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Abstract: Most digitization depends on costly item-level description for search and access. However, capturing such descriptions for content in extensive collections is often not feasible. To overcome this barrier to online access for large manuscript collections, the authors developed a method for linking digitized items into the EAD finding aid, which speeds content to the Web at a fraction of the usual cost. In the NHPRC-funded grant Digitizing the Septimus D. Cabaniss Papers, the authors demonstrated this model and developed the work flows and open-source software for implementation. This article assesses cost effectiveness and reports on a usability test with primarily novice users.
Annotation: DeRidder, Presnell, and Walker provide an excellent and thorough overview of the advantages and drawbacks of making digitized collections available through linked digital objects within EAD finding aids (which the user then browses to find content), rather than providing access to digital objects cataloged at the item level within a content management system (with a searchable interface). Unsurprisingly, the former is much faster and cheaper than the latter. Of course, these are not the only factors that need to be taken into account when planning a digitization project. They also compare the usability of each access model for three different user groups: experienced archival researchers, graduate students, and undergraduate students. A detailed description of their workflow provides a model for other institutions and their meticulous results analysis and presentation are fine examples for others needing to report back to grant-funding agencies.
Abstract: As archives receive born digital materials more and more frequently, the challenge of dealing with a variety of hardware and formats is becoming omnipresent. This paper outlines a case study that provides a practical, step-by-step guide to archiving files on legacy hard drives dating from the early 1990s to the mid-2000s. The project used a digital forensics approach to provide access to the contents of the hard drives without compromising the integrity of the files. Relying largely on open source software, the project imaged each hard drive in its entirety, then identified folders and individual files of potential high use for upload to the University of Texas Digital Repository. The project also experimented with data visualizations in order to provide researchers who would not have access to the full disk images—a sense of the contents and context of the full drives. The greatest challenge philosophically was answering the question of whether scholars should be able to view deleted materials on the drives that donors may not have realized were accessible.
Annotation: Edwards et. al, four students at the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Information, describe a semester-long project in which they attempt to recover data from eleven hard drives spread across two collections of the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History and provide access to archival content at three levels: drive level, folder level, and file level. The students completed each level in a separate phase, and the article chronicles each of these phases in detail. The authors make a particularly valuable contribution in their explanation behind each step of the process as well as their explanation behind each software choice to complete the respective step. Software used during the project include FTK Imager for disk imaging and metadata extraction, TreeSize Professional for data visualization, 7-Zip for folder archiving, and the New Zealand Metadata Extractor for metadata ingest into the repository.
Abstract: This paper reports on the management of electronic records in manuscript collections at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University. The paper offers a case study exploring the InterPARES 1 Authenticity Task Force "Requirements for Assessing and Maintaining the Authenticity of Electronic Records" and archival description as models for assessing and maintaining the authenticity of copies of electronic records in manuscript collections. The paper focuses on rules in Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS) applied to description in finding aids.
Annotation: Forstrom provides an examination of the requirements for assessing and maintaining the authenticity of electronic records as laid out by the InterPARES model and how these requirements can be applied to born-digital material acquired as part of manuscript collections. Forstrom argues that maintained authenticity requires transparency in describing the history and management of electronic records in finding aids and considers the suitability of DACS for achieving this. Forstrom concludes that DACS-compliant description presents an effective means by which to provide description that meets this need for transparency.
Abstract: This paper addresses a particular domain within the sphere of activity coming to be known as personal digital papers or personal digital archives. We are concerned with contemporary writers of belles-lettres (fiction, poetry, and drama), and the implications of the shift toward word processing and other forms of electronic text production for the future of the cultural record, in particular literary scholarship. The urgency of this topic is evidenced by the recent deaths of several high-profile authors, including David Foster Wallace and John Updike, both of whom are known to have left behind electronic records containing unpublished and incomplete work alongside of their more traditional manuscript materials. We argue that literary and other creatively-oriented originators offer unique challenges for the preservation enterprise, since the complete digital context for individual records is often of paramount importance--what Richard Ovenden, in a helpful phrase (in conversation) has termed "the digital materiality of digital culture." We will therefore discuss preservation and access scenarios that account for the computer as a complete artifact and digital environment, drawing on examples from the born-digital materials in literary collections at Emory University, the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Maryland.
Annotation: This article reports on the outcomes of site visits and planning meetings between those working with born digital materials from collections at Emory University, the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Maryland; site visits and meetings were funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities' Office of Digital Humanities. The article summarizes the work being done at each institution to process born-digital collections, including materials from the Salman Rushdie papers, the Michael Joyce papers, and the Deena Larsen collection. In each case, the article talks briefly about what access options are either being considered or implemented. The article also examines digital materiality, focusing in particular on how this might impact the ways in which future scholars wish to engage with born-digital materials and how access models should be designed in order to facilitate this kind of research. The article stresses the importance of taking the digital materiality of an object into consideration during acquisition and processing so as not to limit eventual research and access options. It also discusses the relevance of the full computing environment to future researchers and the consequent importance of its preservation.
