NCS aims to help archives, libraries and museums to improve the conservation of their collections, whether it is by assessing and re-designing building environments, helping to store collections off-site, or improving planning and prioritisation of conservation needs.  From time to time we will develop new ways of defining what is good conservation management and, where support services are provided by third party companies, design methods to assess and approve those services, awarding them the NCS Quality Mark.

The first of these Quality Mark accreditations has been developed to cover digitisation projects and is aimed at supporting institutions who use third-party digitisation providers to capture images of all types of heritage collections. It covers the conservation qualities of a service providing digitisation of ‘hard copy’ materials (paper, books, art etc) but relevant elements may also be applicable when commissioning digitisation of machine readable formats. Digitisation providers who wish to demonstrate that their services protect heritage during copying will be able to apply for this NCS Quality Mark designation and NCS will list and promote them on its website as Quality Mark compliant.

Institutions considering out-sourcing a digitisation project can download the new digitisers' quality standard here.  Its contents may be used in whole or in part when specifiying or commisssioning contractors, referring to the NCS Quality Mark document or clauses from it as desired.

NCS Quality Mark Digitisation Service Providers 2019 PDF

Digitisation service providers wishing to be assessed against this standard and awarded the NCS Quality Mark should contact us on enquiries@ncs.org.uk  A form to apply for the accreditation will soon be available.