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Collage of equipment and objects used in Stanford's digitization labs
Stanford Libraries

Digitization Services

Welcome to Stanford Libraries Digitization Services website! Here you’ll find information about our services, our labs and equipment, documentation of our process, special projects we’ve led over the years, and the people who power digitization for Stanford Libraries. 

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Digitization Services for Stanford Libraries 

We digitize library collections in support of research, teaching, and learning for the Stanford community.

We offer high quality digitization of library collections across a wide range of formats using state of the art equipment. We can digitize books, maps, medieval manuscripts, photographs, artworks, 3D objects, audio, video, films, CDs and floppy disks. Just to name a few.

Our service areas include patron requests, project-based digitization, systematic digitization, and management of outsourced digitization projects.

Learn more about each of our labs by following the links below.

A rare book is open and placed under glass on a v-shaped book cradle. Computer screens on other side display images of the book pages that have been scanned.

Digital Production Group

Visit the Digital Production Group's page to learn more about digitizing print materials

Green Library's west entrance, with Centennial Court fountain in the foreground, on a sunny spring day

Accessing digitization services

To request digitization services as a library patron, please visit the digitization service page on the Stanford Libraries website. In some cases, we may charge a fee for our digitization services. Review our rate sheet to learn more. 

Stanford Libraries staff may visit our internal Digitization Services page for detailed information on accessing project-based digitization. 

We are unable to provide digitization services for non-library collections.

Standard delivery formats

The table below describes the file specifications we produce and deliver for standard research requests. If your project requires different specifications or additional outputs -- such as for an exhibit, media production, or print/web publication -- please let us know in advance.
Type of requestStandard delivery format
ImageTIFF or PDF
AudioFormat: M4A 
Bitrate: 160 (mono) or 320 (stereo) kbps
Moving ImageWrapper: QuickTime (MOV) 
Pixel aspect ratio: 640x480 (SD) or 1280x720 (HD) 
Video format: H.264/MP4 
Video bitrate: 1100-2800 kbps
Born Digital (Disks, Drives) * .dd (raw disk image) or .ad1 (logical disk image), text file documenting recovery process, .csv file listing, JPEG images of media, and recovered files

In addition to generating high quality digital surrogates of the original item, digitized items are accessioned into the Stanford Digital Repository, making them discoverable (findable) in SearchWorks (Stanford's Libraries' online catalog). 

Digitized items receive a PURL (a persistent URL) to ensure that these materials are available from a single URL over the long-term, regardless of changes in file location or application technology. Images are delivered via the Mirador viewer, and all images are IIIF compliant. 

Web Accessibility

Stanford University is committed to providing an online environment that is accessible to everyone, including individuals with disabilities. 

Having trouble accessing any of this content due to a disability? Learn more about accessibility at Stanford and report accessibility issues