Page History

...

The heterogeneous file formats and content types in most born digital archives post a serious challenge to archivists in assigning metadata to individual digital objects. Stanford University Libraries has been exploring the use of forensic software since April 2010 to generate technical metadata and to assign descriptive and administrative metadata to several born digital collections. The technical metadata includes checksum, file format, file size, file creation date, last modification date, and last accession date; descriptive metadata includes archival context (series, subseries, etc.), subject headings, and source media, and administrative metadata includes primarily access restrictions. I would like to share this experience and to receive feedback from other people.

Discussing Digital Issues with our Stakeholders

Alison Hinderliter, Newberry Library

As cultural institutions continue to receive collections, and as the collections become more digital in nature, the process of accessioning and delivery of documents, which used to be within the purview of the curator, archivist, and reading room staff, has now become the concern also of library administrators, the IT department, and the finance department.  How should the conversation begin with departments that have never before had to deal with the questions of long-term preservation and storage of archival materials in varieties of formats?  As a related issue: What can be expected of the smaller institutions with smaller staff and budgets, and does collaboration with other institutions include the referral of larger collections to larger, more well-funded institutions that are better equipped to handle the complexities of preserving and providing access to these collections?