13:30:19 Okay.
13:30:20 All right, I''m going to start recording now and then let everybody.
13:30:53 All right.
13:30:57 Excellent. So it looks like it''s time so let''s get started. So, first off, I just wanted to say thank you to everyone for taking time out of your schedule to be here with us today.
13:31:04 My name is Steven Gentry, and I am the moderator for this session, just so that you know you''re in the right Zoom Room. This is the workshop, digital preservation peer assessment planning to protect today''s digital activist records together.
13:31:13 It''s being led by Sean Ferguson Shannon''s associate preservation specialist at the Northeast document Conservation Center, or any DCC from his office in Alexandria, Virginia, Sean provides digital and physical preservation consultations and trainings
13:31:18 to libraries, archives museums, universities, and historical societies nationwide.
13:31:22 I''d also like to take a brief moment to thank Reserva for sponsoring this session and making this virtual conference possible Reserva is changing the way organizations around the world future proof and access critical long term digital information, enabling
13:31:36 companies to drive innovation confidently meet compliance and legal requirements and safeguard digital content of unique cultural and brand importance, and just before I hand things over to Shawn I just want to cover some logistics.
13:31:50 We will be using the live transcript option for the session for accessibility purposes. If you would like to hide the subtitles, simply click the live transcription button at the bottom of your screen.
13:32:11 If your zoom application is not maximized you may need to click the triple dots or the more feature, and then use that to turn off the subtitles for this session, during the q&a portion, we ask that you please use the chat box to pose questions to Sean,
13:32:16 I will relay those questions to assuming of course he doesn''t answer them first.
13:32:21 And then finally, this recording will be, this is being recorded rather and the recording will be made available after the conference has concluded. So I think with that, I will hand things over to Shawn, Shawn Please take it away.
13:32:36 Thank you, Stephen. I''m going to start by sharing my screen.
13:32:42 And also just pulling up my notes and everything getting situated here. Make sure I''ve got everything ready so excited to be here at America. Now this presentation is a little overdue.
13:32:54 I moved to Virginia from New England over a year ago, and plan to present America as soon as I got here. And so it''s wonderful that this session is finally happening and I hope it is worth the wait for you guys.
13:33:06 So, without further ado, I''m going to jump into our logistics than our content get everybody situated into this session, we''re going to do a little poll, very impromptu non scientific poll just get our fingers ready to start contributing and typing and
13:33:22 chatting in the chat box. So, I''m going to move forward, and just highlight that there is a bitly link. That gives you access to the slides here.
13:33:35 Oh, one moment, I just want to confirm that the transcription services working.
13:33:43 I don''t know if I see it going on right now. But perhaps if Stephen could just double check that or make sure that the surface is turned on it might be invisible for me as the presenter.
13:33:56 I''m gonna. Oh, wonderful. Okay, wonderful it''s working for other people. So I take that back everything sounds good. I''m going to.
13:34:06 Now, one thing I''ll do is whenever there''s a link on the screen. I''m going to share it in the chat box so that you have access to it. I know that with zoom you''re not going to be able to easily do that on the screen here.
13:34:17 So here is the Dropbox or bitly link that will help you access a copy of the slides for later. And now, before we get into the content of today I do want to start with a couple of acknowledgments, and a bit of context around digital preservation peer
13:34:34 assessment. So to give you some background in December, 2016, any DCC received a National Endowment for the Humanities preservation and access education and training grant to prepare and present a collaborative digital preservation assessment training
13:34:49 program. This program approaches digital preservation assessment and training through case study assessments shadowing opportunities, workshops, a training institute and a final symposium, and the whole project concluded at the end of 2018, and we had
13:35:05 any DCC have been using the digital preservation assessment model created through this program. Ever since 2018, at the end of 2018. I want to point out some other important stakeholders in the project.
13:35:18 Any DCC while we were the lead on this project. We invited lyricists to collaborate with us and we''re grateful for their support and collaboration on this project.
13:35:29 And of course, we made resources and tools that I''m going to present on today. And one final Thank you before we move from this slide to the National Endowment for the Humanities for making this project possible and providing this assessment model but
13:35:41 I hope you guys take advantage of after this session.
13:35:45 So before we get started with the content of the assessment framework. I''m going to answer two questions, and they''re very linked to the title of this session.
13:35:56 The first is, what is a digital preservation peer assessment anyway. Well, first, it is not a test, you don''t get a score from it, even if it''s called an assessment.
13:36:05 It''s also not a one way street in which a preservation practitioner comes in and tells you what to do. And it is really not the end of the engagement once that person who visits your site leaves.
13:36:17 It really is the opposite. It''s a framework for collaboration, meaning that this assessment tool provides structure to conversations that have the ability to highlight opportunities for improvement and celebrate and build on successes, peer assessment
13:36:32 is also a great opportunity for solutions sharing between your organization, and the organization you choose to co assess.
13:36:41 Now with those conversations, you''ll be able to create roadmaps to improve digital preservation practices at your institution.
