Become a Contributor

If you are a California institution with historical and cultural heritage materials (records, manuscripts, artifacts, data sets, or other primary sources), consider contributing to DSC. We’re committed to making it easy for institutions of all sizes and with varying technical infrastructure to publish digital records and items.

Benefits

Contributing is free and offers several benefits to institutions:

• Materials contributed to DSC appear alongside thousands of other resources in the OAC and Calisphere, making for a rich user experience for scholars, teachers, students, and the general public.
• We provide ongoing data consultancy and technical support, helping contributors develop strategies and implement tools to best create, submit, and manage their digital content.
• We help contributors reach an even broader audience by facilitating the export of their content to other access points such as OAIster and ArchiveGrid.

How to Start

1. Review our Collection Policy [PDF]

2. Complete a one-time Contributing Member Application and Collection Profile Form [DOC] and return it to us at ingest@cdlib.org.

3. A CDL representative will contact your institution to review the information that you provided and discuss the services we offer.

4. Once your institution is established as a contributing member, the primary contact will:

• Be subscribed to the Calisphere/OAC listserv for communication updates.
• Receive a voroEAD account, which can be used to submit EAD collection guides for publication in the OAC. The account will also provide access to your institution's collection usage and extent statistics. Primary contacts can request additional accounts for staff by contacting the CDL at oacops @ cdlib . org. Please specify names and complete contact information.

5. Complete a CDL/UC Libraries Digital Assets Submission Agreement [PDF] and an associated CDL/UC Libraries Digital Assets Submission Inventory [RTF] (the latter will be partially prepared by your CDL representative, based on your initial discussions):

• Prepare two copies of the Agreement, indicating either license option 3.1 or 3.2 (choose one option only). Each copy must be signed in original by a representative who is authorized to enter into legal agreements for your institution (e.g., the director of your institution).
• Complete the copy of the Inventory prepared by your CDL representative.
• Send the documents to us at the following address:

  California Digital Library
  ATTN: Licensing Department
  415 20th Street, 4th Floor
  Oakland, CA 94612-2901
  

• Upon acceptance, we will countersign and return one original copy of the Agreement.
• Additionally, e-mail a copy of the completed Inventory to your CDL representative.