tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56134236310769844792024-03-14T07:39:53.993-04:00Diary of a DAS StudentErica Boudreauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02547320024030858437noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5613423631076984479.post-54061419727660854012013-11-05T10:00:00.001-05:002013-11-05T10:02:03.487-05:00Class No. 9: Accessioning and Ingest of Electronic RecordsAt the end of October I took my ninth (and final!) DAS course, <a href="http://www2.archivists.org/prof-education/course-catalog/tst-accessioning-and-ingest-of-electronic-records" target="_blank">Accessioning and Ingest of Electronic Records</a> taught by <a href="http://www2.archivists.org/prof-education/faculty/erin-faulder" target="_blank">Erin Faulder</a>, Digital Archivist at Tufts University. This was an in-person workshop from <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">the <a href="http://www2.archivists.org/prof-education/das/audience/Tactical-Strategic-courses" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Tactical and Strategic</span></a> tier
of the DAS curriculum, </span>held on the Radcliffe campus in Cambridge, MA. The goals of the course were to introduce accessioning and ingest as they apply to digital materials, to go over some current practices and resources, and to provide students with a foundation that could be used to develop policies and workflows for our own institutions.<br />
<br />
I thought the course provided a good overview of the issues we face as we start to accession and ingest electronic records. Some of the steps we talked about were definitely specific to
born-digital accessions: talking to donors about how to handle
previously-deleted files that are recovered by the archive, performing
virus scans on incoming media, and performing checksums on files as they
are received are
some examples of tasks we may never have attempted before. However, I kept thinking that most of what we discussed could also be applied to the analog world. Archivists already understand the importance of having both overarching institutional policies and explicit agreements with individual donors to govern things like what your institution will and won't accept, how material should be transferred from the donor to the institution, and how your institution will verify that the material it received is the material the donor intended and agreed to send. We have processes in place to determine the level of description necessary at the point of accession, we consider storage requirements when accepting new material (physical space can be just as limited as storage space for digital files), and we sometimes take steps to quarantine new material (mold can be just as damaging to our existing holdings as a computer virus if it is allowed to spread). The specifics will be different - and probably more challenging, at least at first - when the material being sent is born digital, but the concepts are the same. While it is incredibly useful to have workshops like this that focus on born-digital records, it is equally as important to emphasize the fact that much of what we already know about how to be archivists still applies in the digital world.<br />
<br />
Just a few notes about what stood out for me in a positive way about this course:<br />
<ul>
<li>The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:OAIS-.gif" target="_blank">OAIS Reference Model diagram</a> is referenced in almost every DAS course, but here it seemed more
concrete and accessible than before, probably because we were focusing
specifically on the actions taken during the first two phases of the
workflow. </li>
<li>In response to a late day question about a specific tool a student had tried to use but didn't quite understand, the instructor made an excellent point that I think should be made in every DAS course: <b>don't let the tools guide your decisions</b>. Rather, figure out what you want to accomplish and then pick a tool which will do exactly that. Starting with the tool will frustrate you, and if it's an expensive tool that doesn't work out it will frustrate your administration as well, making future expenditures less likely.</li>
</ul>
I've now completed all of the required courses for the DAS certificate, and I'm registered to take the comprehensive exam next week here at the JFK Library. Maybe I'll see some of you there. I don't think I'll be allowed to say much about the exam itself, but after it's over I will write a final blog entry to reflect on this whole experience. Thank you, as always, for reading, and please don't hesitate to comment if you have any questions or feedback for me. <br />
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span>Erica Boudreauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02547320024030858437noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5613423631076984479.post-52708039285482450292013-06-13T16:28:00.000-04:002013-06-13T16:28:55.316-04:00Class No. 8: Inreach and Outreach for Digital Archives<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This week I attended my eighth DAS
course, <a href="http://www2.archivists.org/prof-education/course-catalog/tst-inreach-and-outreach-for-digital-archives-das" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Inreach and Outreach for Digital
Archives</span></a>, taught by <a href="http://www2.archivists.org/prof-education/faculty/fynnette-eaton" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Fynnette Eaton</span></a>. The course
is part of the <a href="http://www2.archivists.org/prof-education/das/audience/Tactical-Strategic-courses" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Tactical and Strategic</span></a> tier
of the DAS curriculum, and was an all day, in person event held at the
Radcliffe campus in Cambridge. The objectives of the course were to identify
the relevant stakeholders surrounding digital archives at our institutions; to learn
how to articulate the importance of digital preservation to those stakeholders;
to effectively communicate with donors about their born-digital material; and
to think about ways to build a digital archives program within the context of
our specific institutions. I thought the workshop successfully achieved these objectives.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Though the slides and the discussion
focused on managing born-digital material, the general themes of this course
would probably be applicable to any collaborative project in virtually any
setting. Given the relative lack of born-digital material in my particular
institution, I appreciated that; it meant that the discussions were relevant to
me, and I was able to participate without feeling like I was thinking only in
the abstract. The broad themes as I saw them were these: </span></div>
<ul type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It is imperative to understand the political and social
culture of your particular environment before undertaking any project that
will require participation and buy-in from staff and management;</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Think carefully about who will need to be involved,
whether directly or indirectly, and communicate with them early and often.
