Small steps and giant leaps:

working towards effective stewardship of digital records

Digital Archivist mantra:

DO IT ONCE, DO IT RIGHT, DO IT INTENTIONALLY.

International Standards Organization

You’ve Got To Walk Before You Can Run [OCLC]

• Do no harm (to the physical media or the content).
• Don’t do anything that unnecessarily precludes future action and use.
• Don’t let the first two principles be obstacles to action.
• Document what you do.

Small step #1:
What do you have?

• Locate it
• Incoming accessions
• Previously accessioned (or acquired) collections
• Describe it

What You'll Need

• Human
• Database or spreadsheet to capture the descriptive information

Small step #2:
Appraisal

• What do donors want to send?
• Do you want all of it?

What You'll Need

• Human
• Appraisal questions checklist
• Directory print utility, like Karen's Directory Printer
  (bonus - you can get checksums w/this tool)

Small step #3:
Acquisitions for physical media: imaging

• Imaging software
• Write-blocking hardware
• Drives/hardware to read media
• Virus detection software

Credit: NASA

Small step #4:
Network transfer acquisitions

• Designated server space
• Means of validating complete transfer (Bagit)
• Virus detection software

credit: NASA

Small step #5:
Website capture

• Web crawling tool (HTTrack)
• Web-crawling service (Archive-it)

What does processing electronic
records look like?

The tasks are the same, but the tools are different.

Basic steps:

• Weed duplicates, temp files, drafts, etc
• Identify sensitive or restricted materials
• Arrange the files as needed (intellectual arrangement)
• Describe the materials and their arrangement

What you'll need:

• Expensive option: Forensic Toolkit (FTK)
• Open source options: BitCurator, Autopsy
• Description tool: e.g. ArchivesSpace

FTK vs BitCurator

Repository ingest

• File format identification
• Unique ID assignment
• Documentation of preservation actions
• Fixity information
• Metadata extraction
• Normalization

What you need:

• Technical support
• Archivematica and/or repository solution
• DIY - see Chris Prom’s E-Records post

Distributed Digital Preservation

The process of creating copies of digital files and storing them in geographically distributed location for preservation purposes.

credit: J'ram_DJ

Access: 3 basic requirements [AIMS report]

• Create a system wherein material can be stored and retrieved
• Apply appropriate access restrictions
• When possible, provide access in a manner that presents the significant properties required by user communities

credit: Matthew Simantov