Breaking Down Barriers Stewardship of Borndigital Materials at

Breaking Down Barriers: Stewardship of Born-digital Materials at Columbia University Special Collections Repositories Jane Gorjevsky and Dina Sokolova DLF 2019, 14 October 2019

Born-Digital Strategic Initiative: background and purpose Strategic Direction: Advance Knowledge n n Assess Columbia University Libraries’ (CUL) current approach to born-digital collections Deliver a set of recommendations aimed at operationalizing the work of acquiring, preserving, and providing access to them

Born-Digital Strategic Initiative: Membership Rare Book and Manuscript Library Director, (chair) Head of Collections Management Curator of Literature Records Manager, University Archives Head of Archives Processing Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library Archivist Original and Special Materials Cataloging Web Resources Collection Coordinator Digital Library & Scholarly Technologies Digital Preservation Librarian

Existing Digital Program at RBML n n n n Dedicated Digital Assets Archivist in 20122017 Two major grant-funded projects completed Documentation for curators and processing archivists “Preservation Workstation” for common MAC and PC media Workflows for uploading 3. 5” diskettes, zip drives, optical media, external drives Dedicated reading room laptops Ad-hoc viewing capabilities

First Steps: Identifying Stakeholders

First Steps: Collecting Information

First Steps: Mapping Existing Workflows Preservation Flow Diagram

Tools: Gap Analysis

Tools: Stakeholder Interviews 1. What born-digital content does your unit currently hold? How is it stored and/or preserved? 2. Have researchers asked about the existence of born-digital content in your holdings? 3. How are your born-digital holdings discoverable (via CLIO, finding aid, or other online means)? 4. Does your unit currently provide patrons with access to born-digital content and if so, how? 5. What barriers, if any, have prevented you from collecting born-digital content? 6. Which subject areas are most likely to bring born-digital content and why is that content critical to your efforts to document them? Be as granular as possible. 7. Which file types do you feel are most important for CUL to focus on preserving and providing access to (e. g. , e-mail, media files, data sets, etc. )? 8. What can you say about user expectations (for example, emulation, data mining, digital scholarship, etc. ) when it comes to engaging with born-digital archives? [free text, may need to be reworded for clarity]

Summary of Interview Findings n n n Collecting units did not know who to turn to or what the procedures might be when it came to born-digital collections. It was generally agreed that there was a need for “central guidance. ” Multiple units admitted to below-the-radar collecting and providing ad hoc access to born-digital files that had not been backed-up. Significant gaps on the “book-ends” of the workflow—acquisitions and access. Curators do not know how to talk to donors and dealers about issues like privacy or how to prepare materials for transfer. Very few librarians, especially those outside of RBML, know about the Ford IFP project or have come to RBML’s reading room to see onsite digital archives Archivists and public/access services staff had not been widely consulted on questions relating to the user experience.

Major Challenges n n Implications of acquiring born-digital content (e. g. storage space, transfer from variety of digital media, file formats, metadata and file naming issues) Operationalizing born-digital archiving into a program extended beyond RBML Agreed-upon interdepartmental policies and procedures Communication between units involved in born-digital life cycle

Final Report: First Draft n Structure followed existing workflows and gap analysis. n Resulted in overlapping recommendations for workflow steps.

Final Report n 14 high-level recommendations in four categories:

Selected Recommendations n Governance: § Appoint a Born-Digital Collections Steering Committee charged with overseeing the implementation of recommendations made in final report

Selected Recommendations n Policies & procedures: § § Draft plan for processing current borndigital backlog Access cost and allocation of preservation storage to repositories Develop document that lets donors and sellers know what CUL promises in the way of preservation of and access to born digital content Ensure that new born-digital acquisitions are consistently documented

Selected Recommendations n Policies & procedures (cont. ): § Diagram the workflow of born digital stewardship cycle to facilitate training and decision-making, making use of existing collectionbased workflows

Selected Recommendations n Staff & training: § § Define staffing requirements associated with born-digital workflow Provide training to ensure adequate levels of competency, productivity and quality

Selected Recommendations n Tools & technology development: § § Purchase and configure write-protected acquisition work stations for each repository Look into virtual reading room and emulation as a service in context of providing access

Selected Recommendations n Tools & technology development (cont. ): § Define functional requirements for presentation of born-digital archives

Next Steps n Steering Committee and Working Groups: § § Define born-digital collecting priorities and limitations Prioritize and develop library-wide procedures for acquisition, assessment, preservation and access to born-digital content Define centralized and decentralized borndigital archiving functions Develop requirements for acquisition workstation configurations for repositories and scope associated actions and training n Purchase laptops for access to digital content restricted to onsite viewing for all repositories n Establish server storage area for staging acquired born-digital content

Thank you! Contact us: ds 2057@columbia. edu jg 2138@columbia. edu