In the context of a digital archives initiative potential stakeholders
include management, IT staff, donors, fellow staff, and end users;</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">a collaborative project must provide a clear benefit to
every party involved, and the expectations and goals of the project must
be well understood;</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It is a good idea to have a “champion,” somebody who is
well-connected, well-liked, and trusted in your institution who can
promote your idea;</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It is important to develop and manage the image you
want your stakeholders to have of your project. The instructor referred to
this as “branding,” which sounded a little foreign to my ears, but I
understood the point and agreed with it. For example, if as a University
Archivist you want the professors at your institution to think of the
Archives as the natural place to transfer their born-digital files, it’s
up to you to give them that idea by promoting the Archives as a safe
repository for electronic records, and also by educating them about what
files might be suitable for eventual transfer. </span></li>
</ul>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">More than any other DAS course I’ve
taken thus far, this was a true workshop. We spent a considerable amount of
time thinking and talking about the challenges we face at each of our
institutions, and worked individually, with partners, and in small groups to
brainstorm potential strategies for moving forward with a digital archives
program. I thought the instructor did a great job of listening to our ideas and
concerns, asking thoughtful questions, and offering useful suggestions. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I'll be writing again in July, when
I'm scheduled to take my ninth and final DAS course. I don't know when or where
I will be able to take the comprehensive exam, but as I know more about that I
will share it here. Thanks for reading, and as always please share any comments
or questions.</span></div>
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<![endif]-->Erica Boudreauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02547320024030858437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5613423631076984479.post-21726112770307892032013-03-07T15:39:00.000-05:002013-03-07T15:39:48.354-05:00Class No. 7: A Beginner's Guide to MetadataI recently took my seventh DAS course: <a href="http://saa.archivists.org/events/a-beginners-guide-to-metadata/102/" target="_blank">A Beginner's Guide to Metadata</a>, taught by <a href="http://saa.archivists.org/4DCGI/events/speakerbio.html?Action=SpeakerBio&&SpeakerID_W=367" target="_blank">Greg Colati</a> and <a href="http://saa.archivists.org/4DCGI/events/speakerbio.html?Action=SpeakerBio&&SpeakerID_W=366" target="_blank">Jessica Branco Colati</a>. This was another webinar course, recorded live back in 2008. I was a little concerned that the information would be too basic and, after five years, slightly out of date, but overall I felt that it was a well-organized, informative presentation. The goals were to provide a basic overview of metadata - what it is, where it comes from, what its components are, and how to choose the "right" schema(s) for one's own organization. <br />
<br />
Metadata has of course existed for thousands of years in the form of analog inventories and cataloging systems, but the word "metadata" comes to us from the IT world (incidentally, the capitalized term "Metadata" is actually a registered trademark of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Metadata_Company" target="_blank">Metadata Company</a> - who knew?). Metadata was originally considered "cataloging for geeks," "cataloging for guys," or just "cataloging for non-librarians," but over time it has become firmly entrenched in the lexicon of archivists and librarians. Simply defined, it is a tool for the identification, management,and use of information resources. It must be structured according to a schema, it must describe an information resource, and it should be useable by both machines and humans. Once created, it is never perfect or truly complete; it must be continually improved upon and eternally maintained. Put another way, metadata is language, made up of syntax, structure, and semantics. As archivists we should aim to be "multilingual metadata speakers."<br />
<br />
Having defined metadata, the instructors described the various "typologies" of metadata, such as primary, secondary, or tertiary; descriptive, administrative, technical, or structural; global, community, or local; and embedded or associated. They then explored the idea of metadata as language by picking apart a few lines of an EAD finding aid. The <b>syntax </b>for this particular piece of code was XML, which governed the fact that some information was in brackets while other information was not. The <b>structure </b>was EAD (Encoded Archival Description), which governed the specific elements that could be used, and the hierarchical order in which they appeared. The <b>semantics </b>were governed by DACS (Describing Archives: A Content Standard), which informed the content of the finding aid - the way the name of the creator was formed, for example, or the format of the collection title. The instructors noted that the syntax and structure of our metadata will likely change over time, but hopefully the semantics
will remain relatively stable. I thought this was a helpful exercise, in the same way that the basic rules and components of grammar must be understood more explicitly when we attempt to learn a foreign language. <br />
<br />
The last part of the course covered general things to consider when choosing a metadata schema (or schemas) for your own institution. This decision requires four steps:<br />
<ol>
<li><b>Identify your needs.</b> What kinds of objects do you have, and what kind of information do you need to collect about them? What do you want to be able to do with your metadata? How does your audience expect to be able to find and interact with your holdings?</li>
<li><b>Identify your resources.</b> Creating quality metadata is costly, but keep in mind that tasks left for sometime in the distant future will likely never get done. Do you want to spend your resources providing a high level of access to a few things, or a low level of access to a lot of things? If your institution follows MPLP, can you justify item level metadata for digital objects? And how do you define an "item"? Does user-created metadata have a place in our catalogs? It may be free to obtain, but there are costs involved in monitoring it for quality control and accuracy.</li>
