VITA FAQ

VITA (Video, Image, Text and Audio) is a web based toolkit for building, managing and displaying digital collections. VITA lets you upload digital objects and create full descriptions then display them with sophisticated search, browse, and other interactive features for users and end users. Every object is made available on a hosted customizable site created specifically for your organization’s collections. Explore the features and functionality of collections built using VITA by clicking here.

VINTA (Video, Image, Newspapers, Text and Audio) is everything VITA plus full run newspapers. VINTA lets you upload every manner of digital object. See our sample sites here.

VITA has many features and functions for users and administrators including:
Video, image, text and audio file display and hosting
Full metadata record creation for enhanced access to your history
Embed YouTube videos for content hosted elsewhere
Index your newspapers
Add full run digitized newspaper issues
Add linked indexing for registers and other non-newspaper volumes
Geographic mapping using Google Maps
Interactive features like electronic postcards, posing mystery questions and user comment forms
Add reverse and detail images for any record to display in the IIIF viewer
Create and feature exhibits
Manage public and non-public groups of records
Create interactive timelines
Encourage and feature user contributions
And it’s easy to use!

Every record created in VITA that is made public can be discovered through a locally branded website and via search engines like Google. Every item in your collection gets lots of exposure, and so does your organization.
Ontario organizations' content automatically flows into the OurOntario.ca portal and Ontario News Portal.
Other regional portals are also available such as the Illinois Newspaper Collection or talk to us about creating your regional site!

With the OAI-PMH option, your content can be harvested for inclusion in other aggregate sites like the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA).

Use the VITA API to integrate your local history records with the library or other local catalogues.

You can always export your records for discovery in other spaces as well.

For digital collections that are underway or in another system it is possible to transfer the existing collection metadata (catalogue) records into the VITA index. Ingesting your data and files into VITA lets you manage and display your existing content in a fresh, functional way. Let us help you determine what the best choice is for your organization by telling us about your digital content. Contact us!

Every contributing agency has a profile in VITA, so when they upload a record, it is their contact information that displays on the record itself. Even in multi-agency sites, every individual agency's objects are attributed to them as the contributor.

Invite public contributions in two ways: 1) Activate the Contribution Module on your VITA site. The module is a form that lets people upload stories, images, audio and video files. The contributor can then add descriptive, geolocation and contact information. You decide when those contributions become part of your collection and how to display them. Here's an example. 2) Individuals in the community can contact your organization about adding their personal collections. Having you upload them ensures that the objects in scattered collections are digitized and described consistently and using best practices and brought together for easy discovery, but the individual still maintains control over the hard copy of the object. As part of support documentation, we provide a handbook for holding "digitization days" to encourage community involvement and participation with their personal collection items.

If you're just starting to think about digitizing your newspapers, OurDigitalWorld offers an All-in-One newspaper digitization service. That means we'll do all the heavy lifting to get your newspapers online. Need more information about the process? See our Newspaper Digitization page and ODW Resources page for Newspaper Digitization Projects.

VITA Toolkit Subscribers retain all rights and editorial control over the material they upload and make accessible using VITA. However, if the material being uploaded is under another person or entity's Copyright, the Subscriber is responsible for obtaining permission to digitally publish that material and apply the appropriate Copyright statement to the items in question. See the ODW Canadian Copyright FAQ for more information.

Records may be updated, changed or deleted by the Subscriber at any time via the web interface.  Subscribing to the VITA Toolkit service requires no transfer of copyright of the digital content. See our Copyright FAQ for more information about determining copyright of your collection items before putting them online.

Yes, non-public groups of records can be viewed by users with a valid login and password; however, because this access is to the data management side of the toolkit, this does give them access to the entire collection. Or, you can use the non-public virtual exhibition option so groups of records can be viewed using a specific URL.

Any site can be scoped, either to certain media types, e.g. to separate newspaper content from multimedia material (e.g. Grey Highlands Newspaper Index vs. Grey Highlands Public Library Digital Collections).

Sites can also be scoped to a Group if you have a specific thematic-based site with contributions from multiple agencies (e.g. 1812 History).

You can also use Exhibits to highlight a collection of you content and external items with a custom interface.

Yes, you can upload PDFs as a single object or have the tool split multipage objects into individual pages for page-by-page browsing and discovery. PDFs and other native text documents will also have their text auto-extracted for full text searchability on the public site. Coming in 2022, born-digital PDFs will also have their positional information harvested for hit-highlighted results in the IIIF viewer.

VITA provides many ways for you to encourage users to re-use your materials with proper attribution. With VITA, you can identify the copyright status of each object, assign Creative Commons fair-share attribution licensing, as well as state terms of use, reproduction information and provide citations for the public to copy and paste for proper attribution.

Go to our Pricing page and review the plan types. Then use the contact form on the Getting Started page to contact us and set up an account. Once the account is activated, we will email your sign in credentials and the first year's invoice for your subscription.

Yes, if you exceed your hosting allowance, additional hosting can be purchased at 5GB for $75/year.

For newspaper collections, a sliding scale applies to host the newspaper pages.

1+ pages = 3¢/page

150,000+ pages = 2¢/page

250,000+ pages = 1.5¢/page

If you are working on a grant or other short term funding source, you can subscribe to VITA one year at a time for active access to build and manage your collections, then downgrade to an annual Limited account. The Limited account means your custom site and collection will be maintained for online discovery but you can only review and approve comments. Limited accounts are available at the following rates:
VITA Basic = $120/year
News Plus = $315 + per page hosting/year
VITA Plus = $455/year
VINTA = $525 + per page hosting/year
Your account can be reactivated any time during the Limited subscription period.

Need something different? Talk to us about your project plans!

Yes. VITA is WCAG 2.0 compliant and 3.0 requirements will be met in 2022.

Yes. We work with clients to map content across from a variety of schema. The key is how and in what format you can export from your existing system, e.g. XML, AccessDB, XLS, etc. Please contact us for more information about bringing an existing collection into VITA or if you're working with existing indexes or full-run newspaper files. You can also see our Digitization page for more details.

The VITA toolkit includes a standalone website for the collection. It is through this interface that the collection is publicly displayed. You can activate the OAI-PMH output option for harvesting by other systems like the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) or use the VITA API to integrate your local history collection into your library or local catalogue.

Yes. The VITA software can deliver all of your record content in XML format in a variety of export schema for your in-house storage, back up or migration into other systems and databases:
Dublin Core
VITA (everything)
MODS
RSS and ATOM
OAI-PMH

Please see our VITA Toolkit Software Profile document. This is a living document and will be updated as version changes occur.