The AIMS (An Inter-Institutional Model for Stewardship) project is a two-year project focusing on creating an inter-institutional framework for stewarding born-digital content. The milestones for 2011 are to ingest born digital materials into a Fedora Commons repository, be able to search the repository, edit metadata, and may include a prototype user interface for arrangement (creating series and subseries). To do this, the Hypatia application is being created to support the acessioning, arrangement/description, delivery and long term preservation of born digital archival collections. The Rubymatica tool, which is being created to have a Submission Information Package (SIP) creation tool written in Ruby and ready to be integrated with a suite of web applications, continues to be refined, with a beta version available for testing by interested parties. Check out the AIMS blog for further details:
Category Archives: Archives
Digital Preservation Projects at Harvard University Library
In addition to their email archiving project, Harvard University Library has many projects and initiatives currently underway that deal with preserving digital content.
Filed under Archives, Archiving Email, University Archives
Email Archiving Project at Harvard University
Harvard University Libraries began planning for an email archiving project in early 2007. The two-year pilot project was undertaken to implement a system for the ingest, processing, preservation, and eventual end user delivery of email, in anticipation of it becoming an ongoing central service at the University after the pilot. In 2010 they published a paper describing some of the unexpected challenges encountered during the pilot project and how they were
addressed by design decisions.
http://www.ifs.tuwien.ac.at/dp/ipres2010/papers/goethals-08.pdf
Filed under Archives, Archiving Email, University Archives
Handbook on the Management and Preservation of Scientific Records and Data
A few months ago the International Council on Archives (ICA), Section on University and Research Institution Archives, published a new handbook on the management of scientific records. Only members can download the entire handbook, but it looks like it may be a worthwhile resource for those of us dealing with archiving faculty data sets.
Filed under Archives, E-Records, Managing E-Records
Disk Archive vs Tape Archive
In an article on part of the TechTarget website, there is a discussion about the the war of words over disk archive versus tape archive. This discussion and the thought that “tape sucks” could influence how we develop our digital archives.
Filed under Archives, Digital Preservation, E-Records
Toolkit for Managing E-Records
NARA has a handy online toolkit that provides links to numerous resources discussing the management of e-records.
http://www.archives.gov/records-mgmt/toolkit/pdf/all-nara-tools-by-date.pdf
Filed under Archives, E-Records, Records Management
Managing and Archiving Mixed Media
NARA released a draft bulletin that provides guidance on managing files with mixed electronic media. It provides helpful tips on how to store and manage mixed media that may come on DVD or CD. This may help those of us working in archival settings where we are receiving collections that have a mix of paper, electronic, and audio-visual records.
Filed under Archives, E-Records, Managing E-Records
Website Preservation Project
SAA recently published a new campus case study titled On the Development of University Michigan Web Archives: Archival Principles and Strategies. The case study discusses a large-scale website preservation project undertaken by the The University Archives and Records Program (UARP) at the Bentley Historical Library as part of a broader effort to proactively capture and maintain select electronic records of the University of Michigan.
Access the case study here:
http://www2.archivists.org/sites/all/files/Case13Final.pdf
Filed under Archives, University Archives, Web Site Archiving
Archiving University Podcasting Content
SAA has published a recent case study titled Podcasts in the Archives: Archiving Podcasting Content at the University of Michigan which examines the challenges involved in developing best practices and workflows for archiving and preserving podcasting content created by the University of Michigan.
Filed under Archives, E-Records, Managing E-Records, University Archives
File Formats
One of the initiatives regarding the management of e-records at The National Archives (UK) is their PRONOM project. PRONOM is an on-line information system about data file formats and their supporting software products. Originally developed to support the accession and long-term preservation of electronic records held by the National Archives, PRONOM is now available as a resource for anyone requiring access to this type of information. PRONOM holds information about software products, and the file formats which each product can read and write. Check it out here:
Filed under Archives, E-Records, Managing E-Records
