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To be an archivist: Rosemary Fischer

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Our second post in the series “What does it mean to be an archivist at your repository?” is by Rosemary Fischer, the University Archivist at Clayton State University.

I was the founding archivist hired at Clayton State in December 2014.  The Archivist position was established by combining a ¼ time professional librarian position and a staff position. The school was 33 years old and had no archives.  I was shown to my work space.  It was a classroom-sized space with windowed walls that did not go to the ceiling.  Our windows looked out on the library and the microfilm readers faced our windows.  Following a minor renovation, this space had formally been the library’s circulation department.  There was a desk with three legs held upright by a stack of books.  The phone hung from the ceiling.  There were two doors to the room.  There was no shelving and only a couple of document boxes, each with one photo in them.  There was one room for the archivist, the collections, the work space, the interns, and the researchers.
At the same time that Clayton was establishing their school archives, the National and Georgia Archives were moving to the edge of Clayton’s campus.  A lot was written and said about the Georgia and National Archives and only a small amount about Clayton’s archives.  It was a challenge to promote the school’s archives.  Whenever you talked about the Archives, people would assume you meant the National or Georgia Archives. 
The Clayton State University Archives has collections.  We have about 2000 cubic feet.  This is a small archives but it is a start and we are now adding to our collections weekly.   I don’t have to split my time 50/50 as a librarian and I was given a very small budget to cover the cost of archival supplies and equipment for the archives.
Being my first job out of graduate school, I was a bit nervous about being responsible for establishing an archives.  I didn’t know anything about Clayton State’s history and no one knew me or about the school’s new archives.  I realized that it wasn’t archival skills I needed but promotional skills.  I had to learn to be a librarian and share my time 50/50 with the library.  I had to manage my work without a budget.
The Director of the Library  gave me the task of walking around campus introducing myself and telling folks about the school’s archives.  I created a brochure and proceeded to “spread the word”   and encourage faculty and staff to donate items to the archives and to help us preserve the history of Clayton State.  I got a break when the on-campus publications started doing articles about our new archives and included my photo.  Some of these articles were picked up by local newspapers.   In a few months, I had been in the papers about a dozen times.  But I was still getting the same response from folks on campus, “I didn’t know Clayton had an archives!”  I am still getting that response today after 10 years. 
My main focus is still “promotion.”  I handle that in many ways.  I am invited by some professors to speak to classes about archives and how to use them for research.  I am engaged in community outreach programs to promote our collections and encourage graduates to donate to the archives.  I have an active internship/volunteer program.  I accept students from any school and any major.  (I have been known to convert some majors to history or liberal studies so they could continue working with archives.)  My outreach is extended to helping churches, schools, and other organizations start their archives. 
When I am given the opportunity to work with a department of the university, I jump at that chance.  I put everything else aside to work with that department to build a mutual and beneficial working relationship.  I will publicize the progress of our work together as an example for other departments and individuals to follow. 
Currently, our library space is in the midst of renovation.  The majority of our collections are stored off-site.  Later this summer or fall, we will move into our new space.  The Archives will have a large workspace, an exhibit hall, a research room, and a separate room for the collections.  I will open the exhibit space to anyone on campus wanting to share an exhibit – faculty, student groups, and departments. 
Perhaps with a more visible university archives, I will be able to build and process collections, which is why I became an archivist.   But for now, I work with what I have.
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Thank you to Rosemary for sharing what it means to be an archivist at Clayton State University Archives!  Want to share what your own experience is like working as an archivist?  Submit you “What it means to be an archivist at my repository?” post to us at outreach [at] soga [dot] org.

2015 Annual Meeting Call for Proposals

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The Society of Georgia Archivists’ Program Committee proudly announces the theme for the 2015 annual meeting: Archives as Community: Building Bridges and Sustaining Relationships. The Committee invites you to attend the meeting, to be held at the Columbus Marriott in Columbus, Georgia, October 22-23, 2015. 

Archives as Community calls for archives professionals to assess the relationships that enable them to conduct their work within changing cultural, technological and financial environments. For the 2015 annual meeting, the Program Committee is seeking presentations on the following topics:

  • Partnerships and projects with communities, including documentation initiatives, the preservation of civic memory, and the creation of community-based archives
  • Internal or external collaborations to achieve needed funding, resources, technology, space, or to accomplish other significant repository goals
  • Experiences with volunteers, interns, student assistants, members of the public or other nonprofessional archivists to process, promote, or make collections available
  • Any other research or program that illustrates how archives have addressed the needs of their communities and cooperated with stakeholders

This year’s theme, Archives as Community: Building Bridges and Sustaining Relationships reflects the significance of our constituents and stakeholders in facilitating and expanding the functions and use of archives and archival materials.