Abstract: In March 2010, the University of California, Irvine, launched a site to provide online access to papers of Richard Rorty in the form of a virtual reading room. Although we didn’t know it then, we quickly learned that we were one of the first academic repositories in the United States to risk providing remote, online access to born-digital manuscripts. The virtual reading room mitigated the risks involved in providing this kind of access to personal, archival materials with privacy and copyright issues by limiting the number of qualified users and by limiting the discoverability of full-text content on the open web. In January 2013, we launched a site providing access to another group of born-digital materials, the papers of Mark Poster. The two collections had as many differences as they did commonalities, and a comparison of the two projects is useful for understanding the range of decisions and issues that ultimately impact access to born-digital personal manuscript collections.
Annotation: Light compares two projects at UC Irvine, both of which aimed to provide remote, online access to born-digital materials: the Richard Rorty papers and the Mark Poster papers. Light describes development of a virtual reading room using DSpace and processing decisions made based on the available resources, the features and limitations of DSpace, and the copyright and privacy concerns posed by the collections' content. Light describes how the online approach was originally modeled on policies in place for the physical reading room, which allowed them to argue that remote, online access was within already established access policies. The chapter focuses in particular on how the library has prepared to respond to challenges related to copyright and outlines their case that this falls under fair use. Light closes by arguing that "best practices for managing born-digital materials are becoming too fastidious and resource intensive at the expense of access" (p. 33) and encourages archives to take more risks in providing access responsibly.
Abstract: This paper proposes the establishment of a web-enabled Archival Commons Licence (AC) to meet the needs of the archives and the community more generally to streamline ethical web access to records held in archives, in particular to born-digital and digitised materials. The Creative Commons Licence (CC) provides a useful model and a working example of the infrastructure needed to support such a service. However, Creative Commons was designed for materials that were always intended for the public domain. Archival materials are not, as a rule, created with publication in mind meaning that for most of these materials the CC licence is not appropriate. At the heart of an Archival Commons licence is the recognition and codification of the obligations that a user should sign up to before getting access to archival materials. Experiences in Australia provide practical examples and a basis for reflection on similar proposals elsewhere. It appears to be achievable but its impact will be much greater if it can be coordinated internationally.
Annotation: McCarthy describes two case studies where institutions in Australia have made digitized content available online, with a focus on the challenges and risks involved in doing so, and how some of those challenges and risks could be mitigated by the development of an Archival Commons license. Taking inspiration from the Creative Commons license, the author proposes a model by which an independent access management service--separate from the actual public interface or space where digitize records are stored--provides "ethical and responsible channels through which users can gain access to records" online. This service would require standardized metadata describing the conditions under which a user gains access, a description of the obligations to which they agree upon signing up to the service, and some method by which data about users and what they view is collected and returned to the archives in question. McCarthy acknowledges that such a license would only be able to serve the majority of cases; there will always be special cases requiring direct human mediation between user and archivist before access can be granted. The author concludes that this proposal marks a conceptual shift away from access policies guided by restrictions and towards access policies guided by "the recognition and codification of obligations and responsibilities that a user should sign up to before getting access to archival materials.”
Abstract: In September 2012, the Manuscripts Division of the Stanford University Libraries Department of Special Collections and University Archives completed a one-year National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC)-funded project to process the records of the STOP AIDS Project, an HIV prevention non-profit organization in San Francisco, California. This project marked the department’s first large-scale processing project to capture and process born-digital records. Building upon the nascent framework outlined by the AIMS white paper and the infrastructure developed by Stanford University Libraries, the project team captured born-digital records and implemented new processing strategies using digital forensics tools. This case study will document the strategies and workflows employed by the project team to capture and process the born-digital component of the STOP AIDS Project records. We will describe the successes, challenges and roadblocks encountered while forensically imaging 3.5 inch floppy disks, Zip disks, and CDs using Forensic Toolkit (FTK) Imager software. We will then outline our approach to processing nearly 30,000 unique digital files captured from the computer media using AccessData Forensic Toolkit (FTK) software, discuss our current delivery strategy, and offer some concluding thoughts.
Annotation: This article describes an entire processing project, with some focus given to arrangement and description, and access from page 17 onwards. The authors question whether researchers will find imposed arrangement on born-digital materials useful, or whether navigating files "through access points such as file type (e.g. documents, spreadsheets, graphics), date, or keyword searches better suit their needs." Access for the STOP AIDS project records was achieved via a secure network server accessed from the reading room. Files are arranged by document type within a main collection folder. If more advanced searching options are required by a researcher (such as cross-collection searching or full-text searching), researchers can make an appointment with the digital archivist for additional assistance. This is considered a short term solution until Hypatia is fully functional. The article highlights the difficulties in providing description on a scale required by born-digital materials.
