About *Guidelines for citing library-hosted, unique digital assets* Note: Readers should cite the final, published version of the guidelines found here Identifiers: DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/98TAS | ARK c7605/osf.io/98tas These draft guidelines were developed in response to a call for steps forward made by the Digital Library Federation (DLF) Assessment subgroup on Benefits. One of the areas identified for development included the establishment of best practices and guidelines for citing digital libraries. Most if not all major citation styles do not provide direction for citing digital objects, and it is difficult for the administrators of digital repositories to use traditional citation metrics to track the use of their digital objects in scholarly output. Scholarly literature has recently begun to focus on challenges and best practices for citing data sets. In addition, some citation styles, as well as individual institutions, provide guidelines for citing special collections materials. Much of this work can be drawn upon in order to format citations for digitized special collection and cultural heritage materials (e.g. rare books, manuscript materials, images, moving images, etc.) and institutional repository content. These guidelines attempt to address the following questions: 1. What should a citation consist of? 2. How can we best support appropriate citations? 3. To what extent do common citation formats support this? This document outlines suggested citation guidelines in an attempt to fill in gaps when the citation style does not give guidelines for a type of source—in this case, institutional repository and digitized cultural heritage objects.