CURATEcamp SAA 2012 Notes
Contents
Collaborative Doc for Drafting Notes
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qAM6cvzvrODd2EN-vWm_1IG5oxApqxS3kv6DIcttM_E/edit
Session 1: Acquisition & Appraisal
Policy
Review your policies to make sure “digital” is included. (Collection development, accessioning, donor agreements, etc.)
Resources:
- Digital Preservation Online Tutorial: http://www.dpworkshop.org
- Electronic Records Guidelines: http://www.records.ncdcr.gov/erecords/
- Policy documents: http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/ICPSR/curation/preservation/policies
- An Inter-Institutional Model for Stewardship (AIMS) whitepaper: http://www2.lib.virginia.edu/aims/whitepaper
- Personal Archives Accessible in Digital Media (paradigm) workbook: http://www.paradigm.ac.uk/workbook/
- Ethnographic Collections in the Archive of Folk Culture: A Contributor’s Guide: http://www.loc.gov/folklife/cg.html
Life cycle management
The role of the archivist and the issue of preservation needs to be addressed sooner in the records creation process.
Proactive collecting policy, eliminates backlog.
"Don't be the person that your successor curses, five, ten years down the road."
Collaboration
Partnering and staying a part of the discussion (data governance, IT policy/records management) as a way of knowledge management in your institutions.
American Folklife Center posted policies on ethnographic collections; engaging donors to describe so cultural context isn’t lost.
Think about value-added services that you can provide. (file plans, develop tools, guidance on embedding metadata, training) - things that will make their lives easier; consider easiest steps with most rewards
Develop file plans. Link file types to retention schedules and working workflow out of that. JISC and UK universities have roll-up file plans. Management tool that downloads into the email.
Encourage embedded metadata. Offer training through HR.
Resources:
- JISC Higher Education Business Classification Scheme: http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/partnerships/records-retention-he/
- University of Melbourne Enterprise Classification Scheme: http://www.unimelb.edu.au/records/ECS/
- Robert Gordon University Aberdeen's Business Classification Scheme: http://www4.rgu.ac.uk/rm/general/page.cfm?pge=76088
- Griffith University: http://www.griffith.edu.au/ua/aa/secretariat/carms/bcs/
- University of Edinburgh: http://www.recordsmanagement.ed.ac.uk/InfoStaff/RMstaff/RMprojects/PP/FileNameRules/FileNameRules.htm
Looking for resources on up-front and ongoing costs of preservation, i.e. “How much does it cost to process a terabyte?”
Resources:
- Digital Preservation Online Tutorial: http://www.dpworkshop.org/dpm-eng/eng_index.html
- LIFE Project (University College, London and the BL - http://www.life.ac.uk/
ACTION items:
- Review your policies to make sure “digital” is included. (Collection development, accessioning procedures, donor agreements, etc.)
- Share your policies on your websites, please.
- Do more cost analysis & share your findings.
Session 2: Arrangement and Description
Challenges/Issues
Digital Collections
- People don’t really know how to organize electronic files.
- No respect des fonds the same way for electronic files.
- What is the intent of archival arrangement and description?
- At the aggregate level, knowing where a file falls in the collection.
- Metadata
- Clarifying (Record creating environment)
- Digital files/ media messes with the concept of original order
- Multiple versions of the same photo. Which is the presentation version?
- Files and software interaction
- As archivists, do we continue to focus on creating the context, or do we focus on preserving to create access to allow context to be discovered?
- Producer Archive Method Interface Standard
- DACS doesn’t allow to describe record keeping practices well
- Messiness of files: how much organization can you get out of the filenaming ?
- What tools do we need in order to apply DACS-like arrangement to electronic files? Do we WANT to apply DACS-like arrangement to electronic files?
Hybrid Collections
- Adding description re: processing legacy files/media to existing
- Context (representing)
Moving Towards Solutions
- Reproducible Methods (Tools and Workflows)
- Moving beyond file level approach
- MPLP approach to arranging and describing electronic files
- One approach is to create a directory printing that users can view in Excel, and thereby can manipulate and sort
- Stopgap measure (some access is better than none) but all this really provides access to is file names and extensions, which may not be all that helpful
- Metadata extraction at accessioning (disk image level)
- Let the computer do more of the processing.
- MPLP for digitization-- Repurposing the finding aid in a digital environment so you don’t have to do item level description.