<li><b>Test your vernacular. </b>Is the schema applicable? Is it useful? Does it meet the needs of your primary audience? Can you successfully communicate with it?</li>
<li><b>Optimize your efforts. </b>Look at the interoperability, shareability, reusability, and "archivability" of the schema. Remember that when moving from one metadata language to another some pieces of information will translate directly, some will be aggregated with others into a broader term, and some will be lost altogether.</li>
</ol>
For archivists with a good understanding of traditional archival practice but with limited experience creating or interacting with encoded metadata, or for those who might like to revisit the basics, I think this webinar is a great starting point. As always, please feel free to comment if you have questions or feedback, and thank you for reading!<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Erica Boudreauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02547320024030858437noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5613423631076984479.post-61938959737950071312012-07-02T15:34:00.002-04:002012-07-02T15:35:43.481-04:00Class No. 6: Using and Understanding PDF/A as a Preservation FormatLast week I attended my sixth DAS course, a live webinar titled "<a href="http://saa.peachnewmedia.com/store/seminar/seminar.php?seminar=12158" target="_blank">Using and Understanding PDF/A as a Preservation Format</a>." The course, taught by <a href="http://www2.archivists.org/prof-education/faculty/geoffrey-huth" target="_blank">Geoff Huth</a>, covered some basic information about preservation standards in general, specific information about the purpose and requirements of PDF/A (and its various versions), and some practical information about how to create and validate PDF/A files.<br />
<br />
PDF/A is an open preservation standard controlled by ISO (<a href="http://www.iso.org/iso/catalogue_detail?csnumber=38920" target="_blank">ISO 19005-1:2005</a>). It is not a particularly useful preservation format for complex files like spreadsheets, databases, or webpages, but it is quite good for text-based, static documents, both digitized and born-digital. Some of its advantages include:<br />
<ul>
<li>the look and feel of the original is retained;</li>
<li>any fonts required to accurately render the document are embedded within the PDF/A (unlike most file formats, which just point to a place on your hard drive where the necessary font may or may not reside);</li>
<li>it contains extractable text (for digitized documents, of course, this is only true if you used OCR software at time of capture); and</li>
<li>it helps to ensure authenticity by being very difficult to modify. </li>
</ul>
Because the PDF/A standard is expressly designed to persist over time, it requires that certain "non-archival" features be stripped out of a document before it can be converted into a valid PDF/A file. This applies to anything that might be unstable in the long term, such as embedded audio or video, encryption, compression, transparencies, executable files, or references to external content, though with each new version of the standard it seems that more features are allowed. There are several different "flavors" of PDF/A, each with its own list of requirements. For example, to create a valid PDF/A-1a you will need to include metadata that preserves the logical structure of the document, specifies the language of of the text, and preserves the text stream in reading order, whereas a PDF/A-1b preserves the visual appearance of the original but requires less descriptive metadata (the "b" stands for basic, the "a" for accessible; a document that only conforms to the standard at the basic level is less accessible as a result). The PDF/A-2 allows for electronic signatures and JPEG2000 compression and sets requirements for XMP metadata, and within that there is a PDF/A-2a, b, and u (for Unicode). The PDF/A-3 was recently ratified as well, which is very similar to PDF/A-2 but supports the maintenance of the original file by allowing it to be embedded within the PDF/A.<br />
<br />
I'm not sure I came away from this course with a comprehensive understanding of the PDF/A standard, but what I do know is that implementing it as a preservation standard is not as simple as choosing a "save as" command (which is, sadly, kind of what I pictured). Documents must be prepared for conversion if they contain problematic features, metadata about the structure of the document must be added, and the resultant PDF/A must be visually inspected for accuracy and validated for conformance to the standard. And that's just the beginning - as Geoff stressed at the end of the course, the format isn't everything; preservation programs require work. We still need conversion procedures, version control, environmental controls, descriptive and technical metadata, regular backups, and vigilance in the face of continued change and obsolescence. <br />
<br />
One question I came away with as I thought about how this might relate to my work at the Library is whether the PDF/A might really replace the TIFF image as a preservation format for scanned documents. I can see what the advantages might be, but I'm wondering if there are some disadvantages as well. Is this something that other archives have thought about or are already implementing? I'd be interested to hear what others think.<br />
<br />
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<br />Erica Boudreauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02547320024030858437noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5613423631076984479.post-64789208437259895872012-04-10T21:04:00.000-04:002012-04-13T14:58:24.904-04:00Class No. 5: Standards for Digital ArchivesLast week I took a Foundational DAS webinar, "<a href="http://saa.archivists.org/4DCGI/events/286.html?Action=Conference_Detail&ConfID_W=286&Time=-1995859694" target="_blank">Standards for Digital Archives</a>" taught by <a href="http://www2.archivists.org/prof-education/faculty/mahnaz-ghaznavi-1" target="_blank">Mahnaz Ghaznavi</a>. As its name suggests, this course provided an overview of the many standards that are available for use with digital archives. The underlying theme was that standards are good, and that you should adopt the ones that fit the needs of your institution. The course began with an example of an electronic record that could have benefited from the use of standards: a word processing file created in an obsolete, proprietary format that displayed as a nonsensical mishmash of special characters. Had the file been converted to an open, standard, more persistent format, the information contained in the document could have been retained.<br />
