Digital Practice Guidelines

The New Generation

Digital landscape : what is changing…..

• Born digital• Digital collecting• Mass digitisation• Digital Preservation• Expectations of access• Metadata – Open data – Linked data

Physical Original Digital Original

Selection &Prioritisation

Copyright Copyright

Create Metadata/

Catalogue record

Create Metadata/

Catalogue record

Optimise and create web and

other derivatives

Link web images to Metadata

Digital Asset Management

Access via web/catalogue

Import best file available as

Archival master

Copyright Legislation / Fair

Use Policy

Metadata Creation Dublin

Core / MARC

Secure storage of Masters – backup

procedures

Digitise – create Archival

Master file

From : Digital practice: guidelines for digitising images in NSW public libraries 2012

Physical preparation & conservation

Digital Practice Guidelines : Update

Born digital

More…….. Metadata

Digital Collecting

More ……….. Digital Preservation

Born Digital

• Digital materials which are not intended to have an analogue equivalent, either as the originating source or as a result of conversion to an analogue form

• Materials that originate in digital form and which, in their original form, require a digital device to be utilised. (NSLA)

• Defining “Born Digital” An Essay by Ricky Erway, OCLC Research http://www.oclc.org/research/activities/hiddencollections/bornditgital.pdf November 2010

Born Digital (2)• Blogs• Computer generated architectural plans• Computer generated maps• Digital art• Digital documents• Digital film footage• Digital media (published)• Digital newspapers • Digital serials• Digital sound recordings• Digital photographs • Dynamic data sets• Static data sets• E-books• Electronic archives and records• Emails• Social media ( facebook , twitter ,tumblr, instagram

etc)• Internet disseminated television• Mobile applications• Oral histories• Web comics• Websites

Implications for:• Collecting, esp. with

legal deposit obligations

• Digital asset management & workflow

• Digital Preservation

Digital Collecting Framework (NSLA 2013)

Purpose– The purpose of this Digital Collecting Framework is to

provide information and guidance on collecting born digital materials.

Scope– The DCF addresses issues associated with born digital

material, that is, material which originates in a born digital form and is not intended to have an analogue equivalent.

– The document includes information on dealing with donors and vendors, acquisition of digital items, legal deposit, and definitions of commonly used terms.

NSLA Digital Collecting Principles

The NSLA libraries commit to the following principles:

1. Digital collections will be acquired in accordance with the libraries’ collection policies

2. Collaboration between NSLA libraries and other collecting institutions is required to build robust digital collections.

3. In digital collecting, time is of the essence.

4. Negotiating appropriate rights management is a critical process of digital collecting.

5. Born digital collections remain vulnerable in the short term while policies, procedures and technologies are being established.

6. The acquisition, storage, preservation, description and provision of digital collections will take place under internationally recognised, best-practice standards and guidelines, enhancing their discoverability, access and use.

7. Confidence in the authenticity and integrity of digital collections will be ensured

NSLA Internal (operational) Principles

The NSLA libraries will:

1. Back up their commitment to digital collecting with adequate and appropriate staffing, training, resources, technology and storage.

2. Ensure the integrity of digital collections is maintained through the adherence to standards, guidelines, policies and procedures which will enable sustainable accessibility and usability.

3. Continue to monitor, and implement where necessary, new and emerging technologies and standards.

4. Consider technological issues when making acquisition decisions, but will not allow technological capabilities of the collecting library to be used as an “it’s too hard” excuse for not collecting digital material.

5. Communicate and promote the libraries’ digital collecting activities to the public, government, other cultural and heritage institutions and potential partners and funding sources.

Digital CollectingDigital Collecting at SLNSW

Digital Collecting – Practical walkthrough• Negotiations with content/copyright holder• Receipt of physical carriers• Analysis of digital content on carrier• Create a receiving directory on “clean” machine• Generate a copy of the disk directory information (Inventory/manifest)• Copy data from physical media to the subdirectory ?as a disk image?• Generate and record a checksum What is this?• Copy the project directory to trustworthy archival storage • Create a readme/txt file, save documentation• Return the original physical media to storage or donor• Create or update an associated finding aid, collection level record, or accession

record with information about the steps that were taken and the location of the files.

• Based on – Erway, R, 2012, You’ve Got to Walk Before You Can Run: First Steps for Managing Born-Digital Content Received

on Physical Media– SLNSW internal policy development

MLMSS Dixon Family Papers 1894-1953

MLMSS Dixon Family Papers 1894-1953

The Technical steps…..

•Virus check •Create Manifest list - contents of original carrier•File format summary and analysis•Copy to computer and verify MD5 Checksum•Save information gathered with files

……………..The Foundations of Digital Preservation

Tools (software) required

•Professional Virus checking•Directory listing•Format validation•Checksum creation and verification

Example of a digital collecting action

Target folder : Amy G Ednie

Virus Check

Inside one of the folders on the CD

Create directory listing

Manifest – Directory Listing

DROID – file format identification tool

DROID – file format identification tool

DROID – file summary

PRONOM – jpg

PRONOM - .db file format

DROID – Incorrect file extension check

Copy and create checksums 1

A Checksum is : A numerical value calculated from the contents of a digital object. By comparing a recently determined checksum with an older one, you can tell if the digital object has changed.

Copy and create checksums 2

Copy and create checksums 2

Summary – what we did

•Checked source for virus•Explored directory structure•Analysed file types in collection•Checked unknown file types•Created full directory listing•Copied files to appraisal folder and generated checksums•Saved documentation with files

Key tools

Anti Virus

File format Identification

File Format Technical registry

Directory listing software

Secure Copy and Checksum verification

Personal Digital Preservation

Library of Congress Personal Archiving

Links to other Guidelines

DOHM

Atlas of Living Australia

Digital Preservation Resources

DROIDPRONOMEXifToolBWFmetaeditShotputProDirectory List ProNSLA Digital CollectingNSLA Digital PreservationLibrary of Congress Personal Digital Archiving pages

Scott WajonManager , Digitisation

March 27th 2014

Any questions?