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Preserving digital records collections combines the existing archival practice of validating, compiling, describing, and storing the records along with the additional digital archives practice of validating, identifying file formats, identifying file versions, capturing file names / IDs, and packaging the digital records for digital preservation. Consider using Radical Collaboration as a method for having these discussions.
Example: Digital Records Collections
An organization’s Board meets monthly. According to the approved records schedule, all Board meeting Agendas, Meeting Minutes, and Handouts are permanent records and scheduled for transfer annually to the organization’s archives for preservation.
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What is considered the copy of record? If it is the version that is a PDF file, you may need to consider also preserving the version in its original file format. See https://www.loc.gov/preservation/resources/rfs/format. See the recommended formats chart -pref-summary.html
Use PAIMAS to guide your negotiation with the Board administrator about how the digital records will be transferred, what metadata will accompany them, and what responsibility the digital archives has in validating and creating an Information Package for digital preservation. See the info box below.
Develop transfer workflows that can be automated and utilize forensic methods and digital archives practices that lead to packaging your digital records for digital preservation.
OSSArcFlow: Investigating, Synchronizing, and Modeling a Range of Archival Workflows for Born-Digital Content.
How will you package the records when they are transferred every two months? Will you hold the files in a ‘temporary storage’ area? Or will you package and transfer to digital preservation storage semi-monthly and identify the records as a series using the OAIS AIC concept?
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In the context of digital records, remember that archival practice may overlap with digital archives work for digital records and has its own domain expertise to assist with preservation packaging. Archival terms are often used differently by other domains, so remember to ask questions as a way to build understanding and develop working definitions. Referring to 'An Archival View' in the Radical Collaboration issue of Research Library Issues (RLI 296) may be helpful, especially if packaging digital records is less familiar at your organization or you are getting started with them. Reviewing this from the FAQ may be helpful: https://texasdigitallibrary.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/DPS/pages/3449323530/TDL+DP+Decision+Tree+FAQ#Why-does-it-help-to-disambiguate-%E2%80%98digital-archives%E2%80%99-and-%E2%80%98digital-preservation%E2%80%99? For comparison and to assist with cross-domain packaging discussions , these are the working definitions from the Digital Archives and Preservation (DAP) Framework: digital archives refers to all the activities organizations or individuals required in real-time to appraise, acquire, process, describe, secure, and make available specified digital content; digital preservation refers to all the activities organizations or individuals engage in over-time across generations of technology to ensure the long-term readability and usefulness of specified digital content. |
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Smithsonian Institution’s Recommended Preservation Formats for Electronic Records
Radical Collaboration (Research Library Issues RLI 296) (video) Includes: Introduction (with concepts and model), An Archivist’s Perspective, and Forward Together
PAIMAS - Producer-Archives Interface Method Abstract Standard
Guide to Documenting Born-Digital Archival Workflows, OSSArchFlow 2020
This is a joint initiative between TDL Digital Preservation Services and the Digital Preservation Management (DPM) Workshop and Global Archivist LLC. Dr. Nance McGovern 2024.
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