<br />
Though sometimes we create our own standards - a local set of topical subject headings, for example - the best standards are those that are published and maintained by a standards setting body (such as <a href="http://www.iso.org/iso/home.html" target="_blank">ISO</a>, <a href="http://www.w3.org/" target="_blank">W3C</a>, <a href="http://www.niso.org/home/" target="_blank">NISO</a>, <a href="http://www.ansi.org/" target="_blank">ANSI</a>, or <a href="http://www.nist.gov/index.html" target="_blank">NIST</a>). There are standards to guide us in almost any activity that we engage in as archivists:<br />
<ul>
<li>records retention and appraisal (ISO 15489); </li>
<li>the ingestion, management, preservation, and access of digital or physical archives (ISO 14721, better known as OAIS); </li>
<li>linking objects with their associated metadata (METS); </li>
<li>capturing preservation data about our objects (PREMIS); </li>
<li>capturing descriptive metadata about our objects (Dublin Core);</li>
<li>migrating our objects into more stable formats (JPEG 2000, PDF/A) </li>
<li>and making sure our digital objects are stored in a secure manner (TRAC)</li>
</ul>
Given that it would have been impossible to delve into these standards in any detail within the confines of a ninety minute webinar, I think the instructor was able to convey some useful information about the options that are available to help manage digitized or born-digital archival assets. She advised us to learn from what other institutions have done and are doing, whether successfully or not, and to recognize that digital preservation is a moving target. To implement any of these standards one would need significantly more guidance, but this course can serve as the first step to becoming aware of what is possible.<br />
<br />
Because SAA generously allows multiple people to view their webinars for the cost of one registration (though each attendee must pay for his or her examination fee), we had a good-sized audience of full time staff and interns in a conference room at the Library. For our interns, most of whom are current graduate students in Library
Science at Simmons College, it seemed like much of the information
presented echoed what they've already learned in class. I took that as a positive sign that graduate programs are
adapting to our increasingly digital world. Archives students graduating
now will start their careers already armed with skills and knowledge that
more established professionals must actively seek out (by pursuing the
DAS certificate, for instance). Of course it has always been thus, everywhere and in every profession, but my perspective until recently has been that of the
recent graduate; now that I have been out of school for almost ten
years, I find that I am suddenly among those who must rush to catch up or be left behind.Erica Boudreauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02547320024030858437noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5613423631076984479.post-53508969962808037602012-03-29T11:37:00.000-04:002012-03-29T13:22:34.949-04:00Class No. 4: Electronic Records: The Next Step<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
I recently completed my fourth DAS course, an on-demand webinar titled "<a href="http://www2.archivists.org/prof-education/course-catalog/tst-electronic-records-the-next-step-das" target="_blank">Electronic Records: The Next Step</a>" taught by <a href="http://www2.archivists.org/prof-education/faculty/geoffrey-huth" target="_blank">Geoffrey Huth</a>, Director of Government Records Services at the New York State Archives. One of my classmates had very recently taken Huth's full day, in-person course on Basic Electronic Records, which is part of the Foundational tier of DAS courses. Though this webinar is part of the Tactical and Strategic tier - the next tier up - it apparently didn't contain much new information that was not already covered in the basic course. Given this, the two courses might be best presented as an either/or choice: the basic course for true beginners, and this webinar for those who already have some familiarity with the issues surrounding electronic records.<br />
<br />
The structure of the course mirrored the archival lifecycle, which - as I have learned in all of my DAS courses - is consistent regardless of format: <b>Appraisal</b>, <b>Ingest</b>, <b>Processing and Preservation</b>, <b>Maintenance</b>, <b>Access</b>, and <b>Planning</b>. Though much of the material was familiar, I find that I need to hear this kind of information over and over again before it truly sinks in. I took away the following main points:<br />
<ul>
<li>Appraise ruthlessly. It will cost approximately five times more to store a digital file than it does to store a physical object. We cannot and should not keep everything, in the physical world or in the digital world. If you cannot manage or even access the files, if you cannot maintain their original functionality, or if you do not have sufficient metadata to make sense of them, consider whether they are worth keeping. </li>
<li>Define acceptable file formats (uncompressed, unencrypted) and external media devices, as well as acceptable methods of transfer for your institution. This way you will have processes in place to handle any electronic records that you receive.</li>
<li>Make sure that the donor retains a second copy of all electronic files until your copy is verified.</li>
<li><i>Always </i>accession electronic records on a quarantined (i.e. non-networked) computer. Run your virus software, wait a month, and then run it again. </li>
<li>Preservation options for electronic records include migration, normalization, emulation, and output to some sort of hard copy, generally paper or microfilm. </li>
<ul>
<li>Normalization, which involves converting files to a "normal" format that is open and persistent (PDF/A, for example) the most likely solution. </li>
