approaches to providing access to digital collections content.