Over the past two years, my former intern Matt McShane and I in collaboration with the Digital Preservation and Access (DP&A) Workgroup conducted a review and update of University Libraries’ 2013 Digital Preservation Policy Framework and created the newly adopted Digital Preservation Ethos Framework. University Libraries’ mission, vision and values have evolved since 2013, and it was time for a refresh.

Digital preservation is not a state that is achieved; rather, it is an ongoing set of activities providing continued access to digital objects beyond the limits of media failure or technological change. This work is highly collaborative across University Libraries. Therefore, it is more appropriate to consider the framework for this collective work as an ethos: the characteristic spirit of a people, community, culture or organization as manifested in its attitudes and aspirations. This is not a policy, a “how to” document or set of rules to follow. Instead, it is a statement of purpose and commitment to the ongoing work of preserving our digital cultural heritage.

In creating this document, we benchmarked the 2013 framework with our peers in the Big Ten Academic Alliance and reviewed other related documentation. The result is a document that has been simplified, dejargonized and rearranged to flow in a more engaging manner. It describes our commitment to digital preservation and lays out its connection to our mission, values and strategic directions. It identifies high-level requisites for digital preservation and articulates the objectives, scope, principles and standards, responsibilities, implementation aspirations and our commitment to collaboration and cooperation for digital preservation.

Please review the Digital Preservation Ethos Framework.

Now Available
Research Data Curation: A Framework for an Institution-Wide Services Approach

An EDUCAUSE Working Group Paper
https://library.educause.edu/resources/2018/5/research-data-curation-a-framework-for-an-institution-wide-services-approach

Universities and colleges should consider an institution-wide approach to developing services for managing and curating research data. This paper identifies service areas and includes a framework for institutions to document current research data curation services and responsibilities. This timely, informative paper can also be found in the EDUCAUSE library and on the EDUCAUSE Working Groups website: www.educause.edu/ecar/ecar-working-groups

The publication is available to all EDUCAUSE members for one year, following which it made public. A full list of member institutions can be found at: https://members.educause.edu/. For more information about this paper and EDUCAUSE Working Groups, contact WG@educause.edu

The second “Technology Matters in Archives” column has been published, “Email: An Appraisal Approach.”

“For nearly a half-century, we in the archives, records, and information management professions have either taught our institutions and organizations, or been taught, that a record is a record, no matter the media or manner in which it is created. It is the informational value contained within the item that determines whether it is a record. If it is a record, we then need to identify the temporal value of that information to determine its lifecycle, that is how long it should be maintained and its final disposition, either destruction or accessioning to an archive. However, there still is significant pushback from our institutions’ desires to treat electronic or born digital records as something different from those that are paper-based and/or analog-born, and subsequently want to monolithically manage electronic/digital records’ lifecycles as a single record type…This problem exists throughout our organizations from our enterprise systems that manage human resources and financial data, to our shared drives, to the darkest and dankest quagmire of all, our email systems. Had Dante Alighieri been a records or information management professional in the twenty-first century, he may have assigned one level of his hell solely to email.” Join me as I discuss potential solutions for applying sound records management to email.

Visit my “Scholarship” page for additional links to publications and presentations.

While on a trip to New York City, recently to teach a workshop for the Society of American Archivists, I also had the great pleasure to be interviewed for  “An Archivist’s Tale” podcast (https://www.spreaker.com/show/an-archivists-tale). The podcast entails archivists in conversation with archivists, discussing their work and passions and how they care for the historical record and present the storied past. It is hosted by husband and wife team Karen Trivette and Geof Huth.

The Journal of Archival Organization has been relaunched. I am editing and authoring a new column, “Technology Matter in archives.” New to the Journal of Archival Organization, the column examines how technology affects archives and archivists. The inaugural column explains the nature of the column and sets the stage for topics and issues that it will address. It examines the meaning of the term technology. Further, the column explores the notion of technological dependence—not just dependence on digital or electronic systems—as a lens in which to examine the archival enterprise in grappling with twenty-first century issues. Concluding with the suggestion that technology can be considered from three categorical points of view: soft (philosophical approaches and practices), medium (codified processes, guidelines and standards) and hard technology (hardware and software). I am seeking contributors, so feel free to contact me.

My review of Digital Preservation Essentials has been published in The American Archivist. Digital Preservation Essentials is one of the latest installments in Trends in Archives Practice, the Society of American Archivists’ evolving modular series intended to fill significant gaps in the archival literature. The series currently covers topics in sixteen modules that include themes of archival arrangement and description, appraisal and acquisition strategies, becoming a trusted digital repository, rights in the digital era, teaching with primary sources, and this volume on digital preservation basics. Erin O’Meara and Kate Stratton’s two modules—“Preserving Digital Objects” and “Digital Preservation Storage”—in this slim volume pack a punch, proving to be engaging and accessible. Go here for a full listing of publications and presentations…

Check out the Fall 2016 Society of Ohio Archivists’ Ohio Archivist. My DiGITal (Digital Guidance, Information, Tips And Lingo) column focuses on the 10th anniversary of the Society of American Archivists Research Forum: http://www.ohioarchivists.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/2016-soa-fall-newsletter.pdf#21.

This summer I had a chapter “Capturing Audit Trail Data THEORY: Authenticity and Audit Trails.” published in Creating Trustworthy Repositories for Digital Records: Theory and Practice, edited by Philip C. Bantin, Rowman and Littlefield, July 2016: 169-174