Digital Collections Standards
Standards are vital for large-scale digital library operations. Following them consistently facilitates every aspect of digital libraries’ functions: creating and maintaining collections and digital objects, allowing access to collections, preserving collections, and allowing collections to interoperate with one another. Without standards, various components within a given digital library are implemented differently and inconsistently. Inconsistency creates an infrastructure that is impossible to maintain, and it prevents the digital library from scaling—or even functioning—as it should.
http://library.ttu.edu/about/collections/localdigital/docs/standards.doc