<li>Emulation, wherein the file is never converted to another format, is a less practical choice, as the original environment of each file would need to be perpetually maintained. I see how this is completely impractical, but if you had the resources and the know-how it might be interesting to have a fleet of computers running defunct operating systems and software programs so that records could be accessed as they were originally created.</li>
<li>Output to paper or microfilm might be an acceptable solution if you've got just one or two electronic files, and if those files are simple word processing documents. If retaining the functionality of a record is important (links in a website or formulas in a spreadsheet, for example), obviously a hard copy is not going to be sufficient. </li>
</ul>
<li>One thing that I found slightly alarming was Huth's assertion that the world, with the exception of the archival community, is turning away from TIFF and toward JPEG 2000 as a standard. Is this true, and if so, what will that mean for digital archives (like JFK's) that are full of TIFF images?</li>
<li>Access seems like the trickiest piece of this puzzle. Is access provided online, or just in the reference room? If electronic records are closely related to physical records, how do you provide meaningful access to both at once? </li>
<li>Just as we should define the formats we will accept when accessioning records, we should define the formats we are willing to provide to our users. It should be up to the user to convert our normalized file into whatever format he or she may require.</li>
<li>Though our inclination may be to ignore electronic records and digitization, the truth is that if you're not working with the digital world, you're not working in the real world. </li>
<li>You can't do everything at once, but do something, and do it now.</li>
</ul>
In the spirit of that last point, I am going to try to do something with the electronic records that are stored on this device, which was found by my colleague in an unexpected place in our stacks:<br />
<div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi29hgImCiXzFVT26T0F64G2IrJ0LtbbschVVmcqoLe15UductmBjQGAmDHHRjnuYA9aWG0Og_PLWfPDuexltJM60yi5AHJU00a4sDxorhuuGeKZwoKf_jdgrYeM5MGiN45G99rwsiGw3CG/s1600/IMG_20120321_154245.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Floppy disk" border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi29hgImCiXzFVT26T0F64G2IrJ0LtbbschVVmcqoLe15UductmBjQGAmDHHRjnuYA9aWG0Og_PLWfPDuexltJM60yi5AHJU00a4sDxorhuuGeKZwoKf_jdgrYeM5MGiN45G99rwsiGw3CG/s200/IMG_20120321_154245.jpg" title="" width="187" /></a></div>
<br />
First I'll need a quarantined computer with a disk drive that will fit this floppy disk, and then I'll need to figure out what program was used to create whatever documents are stored on it. In this case my guess is that they'll be word processing documents that most likely exist in hard copy in the collection already, in which case this disk probably won't be of much importance to the collection. However, rather than just sticking it somewhere in the stacks and pretending it doesn't exist (as we did originally), I'm going to use what I've learned in my DAS courses to deal with it properly.<br />
<br />
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<br /></div>Erica Boudreauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02547320024030858437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5613423631076984479.post-74405420667291437692012-03-27T15:28:00.000-04:002012-03-27T15:28:16.073-04:00Changes to DAS Course Examination PoliciesSAA recently made some changes to the DAS course examination policies, and I thought it might be useful to highlight them here.<br />
<br />
The exams, and the rules governing them, now differ depending on the length of the course. Until now students were given two hours to complete each exam,
regardless of length, and some exams had as few as five questions. Now for a web seminar, which is the shortest type of course, the exam will consist of ten questions, and participants will be given just one hour to complete them. In contrast, the exam for a two-day course - the longest type of course currently offered - will now consist of 30 questions, but participants will have up to four hours to complete them.<br />
<br />
This seems like a sensible way to acknowledge the disparate amount of material that can be covered in a 90 minute webinar versus a one- or two-day, in-person course. I wonder if the next step might be to weight these courses differently, given this disparity, or perhaps to offer significantly longer webinars to increase the complexity of remote courses for the benefit of those who are not able, for whatever reason, to travel.<br />
<br />
The <a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_41221890">revised </a><a href="http://www2.archivists.org/prof-education/das/exams" target="_blank">Course Examinations</a> page also provides some details about the comprehensive exam, though I'm not sure whether it's new information. It explains that the comprehensive exam covers the seven Core Competencies of the DAS Curriculum, and that each DAS course addresses at least two of these competencies. Any combination of the required number of courses from the four tiers of study should theoretically provide students with the knowledge necessary to pass the exam. The seven Core Competencies are:<br />
<ol>
<li>
<div>
Understand the nature of records in electronic form, including the
functions of various storage media, the nature of system dependence, and the
effect on integrity of records over time.</div>
</li>
<li>
<div>
Communicate and define requirements, roles, and responsibilities related to
digital archives to a variety of partners and audiences.</div>
</li>
<li>
<div>
Formulate strategies and tactics for appraising, describing, managing,
organizing, and preserving digital archives.</div>
</li>
<li>
<div>
Integrate technologies, tools, software, and media within existing
functions for appraising, capturing, preserving, and providing access to digital
collections.</div>
</li>
<li>
<div>
Plan for the integration of new tools or successive generations of emerging
technologies, software, and media.</div>
</li>
<li>
<div>
Curate, store, and retrieve original masters and access copies of digital
archives.</div>
</li>
<li>
<div>
Provide dependable organization and service to designated communities
across networks.</div>
</li>
</ol>