13:36:49 Now, to the second part, define what our digital activist records for the context of this session. For the purposes of our discussion, we can define it in two ways.
13:36:59 One, it could be records created by activists today in digital form. We call these records born digital because they originate in a digital form. For example, a person taking video footage of a protest, whether that be in Minneapolis, or in my and Mar,
13:37:19 in response to the COO there.
13:37:21 It might be tweets by an activist promoting a cause, outside the context of a live protest. It could also be text messages or emails between social justice advocates.
13:37:31 Any and all of these things will count as digital activists records as they carry about the work they do to try to effect change. It could be fair to also consider digitized content from activists in the past as being part of this discussion manuscript
13:37:45 collections by notable figures in the suffrage movement for example could be one project that results in digital activist records content from these two groups will be acquired and cared for, very differently, but we''re going to use these examples, in
13:38:02 our case study to illustrate the way that a peer assessment can help to open up opportunities for improvement and preservation practices. Of course, you might find these records actively with activists who you want to work with for a donation, or there
13:38:19 might be a community archive you know of the collects these materials.
13:38:23 You might actually have born digital activist records in your institution right now, or you might have or be digitizing records of activists, whose physical collections are already in your repository that don''t worry if you don''t see yourself here though,
13:38:36 Now don''t worry if you don''t see yourself here though, digital preservation peer assessment is useful in all digital preservation contexts, will just be using these unique collections as our case study today, to highlight the assessment model with those
13:38:49 two questions answered. I''d like to start with a simple poll, this poll is not going to use the polling feature in zoom. Instead, I''d like people to enter into the chat box need when they see the phrase that describes them on the screen.
13:39:03 What I will say is that you can be multiple categories here, so don''t feel like you should wait until you find that the phrase that perfectly matches you.
13:39:18 We''re going to start with our first descriptor and see if you identify as it and enter into the chat box if you see yourself. So, how about this my organization collects digital activists records.
13:39:27 Currently, I''m going to wait for a second to see people saying that in the chat box. Ooh, okay, I''m seeing the chat box move pretty quickly. We''ve got some people in the room that are saying, Oh, I see Jessica Richie says we just started today.
13:39:43 wonderful extra context here.
13:39:46 Some other people have said that they are actively collecting digital activist records that''s wonderful. Let''s move on to the next one.
13:39:54 I want my institution to start collecting digital activist records so this is if you don''t currently.
13:40:00 Whoo.
13:40:03 Okay.
13:40:04 I''m seeing some entries into the chat box. So it sounds like we''ve got some folks that are in the stage of wanting to do this.
13:40:15 Now let''s move on to our next one, your organization is digitizing or has digitized the records of activist past
13:40:24 some knees, loving the contributions. Thank you folks.
13:40:32 All right.
13:40:34 I see people Okay, it looks like the the chat box is stopped but we''ve definitely got some activity there.
13:40:39 Let''s try the next one.
13:40:42 I want to help community archives preserve their own digital activist records.
13:40:47 We have some folks in that category as well.
13:40:53 Excellent.
13:40:56 Well why lot of folks in this category the chat box is moving quickly, with little knees.
13:41:02 And it''s an exclamation points.
13:41:05 How about this, I''m not connected to digital activist records, but I want to learn more about it and digital preservation in general.
13:41:15 Okay.
13:41:16 This might be the most the most heavily represented section.
13:41:23 I see some always nice a bracket thrown in there as well. Okay, so we''ve got some people that are interested in just digital preservation in general, even if they aren''t connected to to select those records.
13:41:36 And then here''s one last one I don''t fit into any of your very narrow categories. So I guess this one is exclusive OR mutually exclusive from the others.
13:41:48 I don''t see any means. Okay. Oh, hey there''s some nice.
13:41:53 We''ve got a few people I''m glad I gave you a moment to feel seen.
13:41:57 But for the most part it sounds like people want something in digital preservation.
13:42:02 Oh, I see another May. Okay.
13:42:06 Now I''m going to move forward but this just gives me a sense of what people are looking for and it sounds like we''re covering all of our bases here.
13:42:17 Now,
13:42:17 here I''d like to say that I appreciate you taking that little, not very scientific poll.
13:42:23 Wherever you are with digital preservation is fine for this session, whether you''re just starting out as an institution or your years into building a digital preservation program, the peer assessment framework that will talk about today can work for digital
13:42:34 digital preservation programs at all levels of maturity.
13:42:38 And what we''re hoping you''ll get out of this session is one, you''ll learn how peer assessments can make digital preservation challenges, more manageable, regardless of the size or type of your institution.
13:42:50 And then I also hope you get a really clear understanding of the steps in a digital preservation peer assessment model. So what are the questions that we asked when we''re doing an assessment, what are the topics we''re trying to cover things like that.
13:43:03 And then I hope you become very familiar with the tools that we have for conducting digital preservation peer assessments and those digital activists records that we''ve been talking about.
13:43:14 It''s going to be really our case study for that situation to really highlight how how one could put the framework into a real, real life situation.
