The Northfield History Collaborative (NHC) will host a Managing your Digital Collection workshop in Carleton College’s Weitz Center May 15, with registration starting at 8 a.m.

Attendees should RSVP by contacting Kristin Glomstad (507-645-9268, glomstad@northfieldhistory.org) by May 13.

As digital collections of photographs, papers, and other documents continue to grow in personal and professional collections, questions have arisen about long-term care — from optimizing organization to backing up your files, this workshop will have answers for you.

In a session titled “Cover you bytes and pieces! Fundamentals of preservation for digital material,” Carleton College Digital Archivist Nat Wilson will present the basic techniques for digital preservation, including recommended file formats, backup strategies, and suggested metadata fields. A follow-up session by Joe Hoover from the Minnesota Historical Society will look at some commonsense approaches to balancing time, money, volunteers, and skills to make digitizing on a shoestring budget possible while still meeting museum-quality standards.

The workshop also will look at economical ways to digitize photos, documents, books, and magnetic media, plus how to shoot photos of 3D objects and preserve your digital assets.

The main goal of the NHC, a committee of the Northfield Historical Society, is to digitize and make accessible Northifeld-area history.