More information about the DAS Curriculum can be found <a href="http://www2.archivists.org/prof-education/das/curriculum-structure" target="_blank">here</a>.Erica Boudreauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02547320024030858437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5613423631076984479.post-33288149341171518062012-01-30T15:56:00.001-05:002012-01-31T11:28:11.226-05:00Class No. 3: Digital Curation: Creating an Environment for SuccessEarlier this month I attended <a href="http://saa.archivists.org/4DCGI/events/318.html?Action=Conference_Detail&ConfID_W=318&Time=411137478">"Digital Curation: Creating an Environment for Success"</a> taught by <a href="http://www2.archivists.org/prof-education/faculty/jackie-r-esposito">Jackie Esposito</a>, University Archivist and Head of Records Management Services at Penn State University. The workshop was held at the Harvard Business School which, with its beautiful campus and fancy cafeteria, isn't a bad place to spend a day. After my <a href="http://saa.archivists.org/4DCGI/events/46.html?Action=Conference_Detail&ConfID_W=46&Time=410860913">last course</a>, which discussed the basics of digitizing analog archival material, the content of this course represented a return to the concerns surrounding born-digital material. <br />
<br />
The recurring theme for the day was that doing digital curation is like eating an elephant; you have to break it into pieces in order to manage it successfully. I think the other main theme of the class could be used to extend the metaphor: an elephant, once broken apart, is best eaten with friends, meaning that digital curation cannot be managed by one archivist alone. Partnering with the right people within your organization, including records creators, budget writers, and IT experts, is key to your success. <br />
<br />
As I've done for my two previous classes, I'll list the points that stood out most for me in this course:<br />
<ul>
<li>The format may change, but the function does not , meaning a record is still a record regardless of its format. This reinforces the idea that our archival skills are still applicable in the digital world.</li>
<li>Though the same archival processes apply to electronic records, the window of time in which we must gain intellectual control over them is smaller. Whereas a box of paper can sit on the shelf for decades, a born-digital accession may only last a short time - something like 5 years - before the media becomes obsolete and inaccessible.</li>
<li>As the permanent caretaker of the records, you can define the formats you are willing to accept. </li>
<li>When forging relationships with others in your institution, don't scare them by talking about all of the horrible things that will happen to your institution's records if they aren't managed correctly. Scaring people does not work. Instead, make them feel comfortable and work to convince them of the benefits of what you are trying to achieve. </li>
<li>Know what your priorities are, and make them manageable and measurable. Also, have frequent parties to celebrate your victories, no matter how small. If you have students on staff, feed them often. </li>
<li>NEVER use the word "project." Instead, use the word "program," which implies permanence.</li>
<li>If your public access interface doesn't look and act like Google, nobody is going to like it or use it.</li>
<li>Don't reinvent the wheel - other archivists have done these things already, so borrow from them, collaborate with them, and generally draw on the experience and expertise of your colleagues.</li>
</ul>
Though the material in this course was mostly theoretical to me, I really enjoyed it, mainly because I found Jackie to be an extremely engaging instructor. One note, though: this is classified as a <a href="http://www2.archivists.org/prof-education/das/audience/foundational-courses">Foundational</a> DAS course, whereas to me it seems more suited to the <a href="http://www2.archivists.org/prof-education/das/audience/Tactical-Strategic-courses">Tactical and Strategic</a> tier. Foundational courses focus mainly on "the needs of practitioners—archivists who are or will be working directly with electronic records," while Tactical and Strategic courses are meant to focus on "the skills that archivists need to make significant changes in
their organizations so that they can develop a digital archives and work
seriously on managing electronic records." As the course title indicates, this was geared towards archivists who actually have the power to change the environment at their institution and who are responsible for implementing an electronic records management program rather than (or perhaps in addition to) working hands-on with the actual records.<br />
<br />
I welcome any and all comments on this course or the DAS program in general, and as always, thanks for reading!Erica Boudreauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02547320024030858437noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5613423631076984479.post-30442037737846731802012-01-05T13:18:00.001-05:002012-01-05T17:07:41.557-05:00Class No. 2: Thinking Digital: A Practical Session to Help You Get StartedOn Tuesday I began the new year by taking my first DAS course presented as an on-demand webinar: "Thinking Digital...A Practical Session to Help You Get Started," taught by <a href="http://www2.archivists.org/prof-education/faculty/jessica-colati">Jessica Branco Colati</a> and <a href="http://www2.archivists.org/prof-education/faculty/gregory-colati">Greg Colati</a>. This is one of the Foundational DAS courses, and it serves as a good overview of the decisions we make as creators and stewards of digital content. Unlike the first course I took, this was more focused on the digitization of traditional archives than on born-digital records.<br />
<br />
The course was organized by the kinds of choices digital archivists must make about <b>quality, metadata, management, storage, preservation, </b>and <b>delivery.</b> Without repeating all of the information in the course, I'll just list the highlights as I saw them:<br />
<ul>
<li>High <b>quality </b>digital objects adhere to five established principles: interoperability, reusability, sustainability, authenticity, and scalability. Better quality requires more time, more storage, and better equipment, but it also allows for a wider variety of uses. We should create the best quality digital objects we can afford now so that we have greater flexibility later.</li>
<li><b>Metadata </b>allows for the identification, management, access, use, and preservation of a digital object. There are several different types of metadata: administrative, descriptive, preservation (including technical), and structural. Metadata should support local needs, but should also be standardized in order to enable interoperability. Controlled vocabularies should be supported. Keep in mind that metadata is never truly finished - there will always be changes or updates to make, or new information to capture.</li>