13:43:26 To that end, our agenda is as follows. We will start with a quick background on the peer assessment model, where it''s from and the key products you will use to do a peer assessment.
13:43:35 Now this is also an opportunity to do a little bit of one on one or intro work on digital preservation I know there are sessions that have happened before in this conference that have covered more advanced digital preservation topics, but I don''t want
13:43:49 anybody entering into this discussion without at least a basic understanding of what digital preservation is so will briefly touch on that, and highlight the key products or deliverables in a peer assessment model.
13:44:03 We will then walk through the assessment framework, and I will illustrate the frameworks elements, using examples as they relate to an organization, just starting to try to figure out how to start a program where they preserve digital activist records.
13:44:17 Then, we will do a quick peer assessment activity. I will break you up into groups.
13:44:23 That, I think, evenly allow us to have about, if we have, let''s see how many folks in our session, 90, so we''ll get everybody into about groups of two for this session where you will do a quick peer assessment activity.
13:44:38 And so you''re going to be with a partner, you''re going to do some assessment together using the tool, I''ll provide you access to the tool because it''s just a browser based, you know PDF that you''ll have access to.
13:44:52 At the end we will come back together to discuss how it went and conclude this session.
13:44:58 So I''m going to pause very briefly, just to get a sip of coffee and catch my breath.
13:45:17 Let''s get into the assessment framework, background.
13:45:22 Now, first, what are our tools supporting you know and what are our like assessments based off of, where do they come from, how do assessment models get created the basis for a lot of assessment models whether or not they''re formed directly from what
13:45:40 you''re seeing on the screen, or if they integrate new ideas or focus slightly more on maybe the policy side of things or the provision of access to collections, or include funding questions, the basis for most assessment models and the folks that create
13:45:55 them start by thinking about this thing called the open archival Information System, or OAIS, and this diagram defines the principles of our work in digital preservation and it''s going to be an opportunity for me to drop a few key terms that you might
13:46:10 see throughout the discussion of the assessment framework, which is going to allow us to make sure that we''re all on the same page with digital preservation and also to try to try to sort of reduce the fear factor that there might be in having to co assess
13:46:26 each other in digital preservation because you''re going to get a little bit of a common language here, and feel prepared to think about digital preservation.
13:46:34 So keep in mind as we walk through this one slides just give you a bit of background on something that a lot of people using an assessment model will think about, I''m going to use this framework here and try to connect it to the work with physical collections
13:46:49 which some of us who might not do a lot of digital preservation would be a little bit more familiar with. So, in general, collections will come into a repository as what we call a submission information package were sip.
13:47:02 And this is what the donor. In this case, we call them a producer gives you, it might have metadata with it.
13:47:09 You know, don''t most donors give you some info about their collections during the donation process. However, it probably doesn''t have all the info you need though, to care for and manage the collection.
13:47:20 There''s where the first activities take place. The act of ingest ingest is when you review the collection for viruses in the physical sense we review collections for mold before we accept them right and we create descriptive information.
13:47:34 There are other tasks, but we''ll talk about them later, as we see in our assessment framework. There are also administrative tasks at the same time like signing that deed of gift, creating and obsession record and things like that.
13:47:47 This work generates an archival information package. Now this package, also called an ape contains everything you need to preserve the files, metadata content, a record of actions performed on that content.
13:48:01 Think of this as your physical records and their nice little Holland Dropbox activities will support the ape in storage, like data management, and this is how you manage metadata for your collections, as well as archival storage.
13:48:13 When we think about protecting that content monitoring its stability on storage. There''s also admin tasks like controlling who has access to the content and other policies that will influence how you migrate or manage collections over time.
13:48:28 Migration being a word used to mean moving collections from one format into a newer format if that format is more easily readable by computer software today or migrating from, say, an old storage option to a newer storage option migration is all about
13:48:44 moving or transforming content to a more sustainable option. That might be something where a policy and the administrative side of the work here is determining when that is done.
13:48:55 Now, at some point, someone will ask you for your content right, you want to provide access to it.
13:49:00 This might be your access portal that allows people to download files that they consult on your website. Now we call these people in the OAIS reference model a consumer, like a researcher, they send queries into your database.
13:49:14 Maybe they say, Tell me what oral history recordings you have, they get a result set, which might be a list of those recordings. They then click on a recording and download it, they are placing an order.
13:49:23 Then you get what is a dip, or dissemination information package. This package will have the recording, but maybe it''s not that super high quality audio recording you have any storage, maybe it''s just an mp3 file that''s easy to download and listen to
13:49:37 it might not have all the same metadata that the archival version has stored within your repository, either like a history of preservation actions performed on it because it just might not be as relevant to the researcher, per se.
13:49:51 That might be the case. Now we just walked through this whole model, which is the foundation for a lot of assessment work. And so what I''ll say is you don''t need to memorize this model, but I think it''s important to remember those terms like sip ape dip,
13:50:06 to think about descriptive information in the process of ingesting archival storage and provision of access, very similar to how we deal with physical collections, but we''re using these terms, and this thinking when we''re assessing our collections and
13:50:19 the preservation of those collections. So for those of you that you know that was a total review thank you for bearing with me.