To submit a proposal, fill out the form and return to Heather Oswald at heather.oswald@gmail.com by June 5, 2015. The Program Committee is accepting both individual presenter and full session submissions. If you have any questions about the theme, presentation ideas, or the annual meeting program, please contact Heather Oswald.

To be an archivist: Dallas A. Suttles

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Our inaugural “What does it mean to be an archivist at your repository?” post comes courtesy of Dallas A. Suttles, who serves as the Computer Services Associate in the Archives and Special Collections department at Valdosta State University.


I am currently working on my Digital Archives Specialist (DAS) certification and work as a digital archivist, in all but name. For me, being an archivist has meant:
  • Digitization! – Scanning, organizing files, adding metadata, and making our materials accessible to the public.
  • Digital Preservation – Using command line tools like BagIt and Fitstool, I make AIPs for long-term preservation. We are using Google Drive for Business, with unlimited data, as an off-site backup.  I also scan the web for regional history to preserve. For example, I use IFTT to automatically index every local newspaper I can using RSS feeds.
  • Web Design – I run about a dozen websites and do a ton of web design with HTML and CSS.
  • Database Design – So many databases! Most were built from the ground up using PHP & MySQL. Our next database, an index of the 1860 Slave Census, will soon be underway.
  • Exhibit Design – All our exhibits need signs and labels. I use Photoshop to design these.
  • Social Media – Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc… This involves mining our materials nearly every day to post something relevant.
I like to think that through my work, I am serving the past, present, and future. When a patron finds an ancestor in one of our databases, we are reuniting the past and present in that moment. Thereby serving the living and the dead. And to generations yet born, this data will only become more invaluable, not just to the public but to the next generation of archivists that will build upon this work.

Postscript: 
Why Archives Matter?
Archives and archivists are part of the foundational structure of civilization itself. Like pillars, we hold up the past so it doesn’t fall away into darkness, forgotten. We stand on the front-lines in an epic, losing battle against the ravages of time. By preserving the past we venerate the dead, serve the present, and educate the future. Please excuse my hyperbole, but in the grand scheme of things, this is precisely why “archives matter”, in my opinion.
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Thank you to Dallas for sharing what it means to be an archivist at Valdosta State University Archives and Special Collections!  Want to share what your own experience is like working as an archivist?  Submit your “What it means to be an archivist at my repository?” post to us at outreach [at] soga [dot] org.  

Call for papers: 2015 issue of Provenance

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CFP: 2015 issue of Provenance
Provenance: The Journal of the Society of Georgia Archivists, a peer-reviewed scholarly publication, seeks submissions on archival theory and practice for the 2015 issue. Please note that the content of the journal is not limited to the state of Georgia, and articles of local, regional, or national significance are welcome. First-time authors are especially encouraged to submit articles for consideration.
Articles on archival topics outside of theory and practice which meet publication standards will also be considered. Typical papers should be a Word document, 10-20 pages, double spaced, and formatted according to the 16th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style. Please review information for contributors: http://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/provenance/policies.html. Articles are to be submitted utilizing Provenance’s new online system: http://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/provenance/.
For additional information contact Editor Cheryl Oestreicher at: provenance@soga.org. Deadline for contributions is July 31, 2015.


Gracy Award 
Each year the SGA awards the Gracy Award, a $200 prize which recognizes a superior contribution to Provenance. Named for David B. Gracy II, founder and first editor of Georgia Archive, the award began in 1990 and is judged by the editorial board.


Back issues of Provenanceand Georgia Archive available online 
At over 25,000 hits/downloads, the back issues (1972-2013) are a great resource for archivists: http://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/provenance/
Table of Contents for the just published 2014 issue: 
2014 SGA Annual Meeting 
Welcome Address
Rich Mendola
Keynote Address: What is the Professional Archivist’s Role in the Evolving Archival Space?
Kate Theimer
Articles
Reimagining Record Groups: A Case Study and Considerations for Record Group Revision
Matt Gorzalski
Build It and Will They Come?: Participatory Digital Archives, Hesitant Users, and the Emerging Archival Commons
Dallas C. Hanbury
A Gentle Approach to “Gentle Ren”: Processing the Papers of Former College President Renwick Jackson
Steven M. Gentry
“An Ever-Ready Source of Inspiration and Information”: Ruth Blair and the Bicentennial County Historians
David B. Parker
Reviews
Gitelmanjj, Paper Knowledge: Toward a Media History of Documents
reviewed by Erin Lawrimore
Brown, Archives and Recordkeeping: Theory into Practice
reviewed by Carol Waggoner-Angleton
Lacher-Feldman, Exhibits in Archives and Special Collections Libraries
reviewed by Jennifer Welch