<li>The <b>management </b>of digital files must include all derivatives of the original object (and there could be hundreds) as well as the metadata about that object. Management must be built into your digitization workflow; it should not be a separate activity. There is no one digital asset management system (DAMS) that will solve all of your problems - you will most likely need an array of systems to accomplish all of your goals. In any DAMS, web delivery is only a small piece of the puzzle despite how important it is to users and probably to your management. </li>
<li><b>Storage </b>choices will depend on the choices about quality you made earlier - the higher quality files you have, the more storage you will need. While storage may be getting cheaper, back up and preservation services are getting more expensive. It might be best to consult an expert when it comes to storage.</li>
<li><b>Preservation </b>starts at the point of creation of a digital object, which is also the point at which the creators of digital content probably don't want to be bothered with questions about preservation, so it's on us as archivists to maintain the focus on preservation concerns. The first stage in a successful preservation plan is simply to acknowledge that digital preservation is important (much like the first step in overcoming addiction is to acknowledge that you have a problem, I suppose).This is as far as we've gotten, to be honest, but we hope to move onto the next stage soon, which is to take action.</li>
<li><b>Delivery </b>involves both discovery and access. Discovery is based on the indexing of your metadata and/or the full text of your scanned documents. Access is how users interact with your digital objects once they are discovered - are the objects simply viewed, or are they able to be manipulated or extracted by the user?</li>
</ul>
The first point the instructors made before delving into what I described above
was that the skills we already have as archivists can be easily adapted
to the digital environment. I find that this is particularly true when
it comes to the following: <br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><b>Planning and prioritizing digitization workflow.</b> This is no different from planning and prioritizing our processing workflow, and should be done in the same systematic way.<br />
</li>
<li><b>Creating descriptive metadata.</b> Descriptive metadata is
archival description, which means that we already know how to create it,
and also that our finding aids are full of preexisting descriptive
metadata. <br />
</li>
<li><b>Managing and preserving digital assets. </b>We manage our physical holdings, whether through the use of a database or a paper shelf list,
and we are responsible for their long term preservation. This is true
of digital files as well, whether they are born-digital records or
digital surrogates of physical objects. Though digital files do present
some specific challenges that will require more technical knowledge than we may start out with, the fundamental responsibility is the same. </li>
</ul>
One final comment: the on-demand courses are available for two months once you register for
them, which is very convenient, but it turns out that this flexibility
actually made it difficult for me to find the time for it when there are so many other things that require immediate
attention. I registered for this webinar back in November, and I was
lucky to complete it just before the two months expired. I do plan to
take additional on-demand courses, but in order to thwart my inner
procrastinator I will try to schedule a specific day for them as if I
were taking them live.<br />
<br />
I will be taking another Foundational DAS course, "Digital Curation: Creating an Environment for Success" on January 18th in Boston, so I'll be posting again in a few weeks. Until then, thanks for reading!Erica Boudreauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02547320024030858437noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5613423631076984479.post-52738026118979715272011-10-27T15:15:00.000-04:002011-10-27T15:15:41.681-04:00Some thoughts after last night's SCoSAA panelLast night I participated in a panel about emerging standards in archival description sponsored by the Student Chapter of the Society of American Archivists (<a href="http://gslis.simmons.edu/blogs/scosaa/">SCoSAA</a>) at Simmons College. Kate Bowers, one of the other panelists, gave a great talk about integrating physical and born-digital archival records at the Harvard University Archives that reminded me of the Managing Electronic Records workshop I took a few weeks ago. She talked about maintaining the continuity of records, regardless of format, explaining that the web pages and tweets of today serve the same fundamental purpose as the broadsides and other ephemera of past centuries, just as the course catalog that exists today as a complex database is still the same basic vital record of the University that the simple print version used to be. I found that idea somewhat comforting; electronic records seem less mysterious when viewed as continuations of existing records series that can be described using the archival knowledge we already have at our disposal.<br />
<br />
It struck me that we all touched on how our work as archivists - particularly where access to digitized or born-digital material is concerned - now involves other professionals, particularly from the IT field. Though we may not be IT experts ourselves, we need to understand their world enough to be able to communicate our needs effectively. Our role as archivists is to help design the tools we need by articulating the functionality we want, and by continually coming up with new ideas to make our metadata do more for us and for our users.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Erica Boudreauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02547320024030858437noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5613423631076984479.post-61652265829376854062011-10-18T21:24:00.000-04:002011-10-19T08:34:55.914-04:00Class No. 1: Managing Electronic Records in Archives and Special CollectionsI traveled up to Dartmouth College last week to take my first DAS course, <a href="http://www2.archivists.org/prof-education/course-catalog/managing-electronic-records-in-archives-and-special-collections">Managing Electronic Records in Archives and Special Collections</a>. This is a two-day "Transformational" workshop from the fourth tier of courses in the DAS curriculum (the other tiers are "Foundational," "Tactical and Strategic," and "Tools and Services"). Only one Transformational course is required for the DAS Certificate. <br />