13:50:26 For those of you who are newer to digital preservation I hope it makes this feel like a less wishy washy and more concrete topic.
13:50:35 Now, of course, the peer assessment model that we talked about today isn''t the only assessment model in existence. Here''s one example of an assessment model that is really just a list of criteria that you can check and say, do I do this activity right,
13:50:50 do I do this activity right it''s very comprehensive and it''s known as the trustworthy repositories audit and certification criteria and checklist, and it is heavily influenced by that open archival Information System or OAS model, we just saw.
13:51:05 So this very comprehensive tool might be something you do to self assess your program going from policies to procedures. It''s very robust and for some smaller organizations might be a little intimidating, but it''s certainly out there.
13:51:20 Now, on the other end of things there are the hyper simple hyper simplified assessment models, one of my personal favorites is the NDA levels of preservation.
13:51:29 This resource is really simple, easy to use. This is the whole thing this one page, and it can help to see where you are with a lot of digital preservation competencies, like thinking about storage, how many files, do you have managing the integrity of
13:51:44 your files, you know, are you tracking whether or not they''ve been altered and, you know, do you have a plan in place to replace them should they be altered.
13:51:53 We think about controls, protecting them from security threats, making sure that users are authenticated before they enter into the storage environment and alter something, we think about managing metadata, not just descriptive information but also technical
13:52:08 metadata or preservation metadata that my tracking history of actions performed on files, and then we think about content, which is all about. In this case, the way they frame it that migration work and seeing are the files and the formats I have in a
13:52:24 sustainable format.
13:52:26 One that is accessible to software used today or do I need to migrate it, and how do I preserve its important properties when I do that change that migration.
13:52:35 So that is this model, very simple there''s four levels for each and you might chart your course on this tool in your own organization, I''ve used it to mediate conversations between IT staff and preservation practitioners within organizations.
13:52:48 It''s a wonderful discussion.
13:52:52 I do see in the comments section, Ariel has just mentioned, there is a neat short video about the origins of the OAIS model, and she has a YouTube clip link to in the chat box I so appreciate your mentioning that Ariel, Lisa says here what is this model
13:53:09 called again, this is the NDSA levels of preservation. So, let me put that in the chat box.
13:53:20 So this one super easy great for facilitating simple discussions, but now I''ll highlight what our peer assessment model is like which is a little different, the peer assessment model, really tries to fill a gap in these other assessment models which is
13:53:32 the building of a community of practice. Here''s a nice little illustration from one of our trainees when we were teaching the assessment model. They doodled out what the community of practice, means to them, and of course it has a lot of stick figures,
13:53:46 all around a circle, thinking up ideas compiling that information, and then creating new concepts new policies, working together to try not to reinvent the wheel and sharing different skills and expertise.
13:54:00 So that''s sort of the gap that we''re filling with a peer assessment model.
13:54:07 Now, the work that went into the project resulted into publications. One is the peer assessment model, which is what you''ll mainly be discussing today.
13:54:17 It has strategies for working together, peer to peer to assess each other''s programs and share findings. The handbook on the right is a little more robust, in that it is designed for professional digital preservation practitioners and consultants to assess
13:54:29 another organization, and create a formal report and it has a report template grant funding, such as that from the National Endowment for the Humanities is available to get a consultant to do this kind of work.
13:54:42 It doesn''t quite result in the same peer to peer conversations that happen in a peer assessment. But if you prefer to have that formal report and formal assessment done, it is an option to you, but today we are going to focus right on the content covered
13:54:59 in the digital preservation assessment peer assessment handbook.
13:55:09 At this point I''m going to pause briefly take another sip of coffee. And I see here that a couple of other messages have been entered into the chat box.
13:55:37 Matthew is asking what were the objectives again, if you could clarify what you mean there Oh I see, Matthew satisfied with the slides, thank you for sharing that Deb, I appreciate that.
13:55:41 So at this point, I''m going to move forward discussing the assessment framework.
13:55:46 Well, what is contained in this framework, first of all, there are four, or excuse me five broad categories, we start with organization is your organization strategically positioned to manage Digital Collections sustainably.
13:56:00 Does it have a decision making body in place to support such a program and coordinate efforts among departments. What about a mission statement, things like that.
13:56:09 Related Lee, then come staff and resources. Do you have enough staff to manage this program, they have the right skills.
13:56:31 There''s policy infrastructure as well as points to your policies that guide, decision making for what you obsession and how you handle different collections and storage. The discussion of policy moves forward to processing and workflows, the processes
13:56:36 and workflows section here really talks about the technical strategies you use for a variety of collections that technological resources is concerned with IT staff tools for managing digital collections, storage space on servers and security solutions
13:56:52 that you have in place. So as you can see it''s a pretty comprehensive policy to practical framework here, that really is keeping in mind some of those things that we saw in those NDA levels of preservation, or the things influenced by the open archival
13:57:06 information system model. So what I''m going to do is show you a little bit about what is in each of these sections and then we''re going to go section by section and really flesh it out.