Upcoming DAS Workshop: Developing Specifications & RFPs for Recordkeeping Systems

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Date:
June 1, 2015
Location:
Robert W. Woodruff Library
Emory University
Atlanta, GA

The development of a fully functional digital archives requires an integrated recordkeeping system that identifies, describes, schedules, and destroys or retains your organization’s born-digital records. Successful recordkeeping systems reflect business processes and applicable federal and state statutes while identifying records with permanent value to be archived. The ideal recordkeeping system interfaces with a digital repository used to curate electronic records and support a wide range of archival processes, including preservation and access. Before purchasing or building a recordkeeping system, you need a clear list of systems requirements specific to your organization. From these specifications, you can build a good Request for Proposal (RFP), select a system or vendor, and successfully implement your recordkeeping system.

This course if one of the Tactical and Strategic Courses in the Digital Archives Specialist (DAS) Curriculum and Certificate Program.

Upon completing this course you’ll be able to:

  • Identify and define systems requirements for an electronic recordkeeping system and/or digital repository;
  • Develop and distribute a Request for Information (RFI), RFP, or RFQ (Request for Quotation);
  • Evaluate and select a recordkeeping system; and 
  • Implement the system.

Who should attend?
Archivists, records managers, IT professionals and administrators who need to define systems requirements for an electronic recordkeeping system and/or digital repository and then develop a RFI, RFP, or RFQ.

The Early-Bird registration deadline is May 1, 2015.

Workshop Fees

  • SAA Members
    • Early-Bird: $199
    • Regular: $269
  • Employees of Member Institutions
    • Early-Bird: $229
    • Regular: $299
  • Nonmembers
    • Early-Bird: $259
    • Regular: $319

Register for the workshop here.
Attendance is limited to 35.

