Jump In Initiative

Jump In

2013 Results are in!

The steering committee of the Society of American Archivists’ Manuscript Repositories Section introduces a new initiative encouraging archivists and their institutions to Jump In to managing born-digital content.

Building on the recently released OCLC research report, “You’ve Got to Walk Before You Can Run: First Steps for Managing Born-Digital Content Received on Physical Media,” the initiative is looking to help archivists take some of those first steps this year.  Pledging to do so and submitting a short report about your experience will enter you into a raffle to win tuition to a one-day SAA Digital Archives Specialist (DAS) course ($185 value). Selected participants will also be asked to discuss their experience at the Section’s business meeting held at the SAA Annual Meeting in New Orleans in August, 2013. Time will be set aside at the Section meeting for all participants to meet with a group of electronic records specialists to discuss their experience.

Participants should focus on surveying materials in their holdings.  The survey could be of their entire holdings, a group of collections, or just a single collection. Drawing from the OCLC report, the survey should take the following steps:

- Locate computer media in any physical form.
- Record the location, inventory number, type of physical medium, and any identifying information found on labels or media such as creator, title, description of contents, and dates. If no identifying information exists, indicate this.
- Record anything that is known about the hardware, operating systems, and software used to create the files.
- Count the number of each media type, calculate the total maximum amount of data stored in each medium, and then calculate the overall total for the collection.

It is not a minimum requirement, but participants are encouraged to take the additional steps of prioritizing collections for further treatment and begin the technical steps for dealing with readable media.

Rules

Participants must be from an institution without an electronic records program in place.

Participants must be members of SAA, but do not need to be members of the Manuscript Repositories Section.

Participants must let the Section know by January 15, 2013, of their intent to participate.

Participants must submit an essay describing their efforts along with a photograph of the person who conducted the survey and a photograph of the objects surveyed. Essays should be a minimum of 400 words. Essays will be posted on the Section website.

Timeline

January 15, 2013:  Deadline for pledge to participate.

May 1, 2013:  Due date for essays.

May 15, 2013:  Deadline for notification of raffle winner.

June 1, 2013:  Selected entrants notified of invitation to speak at Section meeting in New Orleans.

Contact Information

Entries and questions should be addressed to Chris Burns, Chair of the Manuscript Repositories Section, at chris.burns@uvm.edu

Resources

See attached documents below.

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Society of American Archivists

Manuscript Repositories Section

Section Leadership

Created | 29 June 2004

Last updated | 28 September 2018