13:57:18 So, each category has discussion prompts which will help you in your peer to begin conversations about that section. For instance, for the subcategory of organization peddled organizational structure, you will see a variety of questions that get two topics
13:57:33 like whether or not there''s a board of directors or a parent organization above the departmental unit that your peers in the discussion prompt will prompt the peer to ask their peer, what role or influenced This group has on digital preservation efforts.
13:57:49 These aren''t the only questions that you can ask in this category, but they should open up the conversation and lay the groundwork for more specific discussions.
13:58:00 I''m going to pause here because it''s it''s a little bit wordy with all of the discussion prompts. So I''m going to allow you to just do a bit of skimming there.
13:58:20 Okay, moving forward discussion prompts are followed by an idea bank. And so, after you''ve asked those questions and had an, you know, a series of responses from your peer.
13:58:39 you could start to recommend solutions to them.
13:58:43 You don''t have to do this on the fly, you can wait to do some research, back at your institution before you have more formal recommendations. So there are really different options, any option you like to do here.
13:58:54 Whether you want to do it right away. Or if you want to wait to a little bit of research and then come back to your peer.
13:59:02 Now, these are not the only types of recommendations, you can make, but they are a starting place. They can also be further customized to fit the specific context of the organization you''re assessing.
13:59:14 So, this is really the flow of the framework, you get a section, you get discussion prompts that helps start a conversation, and then you get an idea bank that might just help you get your creative juices rolling to think about what''s the next thing that
13:59:29 I''m going to suggest for my peer to advance their program in this section, we see ideas here like adding non staff stakeholders to decision making processes in groups, and I do really want to highlight that one as being valuable when thinking about how
13:59:45 do I collect or help to preserve digital activist Records, which will have issues and challenges that you might not expect, or might not be common in other collections that you preserve.
13:59:59 For example, the privacy of individuals depicted in those videos, or perhaps a fear of law enforcement retaliation when those videos are easily accessible and provided access to.
14:00:12 And so having someone from the groups that you are planning to work with to preserve their content will be critical. And so I if I could, I would put a highlighter mark over that idea there, especially when thinking about engaging with digital activist
14:00:25 records.
14:00:28 So now it''s our opportunity to transition into a bit of a case study. Now our case study will help us to put the assessment framework in some very concrete terms.
14:00:41 The case study that we are using is this little community college the Bridgeport Community College Archives and Special Collections and you see here there''s a brief mission statement from the organization to collect preserve and provide access to collections
14:00:54 that tell the history of VCs community and the community of Bridgeport for researchers faculty, students and members of the public and the goal that they have here is that they are expanding they''re collecting practices to include digital activist records
14:01:09 from not only the community college, but also from the town in which they are located.
14:01:15 So we''re going to use that setting to really illustrate the elements of the framework here as we go from section to section.
14:01:23 So, as I was talking about before each section is really broken down into a series of sub sections. The first section here is policy infrastructure. I''m going to walk you through these components to make you more familiar with them and then highlight
14:01:36 one is a bit of a deep dive to really drive home the point, and hopefully impart some practical tips for you. Collections is an opportunity to learn what types of digital collections currently exist, and also what the collecting goals are for the organization
14:01:51 in general. This of course shapes the whole peer assessment and will come first, and it''s the first thing you will ask your peer when we break you up into groups, organizational structure, we just covered this one here you learn about what kinds of decision
14:02:04 making bodies exist within that organization, and in strategic planning for digital preservation, this asset the strategic plan exists in the organization.
14:02:13 and if digital preservation is factored into it. At the end of the session, I will show you what a digital preservation plan can look like for your organization that results from this framework mission considers whether or not digital preservation, or
14:02:26 the care of digital files is referenced in the department''s mission, it''s important to have this level of official support for your program to help ensure its sustainability.
14:02:36 That designated community is a topic we will get to that will flesh out through our case study so I''m going to leave that one for a second and then organizational strengths is an opportunity overall to highlight the wonderful things going on at your peer
14:02:49 institution. It''s important never to get a forget to highlight the positive that you see going on because this is, even if it''s not a test you don''t want to only bear down on the things that need changing and oftentimes the best recommendations come from
14:03:03 building on initial successes.
14:03:06 Now we will break out on one of these for the Bridgeport Community College Archives and Special Collections state case study the designated community is your target audience for collections.
14:03:19 You might wonder why this is important to have in mind, but it can help you decide what you digitize what type of materials you collect what aspects of the materials you collect to preserve, even when you reformat them, and then also how you provide access
14:03:32 to them. In this case the question for designated community might be. Who are your digital activists records intended to serve this archives actually wants to promote social justice.
14:03:44 Activism among it student body and in the bridge more port community.
14:03:47 Now, this isn''t just about research for them. And this might lead to some interesting ideas for the provision of access. So, if they are looking to help inspire or affect change, you might look to ways that the idea bank in the next slide will cover.