    Everyday Digital Archives Q&A: Richard Pearce-Moses

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    What digital archives-related resources do you read–blogs, social media, articles, journals, listservs, etc.?
    Lots of social media is noisy and demands a lot of time to follow, so I don’t use it too much. I’ve largely abandoned Facebook.  I check Twitter once or twice a day, but I limit the people I follow to individuals in the field.  Their posts are interesting and useful, because they point me to something I wasn’t aware of and wouldn’t have thought to search.   Charles Bailey (@DigitalKoans) links to interesting reports and jobs.  LC’s National Digital information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (@ndiipp) has lots of news.  Martin Hawksey (@mhawksey) and Trevor Owens (@tjowens) often link to interesting projects, but often they’re very technical and over my head.
    I read The Signal, published by Library of Congress (blogs.loc.gov/digitalpreservation).  Twitter feeds often point me to a blog entry that I’m interested in.
    Tech magazines often have lots of really interesting things that are relevant to digital archives, although the connection may be a bit tangential.  I really like Ars Technica and Wired.
    Do you actively curate or archive your own personal digital materials? If so, how?
    I don’t know that my personal papers are that interesting or merit selection by an archives.  Much of my work is captured in publications, ranging from chatty articles for Archival Outlook to research in professional journals and to a few monographs.  I have identified a few records (mostly email) from when I was president of SAA that may be of importance to the its archives.  I did grab a copy of all the email from the Archives and Archivists list from 1998 to 2006 when there was some question as to its fate.  I’ve used it to study the history of the profession, and I think it would be useful to others.
    On the more personal side, my life has been good, but not extraordinary.  My personal records wouldn’t add much or be a source of fascinating research – or even a boring dissertation. My family is small, and they don’t need a terabyte of travel photos, email, and receipts from Amazon to keep my memory alive.  A few photos will probably be enough.
    I am pretty religious about keeping things backed up, but that’s not an archives.  I don’t have a routine to keep backups off site, so if the house burns, I might lose both my computer and backup drive.  However, I use cloud storage for essential records. 
    I’ve migrated a few important files as software became obsolete.  However, I have a lot of email in client applications (Eudora, WinMail) that Outlook couldn’t import.  My partner has email from a Compuserv account that requires proprietary software; I kept the software, but I haven’t tried to recover those files. 
    Why is curating or archiving your own personal digital materials important?
    As I noted above, I don’t see great value in my personal records.  I’ve inherited some records from family members.  I was pretty serious about appraisal and threw out many that were unidentified or redundant.  I’ll add a few of mine to that collection and pass it on to relatives. 
    I try to keep enough records to remember people and events that were important in my life.  I have a digital picture frame with a few dozen images of people and events.  In many ways, that small collection captures the highlights of my life, without documenting the drudgery.
    “Won’t personal digital archiving solve itself as the digital generation comes of age?” Your thoughts?
    **To give credit where credit is due, this question is taken from Catherine Marshall’s “Rethinking Personal Digital Archiving, Part 1” (http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march08/marshall/03marshall-pt1.html)
    The problems of archives won’t change because those problems aren’t tied to technology.  They’re people problems.  Who will decide what to save?  Who will reach out to find collections that can be acquired for archives that are accessible to a larger public? 
    Finding ways to get people to attend to their personal records for future use is always going to be a problem.  Most people live in the present, and their lives are busy.  Getting them to think about building and preserving a collection for future use can easily be put off a day, a month, a year.  To use myself as an example, I never thought too much about my own family’s archives until this year, when my mother-in-law passed and I was then part of the oldest surviving generation in my family.  Like many, my family relied on the elders to bear the torch of memory and preserve the past, and now it’s my turn. 
    It may very well be that the digital generation will have the skills to preserve digital records.  At the same time, many members of the digital era are sophisticated consumers of  technology.  They can use existing tools, but they’re stymied when confronted with something out of the ordinary.  Unless there are tools readily available for extracting email from older formats, for reading archaic formats, those materials may yet be lost.
    Due to the distributed nature of personal digital archives, (i.e. content of an individual all over the web in different arenas: Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc.) how should archivists approach the challenge of acquiring these dispersed digital materials? Are there tools to help?
    A good example of why some problems of digital archives will never go away. Archivists will need to reach out to a wide range of people, seeking individuals who will help archivists build collections.  The key difference is that archivists no longer have the luxury of time.  Previously, personal records were often donated to an archives after an individual passed away.  The family would look at their diaries, letters, and photos.  They’d think “history”, and the records would be donated. 
    Archivists can’t wait until people pass away to collect their records.  Currently, they may not be able to get records because they family doesn’t have passwords and social media sites won’t grant access.  Even if they have a password, it’s likely that much would be lost over time.  Facebook may be pervasive now, but I will be surprised if it’s as popular in ten years.  Would an archivist in 2050 be able to capture Facebook posts of someone living now?  Archivists need to identify people and groups that the future will want to know about, to understand, to study, and then approach them about capturing records now.
    Martin Hawksey has a nifty tool to capture Twitter feeds using freely available Google tools that aren’t that hard to implement (see http://mashe.hawksey.info/2013/02/twitter-archive-tagsv5/).  Facebook allows individuals to download their pages, but that will require cooperation of the page owner.  I firmly believe in harvesting web content relevant to an archives’ mission, including blogs.  The Internet Archive’s Archive-It is probably the best service out there, but it’s not free.  However, HTTrack is better than nothing.  One of the challenges is finding web content that’s in scope.  I developed a methodology to do that when I was in Arizona, but the tools to help automate that process are no longer available.  I’m in the process of building new tools (see http://arstweb.clayton.edu/domainid/ to read about the project and follow my progress).
    What can we do as archivists to change the culture of “benign neglect” that people so often have in regards to their personal digital records?  How do you see people accessing personal digital records/archives in the future? 10 years? 20 years?
    To avoid benign neglect – in a word – quit neglecting things.  In a sense, personal collections are not archives. People have collections of personal records that they have saved – often by happenstance – and not through considered appraisal.  Scrapbooking is an example of a conscious effort to save select items or tell a story, but I don’t know that the process is sufficiently systematic or complete to tell the whole story.
    Archives are more than a bunch of old records.  They are in a secure place (although copies in the cloud may provide greater protection than a hard drive or DVD).  Most important, though, archives are a program to appraise, process, provide access, and support long-term preservation.  Records are selected to capture context, to document the richness of history – not a rosy remembrance.  Records are arranged and described to ensure that enough information is captured to make the records meaningful – identifying photographs, documenting family trees, noting important life events.  Records are preserved to make sure that the whole of the collection is preserved, and history is not documented by things that survived by chance.
    I don’t want to discount collections of personal records because they don’t match up with a theoretical model.  Records that tell an important story of the past are valuable to families – and
    some of these records should be acquired by formal archives to make them more widely accessible.  Archivists must find new ways to connect with those people to acquire records before preservation is an insurmountable barrier and bring them into collections where they will be properly cared for.  Without them, we will not have records that tell a complete, accurate, and authentic story of the past. 
    A call for archives to be actively engaged in acquiring personal records is no small task.  But adapting sage advice from Fynnette Eaton, “Whatever we do, we may fail.  But if we do nothing, failure is guaranteed.”  Better that we make some effort and capture some piece of this history than to leave the future with none.
    ——-
    Thanks to Richard for sharing his insights!  Want to volunteer to be interviewed for our Q&A blog posts? Know a digital records steward we should interview? Let us know: outreach [at] soga [dot] org.