- Scalability (file storage, workflow)
- Object management (PIDS, Compound/single)
- Setting up at start of project
- Look at Vis. Resources Community
- Scanning priorities
- Delivery methods
Resources:
- Tom Hyry and Michelle Light, “Colophons and Annotations: New Directions for the Finding Aid.” American Archivist 65(2), 2002. http://archivists.metapress.com/content/l3h27j5x8716586q/
- Producer-Archive Interface Methodology Abstract Standard. Recommendation for Space Data System Practices. Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems Magenta Book, 2004. http://public.ccsds.org/publications/archive/651x0m1.pdf
- Presentation from SAA 2011. Archivists’ Toolkit plugin. http://www2.archivists.org/groups/archivists-toolkitarchon-roundtable/saa-2011-annual-meeting-presentation-digital-object-workf
- Metadata Deluxe has the tools, instruction, examples. Although built for photograph or scanning physical material it also extends to mass digitization. http://metadatadeluxe.pbworks.com/w/page/20792238/FrontPage
ACTION items:
- Comment on DACS revision.
- Revision available here: http://www2.archivists.org/groups/technical-subcommittee-on-describing-archives-a-content-standard-dacs/describing-archives-a-c
- Send comments to Gordon Daines: gordon_daines@byu.edu.
Session 3: Tools & Workflows
(management tools, not access tools)
Discussion of what tools are being used to acquire and manage born-digital content:
Tools for digital preservation
- Archivematica
- Droid
- Curators Workbench
- FTK (Imager)
- Bagger
- Fiwalk
- Confluence
- Karen’s dir printer
- MD5 Deep
- Tika
- Elastic Search
- Duke Data Accessioner
- Disk Imager
- Sleuth Kit
- Mac Drive
- Cider press
- FITS
- Bulk Extractor
- FC-5025 Software
- Archivists Toolkit
- Kryoflux
- JHOVE
- Media Info
- WCT & Heretix
- Google Refine
- Guymager
- Collective Access
- Bitcurator
- DPSP (NZ) Digital Preservation Software Platform(?)
- Taper Tool
- Cinch
- Mount Holyoke Tool
- EELMP
- WARCreate
DAMS, Access Systems & Repositories
- Access:
- ContentDM (Heather G. but we’re moving away from it)
- Collective Access. (Kari)
- Digitool (Meditor = metadata tool) (going away)
- XTF (Kari)
- Fedora
- ICA Atom (Cindy)
- digital collection builder. QUBIT (testing Kari)
- Omeka (Heather G.) (Alison H.) (Cynthia G)
- Blacklight (Heather G.)
- Islandora
- Drupal (Heather G.)
- Dsapce
- Luna Insight (Meg- but not for long)
- Open WMS (Heather G.)
- Resource Space (Cynthia G)
- Eprints
- Kora
- Homegrown
- Piction (Alison H. - we just adopted it, i don’t have experience with it yet)
- Preservation/ Management:
- Archivematica (Cindy)
- ContentDM
- Fedora
- Roda
- Safety Deposit Box
- DAITSS
- Dspace (Matthew http://ucispace.lib.uci.edu)
- Rosetta
- Open WMS (Heather G.)
- Resources Space
- Eprints
- Filesystem (Alison H. - the “Digital Shelf”)
- Homegrown (UCSD http://libraries.ucsd.edu/about/digital-library/index.html)
- Chronopolis
- Kora (Cynthia G)
- iRODS (Cynthia G)
Is anyone storing their data in the cloud?
- Restrictions about storing data within certain borders (Educause & NACIO are good resources for policies relating to cloud storage)
- Educause: Cloud Computing Explained:http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/cloud-computing-explained
- Educause: Cloud Computing Policy: http://www.educause.edu/library/cloud-computing-policy
Pre-Ingest (prep) - Ingest/Acquisitions - Processing 35-minute discussion on how to move through these processes
A lot of this work is represented in AIMS. Where do we go from there? http://www2.lib.virginia.edu/aims/whitepaper/
What kind of functional requirements will determine what tools we need?
5 bits of information needed to determine which tools will help us get there:
- Risk assessment
- Media fragility/ data triage
- With born digital --access vs. preservation
- Records need to be maintained as records. Made accessible
- Metadata of the objects, vs. metadata about
- Start at creation
- Traditional archivists vs. digital conservators
- Houses of expertise
Resources:
- Blog post on SPRUCE mash-up: http://futurearchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/spruce-mashup-16th-18th-april-2012.html
- Preservation/Imaging Tools Blogs (Review, Survey, question/comment):
- Open Planets Foundations: http://www.openplanetsfoundation.org/
- File Formats Blog: http://fileformats.wordpress.com/
- The Signal (LOC Digital Preservation Blog): http://blogs.loc.gov/digitalpreservation/
Session 4
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