14:04:04 So, the first recommendation, you might make though, is to articulate this target audience in a designated community statement, then you might want to explore ways to create access copies of these collections in a way that is easily shareable and re mixable
14:04:20 by users because you''re not necessarily targeting researchers with this content you''re targeting other people that might affect change. So this might involve ensuring access copies are downloadable, or even automatically treatable and shareable on social
14:04:33 media. Not all solutions providing access to collections will have this option. For example, the popular tool access to memory, which is great, and is designed for providing archival quality access to collections in which finding aids are integrated into
14:04:52 collections. It is great and effective at providing that kind of access, but it doesn''t really have a download feature for collections. Another option which might be a better fit in this case, for this particular goal, and is good in different ways, might
14:05:05 be preserved because starter, which allows downloadable files and downloading files and sharing on social media, heavily integrated right into the access portal.
14:05:15 So you see how your target audience might shift the way you plan, acquiring tools or strategizing about your access methods.
14:05:25 Now, moving forward. We''re going to think about staffing resources the next section here our first section will be about staffing and roles. Does this organization have a lone ranger that does physical and digital collections as well, or is there a dedicated
14:05:38 staff person doing digital collections work now staff training gets the question of what skills your colleague will need to build to grow into the work they want to do with their digital collections and don''t be stingy on the staff training recommendations
14:05:55 when you work with appear, because while you may be afraid to say they need more knowledge and a topic, it''s actually a great opportunity to highlight professional development recommendations that will help them to make a case for getting more professional
14:06:08 development funding for their department. So this is a good advocacy opportunity budgeting and resources.
14:06:14 This section not only asked if there is enough money for digital preservation, but is it secured in a budget is it articulated that way. Do you have money for equipment maintenance subscriptions to digital preservation software licenses or a hosting solution
14:06:28 for your, your collections your software. All of this needs to be spelled out for effective planning, and it also helps to enshrine these resources in something that is more approved and strategically utilized by the organization at large community of
14:06:43 practice is the one we''re going to break out for a second to highlight in this topic of working with the Bridgeport Community College, so.
14:06:58 So what I''d like to say is, if we''re just focused on digital activist records has this archivist had a chance to work with any organizations to see if they have any strategies or solutions that they can point the archivist to.
14:07:12 And the answer here might be. No, which is okay, this is a new program, but how do we point them to opportunities to work with other organizations, so you might recommend that they look into doc now we''re documenting the now, which is an incredible community
14:07:31 for social media preservation, providing not only tools, which we will talk about, but also lots of ways to engage and interact, including, including social media slack and email lists.
14:07:42 So if you go on to their website you''ll be able to quickly get right in gear with that community, one that I personally also like is the digital curation Google group, which is very active.
14:07:53 and while it''s not specifically, specifically geared to social media preservation or digital activists records, it''s utilized quite a bit and definitely would be a topic to discuss should you pose questions through it.
14:08:07 Now these two links, of course you can''t access them yet so I''m going to now just throw them into the chat box.
14:08:15 One second while I get them going.
14:08:29 There''s one for doc now and then. Here we go. We''re going to throw another in there, that is the Google group for digital curation two great places to start the one above more specific to social media the other one more general.
14:08:45 Excuse me.
14:08:47 I''m going to move forward now and we''re going to talk about the next section, which is policy infrastructure and actually I do want to point out a brief typo in my slides before you saw the first section be titled policy infrastructure and I should have
14:09:04 clarified the first section is organization. So, third section is policy infrastructure, I apologize for the little, the little typo or any confusion that might have caused, but here in policy infrastructure, we''re focused on three topics.
14:09:17 The first is collection development, it asks you if you have that essential guiding tool, the collection development policy, which informs which collections are prioritized for obsession into your repository and how many organizations may have this, but
14:09:32 they may not be optimized for digital collecting identifying formats and subjects that are accepted and what the overall procedures are for those formats.
14:09:42 So definitely a good place to start is looking at how relevant those collection development policies are two new and changing digital preservation priorities selection for digitization.
14:09:53 This is a more specific set of criteria for how you decide on digitization projects. And if, if it''s sufficiently informed by factors like strategic decision making, around the needs of particular items there topical relevance funding availability for
14:10:09 Their topical relevance funding availability for projects, the suitability given your current equipment, and also the needs of the collections from a preservation perspective.
14:10:23 Now, we will do a deep dive into the Oh, did I miss one there. I did miss one I apologize guys. There''s one more preservation plans in the context of digital preservation are your specific preservation strategies for different formats.
14:10:40 You know, are they articulated properly. Do you ever convert one format to another for the sake of ensuring your files are stored in a sustainable accessible format that is likely to be usable in the future.
14:10:52 Do you automatically create access copies in specific formats. What type of metadata, can you collect for different kinds of items, be the video files JPEG images or websites.
14:11:03 This topic of preservation plans may be a little difficult to wrap your head around compared to like say a strategic plan, and sometimes I like to call them preservation access, or excuse me, preservation action plans.
14:11:16 So I do want to share a quick example.
14:11:18 I''ve got, as you''ll see here, just a few links. And so one of the places I like to go is actually York University''s York University''s library system in Canada.