    Everyday Digital Archives Q&A: Seth Shaw

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    In our latest installment of our Everyday Digital Archives Q&A, Seth Shaw, assistant professor in the Master of Archival Studies program at Clayton State University, reminds us to be patient with ourselves and take comfort in the fact that we are not alone in the process of figuring out how to manage digital records.  Read on to learn about Seth’s reflections on digital archives and “glancing into the cloudy crystal ball” that is the future (where digital archives are concerned).

    What digital archives-related resources do you read–blogs, social media, articles, journals, listservs, etc.?
    There are a lot of blogs that drop into my RSS reader although their posting frequency are highly variable and I often just skim unless something really strikes me.
    ·        Agogified
    ·        Archives in the Digital Era
    ·        Engineering the Future of the Past
    ·        Future Proof
    ·        HangingTogether
    ·        Practical E-Records
    ·        The Signal: Digital Preservation
    ·        Web Science and Digital Libraries Research Group
    There are a number of journals I will scan the contents of looking for interesting items but the two that I look to specifically for digital-archives would be D-Lib & Code4Lib.
    For listservs I follow (again, posting frequency varies):
    ·        SAA: Electronic Records Section
    ·        SAA: Metadata & Digital Object Section
    ·        Digital-curation@googlegroups.com
    ·        Digital-preservation@googlegroups.com
    What advice would you give to an archivist who is nervous to start tackling digital archives?  
    First, be patient with yourself. None of us are born with the necessary technical skills; all of us learned at some point. You can too. Also recognize that you don’t need to know everything (none of us do). Focus on the technology that will meet your needs and learn as you go. Technology skills are best learned in tandem with a project.
    Second, start small. It is easy to be overwhelmed. Starting with a small project allows you to start familiarizing yourself with the terminology and concepts in addition to building confidence.  Generally the best small project to begin with is inventorying the digital materials you have (or would like to acquire). Archivists are already familiar with this type of activity and it can help you identify the scope of issues you need to deal with. Then you can decide, based on that inventory, on your next small project. Don’t let a lengthy list of projects & problems intimidate you. Simply focus on the next one. Progress one step (project) at a time.
    Third, take comfort that you are not alone in this process. More and more archivists with no previous technical training are taking their first steps on this journey and making good progress. Every time I go to SAA I hear new stories of archivists tackling digital archives projects and succeeding. Solutions may not be “ideal” but progress is better than avoidance and neglect. We all are trying to improve. There is no perfect program. Find colleagues that can serve as a support, that either are facing, or have dealt with your challenges as well.
    Do you actively curate or archive your own personal digital materials? If so, how?
    In a way. I don’t generate PREMIS metadata for my digital materials. I don’t have a finding-aid or inventory. I certainly haven’t installed a digital repository to store my files. Rather, I simply try to be a good personal records manager. I try to keep my materials organized and I tend to prefer open formats for my own materials when practical. (I usually generate PDF/A versions of any document-like files I distribute to others.) I am also generally considerate about how my data moves from one system to another. Sure, some of my materials could be better backed up and/or could have better descriptive metadata (e.g. our family photos & videos which are organized by year & date stored on a pair of external drives). But I am generally confident that an archivist (or even my family) could take custody of my files just fine.
    Facebook though, that is another issue…
    Why is curating or archiving your own personal digital materials important?
    The fact is that there is a good amount of materials that I have lost from the past because I wasn’t always concerned about it. For example, I don’t have any of my email from my undergraduate email account or the personal email accounts predating Gmail. I am sure there are a number of floppies and CDs I have lost over the years (I couldn’t read them now anyway). It wasn’t until I began learning about good records management principles that my habits began to change.
    Do your personal digital archives exist outside of the virtual/online environment? In what form?
    Kind of. I have a number of articles I have printed and annotated. I also have some paperwork (e.g. travel reimbursements) that are part analog and part digital but they have relatively short retention periods.
