First steps: mapping out a new territory

by Meg Tuomala

I started as digital archivist at Washington University in St. Louis’ University Archives in August. So I guess you could say I’m a digital archives newbie. And today, on this first Day of Digital Archives I thought I’d write about my first digital archives project in this position. So here goes--

Like I said, I started as digital archivist at Washington University in St. Louis’ University Archives in August. In this new position (for both me and the Archives) my first task was to assess the amount, types, and provenance of the digital objects and materials we already have in our collection. Born digital stuff, digital surrogates of traditional archival materials… A way to get a handle on the lay of the digital land. A survey of things as they are now, in order to map out how we see them (would like to see them?!) existing in the future.

So I poked around files, dug into directories, and explored the larger digital landscape of the libraries and the university. I didn’t look through the stacks for those disks hidden in boxes… yet (that’s another project) but I did do some serious surveying in places where I know digital assets do, should, and well, maybe-or-maybe-not live.

Of course I found a lot of great stuff we already have--recordings of campus lecture series, a huge amount of scanned images from the Archives, born digital administrative files...

But after taking a better look at what we do have, what I really started to think about what we do not yet have, what we’d like to have (digital University publications would be just one thing that tops that list). Because chances are if it’s not in the Archives, it’s probably not being properly cared for. And this is especially true for digital materials.

I believe that my preliminary survey of the digital assets we have will be useful. First of all, it introduced me to what I’ll be working with right off the bat. Secondly, it highlighted unexplored territories and places that need more work. And finally, it can and will help us make a case for resources that we’ll need to get in order to begin responsibly managing and preserving what we already have, and what we hope to have in the future. Exciting!

So if you’re just looking for a place to start I’d suggest doing your own survey. It’s a small step, but it’s a step in the right direction.

Surveying "Hidden" Electronic Media

As a part of my position, I implemented a Condition Survey of the archival collections maintained by the three collecting repositories at Bobst Library. This survey will provide data on our collections that will inform the Preservation Department's strategic preservation planning for the Archives Preservation Program at NYU. This post at The Back Table (the NYU Special Collections collective blog) describes this survey in more detail. You can also view a poster about the findings of this survey to date (Summer 2011) presented earlier this year at the Society of American Archivists Annual Conference in Chicago.

The survey identifies preservation issues on a unit (or box) level as well as, in aggregate, at the material level. During the course of the first year of surveying, we uncovered a significant amount of electronic media stored on various magnetic, optical and flash storage devices. Our goal this fall is to target and survey collections, known or suspected, that contain electronic media for the purposes of identifying, quantifying and, later, prioritizing preservation for these items. Building a survey tool that can accommodate the appropriate information for identifying and quantifying electronic media storage required some research that took me to view presentations from last year's Rare Books and Manuscript Pre-Conference (scroll down to the seminar I. Born-Digital Manuscripts: A Primer) as well as Wikipedia. I am not afraid to say, as I have heard former professors admit and use heavily during my coursework, that Wikipedia is an excellent source for computer and technology history. From my research, I developed a guide for identifying various type of magnetic, optical and flash storage devices that the survey assistants will be able to refer to while surveying. Also, I reconstructed a portion of the survey tool to accommodate collection of information necessary for identifying and quantifying electronic media. For instance, manufacturer, disk format, label information and commercial/non-commercial status will help preservation staff determine migration requirements, potential file types, and storage capacities. This information will also help curators determine priorities for preservation in the future.

While this survey gets underway, I am sure tweaks will be made to the survey tool as well as our surveying techniques. If anyone is undertaking a similar project, I would be happy to hear about your experiences, discuss successes and failures, and long term planning.

Jennifer Waxman
jennifer.waxman@nyu.edu
@jwax55