14:11:33 Now they have a whole set of digital preservation policies and very clearly articulated preservation action plans for things like audio. They also have it broken down between audio image, video and web archives, and they very clearly articulate things
14:11:49 like whether or not they normalize formats meaning do they whenever they accept an audio file do they change it into a new format. By default, what type of analysis they do to the materials when they bring it into the organization through ingest procedures.
14:12:05 This is a good resource for seeing what a preservation action plan could really look like. It''s kind of like a workflow kind of like a statement on how you handle different formats, and I''m going to share this one in the chat box, because I think it is
14:12:17 a pretty good way to clearly articulate your strategies around a specific type of content.
14:12:24 Now getting right back to our session, we''re going to move forward and talk a little bit about collection development.
14:12:32 You might ask this community college if their deed of gift has been reviewed and how recently it has been updated. It is likely going to need another look for the purpose of expanding into digital activist collections.
14:12:45 The answer from this organization here of course is no they haven''t reviewed their deed of gift for a while, which is not at all uncommon, and they''re going to want to look at it closely to make sure that they''re following the different types of extra
14:12:57 considerations that might come into play with activist records. So, at this point, you''ll probably want the person to review the deed of gift in order to identify needs around intellectual property.
14:13:11 In general, it is important that you will have the ability to share this content, but you may allow the donor to maintain a certain level of control over the collection and how it is shared this gets into privacy and personally identifiable information
14:13:24 as well, or PII. This is a slippery tricky issues in general for digital collections, but digital activist records might be exceptionally challenging and it may be appropriate to preserve records and put a total embargo on the content for a number of
14:13:39 years before it''s publicly available, that''s an acceptable strategy for these types of materials, especially given sort of the danger that we might find activists in in some cases.
14:13:49 Now one of the most robust examples of social media donation instructions that I''ve seen is from UCSF or the University of California at San Francisco, and I''m going to click this option to highlight it and share it in the chat.
14:14:05 Now, they also give some instructions on how they like to actually get the social media content from a technical perspective. So I think it''s helpful in that way as well.
14:14:13 But, so in this case, where, let''s scroll back up here, if you''re looking at UCSF to talk about donating your social media, they, they here, have then guidance on how you handle instagram, twitter, facebook personal profiles organizational pages and flicker
14:14:31 which all have built in methods for downloading your content if you''re the donor and then sending it to the organization. And so this is a good way to do public education on how to do these donations, in a way that needs UCSF needs and you may, you know,
14:14:45 consider them yourself. However, addition in addition to that they also have some sort of annexes to their date of gifts that address social media specifically, so they highlight the fact that your advertising data, your search preferences.
14:15:01 Shopping preferences, those types of things that inform what you see on Twitter or Facebook, are going to be saved. And you have the option as the donor to get them deleted if you don''t want them to be saved and provided access to, or direct messages
14:15:13 between you, your Facebook account and another account. Do you want to preserve those or does your donor want to preserve them or do they not. This is a very easy to understand and clear, just to question addition to their deed of gift that does get at
14:15:27 some of the more challenging aspects of social media preservation and collection. So I encourage you to think about this option as a helpful resource that you might pass along to appear on the subject, or maybe you find it individually useful.
14:15:43 Now moving right along, we''re going to get into our fourth section here, processes and workflows. So, in this section. This is where you can get pretty tactical and gritty about your digital preservation practices, a pro tip here, if you''re doing this
14:15:59 type of assessment for a peer, it is easiest to start by first collecting their documentation around their workflows, which yes is its own separate section here, but it just is so much easier to review and improve on practices once they''re documented.
14:16:15 Now, reformatting involves Of course, how digital files are created from physical originals are you using safe methods that don''t damage the original, are you creating uncompressed or lossless the compressed content that is preserved in the future.
14:16:29 In general, we''re looking for reformatting into digital files that don''t inadvertently destroy any of their data through what''s known as lossy compression, like a JPEG has lossy compression, as opposed to a TIFF image file.
14:16:45 Now, born digital processes have to do with the steps you take to ingest and store digital collections that exist originally in digital form that you''re bringing into your repository.
14:16:54 You might want to know if the organization is doing, say virus checks on new donations or creating check sums that ingest, we didn''t use the term check sums yet, but think of a checksum as like a little fingerprint that you can fingerprint again and say
14:17:10 hey, is my collection different now, because the fingerprint is different. If it is you need to replace that file with a duplicate copy that is still the same as what you had originally ingested into your repository so check sums are a good way to monitor
14:17:25 the integrity and authenticity of files. Now, metadata is all about what kind of metadata you''re creating about your files, and how you are managing it is a part of your catalog records, do you create it in spreadsheets and stored alongside the files
14:17:40 and folders. All of these are options, but you just need to know where that made it metadata lives and what it''s describing documentation is actually what we''re going to dive into here.