    The only digital materials you might find in an archives (family or otherwise) that might end up duplicated as analog are our family photos. One of these days I am going to start creating photo-albums to have printed but I haven’t done it yet.
    “Won’t personal digital archiving solve itself as the digital generation comes of age?” Your thoughts?
    **To give credit where credit is due, this question is taken from Catherine Marshall’s “Rethinking Personal Digital Archiving, Part 1” (http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march08/marshall/03marshall-pt1.html)
    Probably not. Has personal “analog archiving” solved itself as the analog generation came of age? That question doesn’t make sense because both notions are flawed for the same reason. The “digital generation” may have more experience engaging technology, generally speaking, but this does not equate effective personal recordkeeping nor understanding how technology works. Besides, new information technologies are being developed faster than generations come of age. Archivists will have a hard enough time keeping up. There will always be a new challenge to face.
    Due to the distributed nature of personal digital archives, (i.e. content of an individual all over the web in different arenas: Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc.) how should archivists approach the challenge of acquiring these dispersed digital materials? Are there tools to help?
    Yes, I am sure I have data either created by or about me in systems all over the internet. (A quick google search for “Seth E Shaw” found profiles on Drupal.org, SlideShare, Delicious, MacOSX.com, and archives2014.sched.org.) Do any of these actually matter? Maybe. I still use only one of them. (SlideShare, and there is nothing unique there except the view counts.) The Delicious account, and possibly the Drupal one, might be of interest to future researchers but most likely not to my family. My Facebook and Twitter accounts, among other web-based accounts, didn’t come up at all.
    Here’s the thing: we all leave digital traces but it would be nigh impossible and certainly impractical to gather them all. The salient questions are appraisal questions. Which of these traces are important, to whom, and why? Answer these questions, at least broadly, on a case-by-case (e.g. collection-by collection or donor-by-donor) basis first. Only then can you begin to make decisions about appropriate capture tools.
    Web-harvesters (e.g. HTTrack, WGet, and Heretrix) are the general purpose tool for this task. They work fine in some cases, but not all. Unlike web 1.0, which relied on the HTML standards making them easy to capture, Web 2.0 additionally makes heavy use of JavaScript & custom APIs (Advanced Programming Interfaces) which are often poorly captured and may require different tactics. API-based captures can be effective but these interfaces are not standardized and require custom coding for each one (although some tools, such as ThinkUp, will support multiple APIs).
    What can we do as archivists to change the culture of “benign neglect” that people so often have in regards to their personal digital records?
    I think the Library of Congress’ efforts in establishing Personal Digital Archiving Days is a good model to follow. It will take public awareness if things are to change. This effort could be expanded and taken further. We, as a profession, could reach out to the popular press and blogosphere to educate their readers about this topic. We occasionally see these types of pieces written and I occasionally come across online forums or blog posts discussing these issues. These conversations are occurring even if we aren’t starting them but they could be made broader. Of course, and unfortunately, even with the awareness it often takes personal loss for the lessons to sink in.
    How do you see people accessing personal digital records/archives in the future? 10 years? 20 years?
    If there is one thing I have learned it is that the technology crystal ball is awfully cloudy. Previous trends pointed towards larger volumes of personal data held locally. You could have an entire library in your pocket! This came true although few, if any, expected it to converge with our phones. Also, most of us are far more likely to not have the library on our phone, but to use the portable connectivity technology to access the library remotely. Instead of using the device as a large personal repository it has become a thin-client accessing remote repositories. We saw part of this coming, but not as it actually occurred. Science-Fiction has often been pointed to as a predictor of future trends, but I think that is more of a function of throwing hundreds of darts at a dart board. Some are going to hit closer to the center than others and there is a chance someone will hit the bull’s-eye. I am not inclined to bet on which.