<br />
The course was taught by <a href="http://www2.archivists.org/prof-education/faculty/timothy-pyatt">Tim Pyatt</a> from Penn State and <a href="http://www2.archivists.org/prof-education/faculty/michael-shallcross">Michael Shallcross</a> from the University of Michigan, both of whom have a great deal of real world experience with electronic records. It was very well-attended, mainly by archivists working in college and university settings, though there were several NARA representatives as well. The participants included lone arrangers who have been tasked with starting an electronic records management program from scratch, managers who wanted to know how to support their staff in such an endeavor, a vendor who works to create software that will manage electronic records, and curious archivists who have little to do with electronic records in their current positions but were interested in learning about managing them nonetheless. I fell into this latter category, and thus remained more of an observer than an active participant in the workshop. <br />
<br />
The majority of the first day was dedicated to learning the basic components of an electronic records program and the issues that we face as we try to manage these records, followed by some group discussion of three case studies that we had been assigned to read prior to the workshop. The second day was more hands-on; we got to play with some open source programs used for things like creating and verifying checksums, archiving web sites, creating disk images, and discovering and managing file formats. The instructors shared a lot of great information, but the major points that I came away with were these:<br />
<ul>
<li>When preserving an electronic record, consider what you are trying to preserve - the appearance of the record, or just its intellectual content. This may vary based on the nature of the record and the resources you have available.</li>
<li>Implementing a comprehensive electronic records management system all at once is unrealistic; it is better to take it on piece by piece, keeping in mind that doing something is better than doing nothing.</li>
<li>Though storage is indeed getting cheaper, it is very important to stress to your institution that storage is a perpetual, ongoing cost, not a one-time expense. Electronic records must be preserved forever, just like our physical holdings.</li>
<li>Without proper management, electronic records are a preservation nightmare; the lifespan of acidic paper is an eternity compared to the lifespan of most electronic records. Though it may be more exciting to digitize analog records, the more pressing need is to preserve information that exists <i>only </i>in electronic form. </li>
<li>Donated hard drives will often contain files that the donor thought were deleted, but are actually recoverable. What to do with those files is an interesting question.</li>
<li>Whenever possible, provide guidance related to file naming and organization practices to members of your institution. If they follow your advice, your job will be infinitely easier when their records end up deposited in your archives.</li>
<li>Take a digital photo of original physical storage media and store it with the metadata about the records they contained. </li>
<li>Make friends with your IT staff, if you have one.</li>
<li>A delivery system is not the same thing as a preservation system. No single program takes care of the entire electronic records lifecycle, but for now Archivematica comes the closest.</li>
<li>Providing public access to electronic records presents some major challenges, and it will be very interesting to see what creative solutions archivists come up with in the next few years.</li>
</ul>
<div>
I'm not sure how much of this knowledge I can apply right away, but I do feel like I have a better understanding of the challenges involved in dealing with the born-digital records in our collections, and of some of the software solutions that currently exist. </div>
<br />Erica Boudreauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02547320024030858437noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5613423631076984479.post-25955987779964139052011-10-17T19:40:00.000-04:002011-10-17T19:40:01.179-04:00First things first...When the Society of American Archivists announced the creation of its Digital Archives Specialist (DAS) Curriculum and Certificate Program earlier this year, I couldn't wait to learn more about it. As a Digital Archivist who has learned most of my technological skills on the job rather than in a classroom, it sounded like the perfect way to continue my professional education. When the SAA Education Committee came up with the idea to find an archivist who would take the required DAS courses, (hopefully) pass the quizzes and comprehensive exam, and blog about the whole experience, I happily volunteered.<br />
<br />
Though the Digitization Unit at the JFK Library is focused primarily on the digitization of analog archival material, I believe that the preservation and management of born-digital records is something with which all archivists should concern themselves. And though our collections date mainly to the mid-twentieth century, our backlog does contain materials generated more recently, most notably within the voluminous papers of Senator Edward M. Kennedy. Just today I learned of a mysterious circular piece of computer hardware (I'm told it resembles a container used to transport a cake) that was sent to us with one of the Senator's accessions. What is it? What information does it contain, and how will we access it? How can we move the information somewhere else, and how will we preserve it? And finally, how will researchers access it? Hopefully by the time I've completed the DAS program, I'll be ready to answer questions like these. Until then, the mysterious circular object, along with many others like it, will remain on a shelf in our stacks, its nature and contents hidden, edging closer and closer to irretrievable obsolescence.Erica Boudreauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02547320024030858437noreply@blogger.com1