Purpose

The following guidelines apply to storing and sharing various media types including, but not limited to, photos, videos and music. Library employees may not store personal files, electronic or hard copy, on library premises (SH 620 Staff Use of Library Property and Services). MLS must employ these guidelines in order to keep the storage space and back up time at reasonable rates.

Guidelines

1. Storing
   
   1. Location
      
      1. Copyright laws must be followed when saving media files
      2. Photos, videos and music must be saved on computers in these directories only and will not be backed up to the server.
         
         1. photos saved to the “my pictures” directory
         2. videos saved to the “my videos” directory
         3. music saved to the “my music” directory
      3. Do not save media files to a "shared" or "Z" drive unless it is for an employee that is working from two locations (or two computers) and the files must be there for a very temporary time or they will be purged
      4. Do not circumvent this process by placing the files in another folder. Photos or videos that you want backed up must be burned to DVDs.
   2. Sizes and Amounts
      
      1. The combined total of media files on your computer must not exceed 30 gigabytes.
      2. Files older than 2 years old need to be either burned to a DVD drive or deleted.
      3. When saving photos:
         
         1. Always eliminate duplicates
         2. Select the best photos in a series and delete the remaining
      4. When folders become too large and/or full use one or more of the following approaches to reduce the size:
         
         1. Resize the files
         2.  Burn the photos to a DVD right after moving them from the camera to the computer
            Delete outdated files (not just photos & videos)
      5. The computers and these directories will be checked periodically and if they exceed that combined total they will be purged.
2. Sharing
   
   1. The Library System will maintain an option for uploading photos for sharing with other departments and for potentially using for publicity by the Marketing Department.
      
      1. For use in publicity materials, photos and videos must be of a high quality with a resolution of 300dpi. For use on the web it must not be any larger than 72dpi.
      2. For uploading media to an account such as the MLS flickr site, employees must contact the Manager of Web Development and Support to understand & use the MLS naming convention (see SH 620.4 Guidelines of Employees’ Use of Public Internet Communication).