    Glancing into the cloudy crystal ball does reveal a few cloudy figures: First, semantic, natural language processing, and physical context awareness technologies have the capability to influence the nature of search and browsing. Second, wearable technology is likely to influence access for whim-based inquiries although more serious reminisce or research inquiries will probably be influenced by developments in recreational and working-styles (fixed and mobile). Finally, there is a trend towards more data-centric, rather than document centric, activities (e.g. personal health tracking). How will all this play out in 10 or 20 years? I haven’t the foggiest—I’m just casually throwing darts—but it will be fun to see!

    Thanks to Seth for sharing his insights! Want to volunteer to be interviewed for our Q&A blog posts? Know a digital records steward we should interview? Let us know: outreach [at] soga [dot] org.

    Everyday Digital Archives Q&A: Erika Farr

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    After the rich discussions about digital records that were shared at the annual Society of Georgia Archivists meeting in Athens last month, the SGA Outreach Managers are resuming their “Everyday Digital Archives” Q&A blog posts (after a bit of a lull).  In this fourth installment of our Q&A blog posts, we continue the conversation about everyday digital archives with Erika Farr, Head of Digital Archives at Emory’s Manuscript, Archive, and Rare Book Library.
    What digital archives-related resources do you read–blogs, social media, articles, journals, listservs, etc.?
    There are some really helpful web resources in a range of formats including blogs, reports, white papers, and project websites.  A selection of highlights from each of these categories would include the Library of Congress’s The Signal (http://blogs.loc.gov/digitalpreservation/) and Chris Prom’s Practical E-Records (http://e-records.chrisprom.com/); a number of recent CLIR reports (http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports) and many of the Digital Preservation Coalition Technology Watch Reports (http://www.dpconline.org/advice/technology-watch-reports); and project/institution websites such as BitCurator (http://www.bitcurator.net/) and the Born Digital Archives program at the Hull History Centre (http://www.hullhistorycentre.org.uk/discover/hull_history_centre/about_us/born_digital_archives/work_in_progress.aspx). In addition, I rely on resources such as the AIMS White Paper (http://www.digitalcurationservices.org/aims/white-paper/) and the OCLC publications included in their Demystifying Born Digital (http://oclc.org/research/activities/borndigital.html).
    What advice would you give to an archivist who is nervous to start tackling digital archives?  
    If you are feeling nervous, find some test floppies, hardware and/or data so you can begin experimenting with new tools and workflows, without the stress of working on collection material. Beginning to understand the tools and practice can simplify the process and make someone new to the field feel more comfortable.
    Also, the important exercise of counting what you already have in the collection can be both productive and familiar. Creating an inventory of existing born-digital content is a crucial first step and requires little more than effort and consistent documentation.
    Do you actively curate or archive your own personal digital materials? If so, how?
    Why is curating or archiving your own personal digital materials important?
    Do your personal digital archives exist outside of the virtual/online environment? In what form?
    Within my own personal digital archives, I have focused on curating digital photographs more than anything else. I use on online cloud storage service (JustCloud) to back up my personal files, mainly my photo library and my financial documentation. Otherwise, I have not curated my personal email correspondence or social media accounts. I should probably think more about social media curation, especially since there is information in applications like Facebook that probably doesn’t exist anywhere else.
    As for importance, I have unconsciously prioritized my own born-digital content, by actively curating the digital photography and financial/tax documentation while largely ignoring all other content. Because I print so few photographs, my photo library is probably the single most important born-digital collection.
    “Won’t personal digital archiving solve itself as the digital generation comes of age?” Your thoughts?
    **To give credit where credit is due, this question is taken from Catherine Marshall’s “Rethinking Personal Digital Archiving, Part 1” (http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march08/marshall/03marshall-pt1.html)
    I don’t think all the complications and challenges of personal digital archiving will sort themselves out as engagement with social media and mobile devices becomes a cultural standard, though I do think some basic habits of data back-up will become more pervasive, even if in a passive way. Already, the use of applications on multiple devices via cloud storage allows users to access and synchronize their data in numerous ways and using various devices. These shared applications across devices mean that data is less likely to be lost through device crash or loss, thus, making the data more persistent. Having all of your data managed by a for-profit mobile application developer has its perils, too, of course, and there could be some hard future lessons on data loss when an application is no longer supported or an applications developer goes bust.
    Due to the distributed nature of personal digital archives, (i.e. content of an individual all over the web in different arenas: Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc.) how should archivists approach the challenge of acquiring these dispersed digital materials? Are there tools to help?
    Emerging tools like ArchiveSocial (http://archivesocial.com/) and ePADD (http://library.stanford.edu/spc/more-about-us/projects-and-initiatives/epadd-project) offer us hope for more effective means of identifying, transferring, and managing social media and electronic correspondence. Neither of these services is ready for archives and libraries as they acquire personal digital archives, as of yet, so for now little is immediately helpful other than engaging with the donor.  My preferred approach now is to use survey tools and pre-acquisition efforts to identify relevant material and accounts for transfer then working with the donor to effectively transfer that data.
    What can we do as archivists to change the culture of “benign neglect” that people so often have in regards to their personal digital records?
    As a profession, we need to find a way to talk about donor’s personal digital archives that doesn’t ratchet up anxiety. In my experience, conversations with donors can be anxious for two different reasons: one, over the course of the conversation the donor gets spooked by the breadth of the data transfer and worries about potential exposure; and/or, two, the technical nature of the conversation overwhelms the donor prompting him or her to shrug off local preservation tactics because they seem out of reach. We need to find easy-to-use tools and applications that our donors can use and then introduce them in understandable, reassuring ways.
    How do you see people accessing personal digital records/archives in the future? 10 years? 20 years?
    I think it will depend on the records and the institution that holds them. Some records will demand different types of researcher access because of their format or because of the nature of the research questions likely to be brought to bear on the material. Furthermore, I worry that there will be real differences in how institutions can manage and provide access to born-digital records based on available local resources and infrastructure.  Because digital material is so easily disseminated and shared, I hope to see much more web-based access to born-digital records over the next decade or two. There needs to be a real effort made to develop means of virtual access that allows researchers full access to content and the tools they need to leverage that content without violating copyright and intellectual property law. Such advances will require much in the way of technical innovation, policy advancement, and legal advocacy, though, so I don’t expect such tools and access to appear on the scene without considerable consolidated effort.

