Born Digital

Downloading an object over the internet through a standard web-browser is a mechanism that is ‘less-than-optimal’ for the delivery of archival objects. Download of objects will not preserve the file-system metadata of the object. Tools like Wget can do this, but do we want the same behavior of the browser? On answering that, do we also need to create mandatory new requirements in future digital preservation systems? The repatriation of modified dates with born-digital records, for example?

By Elena Colon-Marrero and Allison Hughes
On October 14, 2014, Princeton University announced it had acquired the papers of author, emeritus faculty member, and Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison. The papers, which are currently being processed, consist of approximately 200 linear feet of material, including manuscripts, drafts, correspondence, working files, teaching material, and just over 150 floppy disks. The disks come in 2 varieties, 3.5” and 5.25”, pictured below:

Julia Kim, National Digital Stewardship Resident at New York University Libraries, talks about her residency work.
I’m now into the last leg of my nine-month residency, and I’m amazed by what has been accomplished and the major steps still ahead of me. In this post, I’ll give a project update on my primary task: to create, test and implement access-driven workflows of born-digital collections at New York University Libraries.

Julia Kim, National Digital Stewardship Resident at New York University Libraries, talks about her residency work.
I’m now into the last leg of my nine-month residency, and I’m amazed by what has been accomplished and the major steps still ahead of me. In this post, I’ll give a project update on my primary task: to create, test and implement access-driven workflows of born-digital collections at New York University Libraries.

Many archives hold born-digital content on numerous types of antiquated media and in obsolete formats but lack the equipment or expertise to transfer it into a form that can be more easily managed for processing, preservation, and access.

The Council on Library and Information Resources has released Born Digital: Guidance for Donors, Dealers, and Archival Repositories.

Proceedings / of the 10th International Conference on Preservation of Digital Objects; ed. José Borbinha, Michael Nelson, Steve Knight. - Recurso em linha. - Lisboa : Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal, 2013.
http://purl.pt/24107/1/

Today’s hybrid collections demand new ways of thinking about preservation. There is a need for an integrated approach combining the current largely disparate fields of digital and physical preservation, to inform prioritisation of information resources requiring preservation attention, assist in shaping integrated workflows, and enable sharing of strategies across physical and digital formats. This paper explores an integrated approach through the analogy of the traditional Indian story of the six blind men and the elephant.

Due to the rapidly burgeoning volume of born-digital records, it behooves archives to determine how they can best bridge the gap between handling analog and handling born-digital records. In addition to analyzing existing case studies of repositories that already accession and process electronic records, the study presented in this paper used both a survey instrument and semi-structured interviews with archivists to investigate whether and how manuscript repositories are handling born-digital materials.

The AIMS project evolved around a common need among the project partners — and most libraries and archives — to identify a methodology or continuous framework for stewarding born-digital archival materials. These materials have been slowly accumulating in archival backlogs for years but are rapidly growing as more contemporary collections are accessioned. Alongside the many and complex technological requirements, the challenges of stewarding born-digital material demand new strategies as well as a redefinition of archival workflows.