    Thanks to Erika for sharing her insights! Want to volunteer to be interviewed for our Q&A blog posts? Know a digital records steward we should interview? Let us know: outreach [at] soga [dot] org.

    Space still available in pre-annual meeting workshops!

    SGA Communications DirectorLeave a comment

    Register now for one of SGA’s pre-annual meeting educational workshops, taking place Wednesday, November 5 in Athens, GA!

    Disaster  Recovery: Wet Salvage Techniques

    9:00 – 5:00 p.m.

    Every collection is susceptible to damage from water – whether from ground floods or from above through leaks, fire suppression systems, or the water used to put out a fire. This hands-on workshop will give participants experience in dealing with the aftermath of waterlogged materials. Experienced collections conservator, Ann Frellsen, will share her experiences and train you on how to recover collections after the water recedes.
    Participants will learn the importance of team effort in how to manage a response, from safety to public relations through recovery of materials after a water incident. In addition, participants will gain hands-on experience in the salvage of typical library and archive collections materials. A wrap-up session includes time for questions, especially regarding specific collections or situations.
    Lunch will be on your own in Athens from 11:30 to 1:00.

    Registration fees are $75.
    Attendance is limited to 20.
    To register for this course, click here.

    Accessioning and Ingest of Electronic Records [DAS course]
    9:00 – 5:00 p.m.

    Perhaps your institution has found itself in a situation where a prominent donor has offered a trove of significant Office documents and digital photographs stored on her hard drive; or, an important department is ready to transfer records of long-term value from a file server to the archives; or, a professor drops off an external hard drive and DVDs with video footage from a symposium featuring nationally recognized participants….

    If you were unprepared or unsure of how to handle such a donation, this one-day course will introduce you to basic policies, resources, and procedures that will enable your institution to successfully accession and ingest common born-digital materials (Office documents, PDFs, images, audio, video, and email).

    Upon completion of this course you’ll be able to:

    • Discuss current practices and resources; and
    • Develop policies and workflows best suited to your institution’s mission and resources.

    Registration – Early-Bird/Regular

    SAA Member $199 / $269
    Employees of Member Institutions $229 / $299
    Nonmember $259 / $319


    Early-bird registration ends October 5, 2014.


    Attendance limited to 30. You may be asked to bring a laptop to successfully participate in this course.


    For more information on this course and to register, click here.


    This course is co-sponsored by the Society of American Archivists.


    Host a Workshop and Apply for the SGA Personal Digital Archiving Workshop Outreach Grant

    SGA Communications DirectorLeave a comment

    You’re invited to host a personal digital archiving workshop and apply for the SGA Personal Digital Archiving Workshop Outreach Grant!

    The Society of Georgia Archivists Personal Digital Archiving Workshop Outreach Grant is meant to help information professionals in Georgia promote the idea that librarians, archivists, and records managers are a source of expertise for assisting individuals (the public, family members, students, corporate employees, etc.) with their personal digital archiving needs. The grant will be given to the first three individuals who successfully apply for the grant after hosting and teaching a workshop at their institutions/in their communities, using the curriculum materials designed by SGA, GLA, and Atlanta ARMA, available here.

    The first three individuals who successfully apply for the SGA Personal Digital Archiving Workshop Outreach Grant after teaching a workshop, using the curriculum materials designed by SGA, GLA, and Atlanta ARMA, available here, will receive:

    • A gift card ($100 for first workshop, $50 for next two workshops, based on date completed application is received by SGA Outreach Manager)
    • Recognition on our websites and social media accounts
    • Potential opportunities to participate in speaking and co-training events about the workshop
    • Inclusion in a press release about personal digital archiving that will be pitched to local media outlets this fall

    Apply for the grant using this form. A full description of the grant is available on the first page of the form. Email your completed form to Wendy Hagenmaier, SGA Outreach Manager: outreach@soga.org, and feel free to contact her with any questions.