14:17:52 So, documentation can take a lot of forms, it can be a detailed Procedures Manual, or a simple visual aid that explains how different departments, collaborate with each other, to get collections into an organization, and then care for it, and then provide
14:18:05 access to it. In this case, the organization hasn''t yet achieved any level of documentation for their collections, especially for these collections they haven''t collected yet.
14:18:14 So what do you do at this point. Well, organizations who are just starting out, might want to achieve multiple levels of documentation, they might want to achieve from the very detailed level up to the higher level of visual aids that many find helpful
14:18:29 to show to stakeholders what they''re actually doing with their collections, but not show you the nitty gritty of all of the practices. And so one of the resources that I want to highlight that does do a good job of showing step by step procedures for
14:18:42 born digital collections is art flow.
14:18:46 Now, this resource is really a good tool for just showing you the step by step procedures, especially for born digital collections, but some things that are a little overlooked include a learning module series, a set of videos that show you how to create
14:19:01 visual aids to your workflows that can help to just communicate in general, to people what at a higher level visually you are doing to your collections.
14:19:10 And so I''m just going to share a link in the chat box to arc flow. So give me one sec there. Here is the main publication, the main deliverable from workflows workflow and this is probably the most visually easy to share slide or page, because it includes
14:19:30 the general steps that they provide step by step guidance on for their digital collections processing, procedures, gathering information before acquisition transferring materials to the institution, we see virus checks mentioned here.
14:19:45 So if you''re looking to see what tools work specifically at what stages of a workflow. This is a great resource that is well documented very recent it finished in 2020.
14:19:55 I''m going to enter it into the chat box. And you''ll also get.
14:20:00 Yes, I think Pam here is just as Can you include the name of the flow with the link.
14:20:05 Yes, so I''ve just included the link there, and I''m going to just get the name entered into the chat box as well thank you Pam for that question. So, I''m going to move us forward a little bit to our last section before I really start orienting you guys
14:20:23 into the practice of doing a peer assessment with each other.
14:20:26 So the final framework element is technological resources. First, it, the people in it, they are a significant resource to you, not just the storage they provide.
14:20:38 But they are important aids in the process of building out robust storage options. Of course, you are the preservation person, so you need to articulate the requirements for your collections, but they''ll be the folks to tell you how those things are achievable,
14:20:52 given the resources available for storage or for bandwidth, what have you any element of the storage infrastructure that they manage now legacy media like floppy disks and digital audio tapes.
14:21:05 Those are formats that require technological resources to handle on because we don''t all have floppy disk drives or means of reading digital audio tapes.
14:21:15 And so, in that section, you might ask, Well, do you have any of those materials, you''d know it from doing the collection section in the earlier part of this assessment framework, and here you can ask well, do you have resources in place to get content
14:21:29 off of a floppy disk, and you can point them to tools that will allow that work to be possible.
14:21:36 Now moving on data management tools are digital preservation solutions, your peer has invested in, and will use to manage collections, whether that be something to acquire digital collections, or manage its storage.
14:21:51 That''s the big catch all for digital preservation software. We''re going to jump into that one in the next slide. Digital storage is where we actually talked about how many copies you have of your content where it is kept and in which kinds of storage
14:22:16 Do you have content off site. Is there a copy in the house. Are they identical duplicates, or are they just regular backups, that it is creating and replacing on a scheduled basis. There''s also security of collections and authenticity of users.
14:22:20 This is a section that talks about your level of control over collections.
14:22:24 You want to make sure that there are roles assigned to staff that when they log into the system that allows them to manage collections they only have roles and actions, they can perform that are appropriate for their position, and that you don''t have
14:22:38 one person has the ability to delete content all on their own. that''s a huge, huge security risk.
14:22:45 Of course, it''s important to establish an understanding of what tools are actively in use at the site. In this case the organization seems to have just invested in let''s say preserving a starter, which you can upload digital files to and have them protected
14:22:59 and managing an all in one sort of solution. It''s very user friendly.
14:23:04 But let''s say, it doesn''t necessarily solve all the problems you actually have of acquiring social media content into your repository. We did see the solution from UCSF where they had people downloading their own content and donating it actually over
14:23:19 a, as a zip file, but there''s other ways to collect social media content. So how might we do that from our donors.
14:23:29 There are a variety of data management tools that can help you capture social media. One is to work from documenting the now, which can help you capture a Twitter thread.
14:23:38 It is free and there''s good documentation around the tool. Now archive social is another option it''s a paid solution designed specifically to care for social media content.
14:23:50 Now, archivists, which I, some of you probably saw in an earlier web archiving session today. This is a web crawling tool designed to crawl websites and create files known as works, which keep a preserved copy of the content in that form Arkadin is from
14:24:07 the Internet Archive, and using it also requires a subscription. If you''re not downloading the source code yourself and running it in house. It also provides an access platform for the content so you''re, if you''re using that tool, basically, you''re managing
14:24:25 and storing that archive it collection, a little separately and providing access to it a little separately from say the preserver Kickstarter system, but these might be recommendations of things that you would want your peer to explore.
14:24:34 I''m going to throw these links into the chat as well. So allow me to just scroll down to my slide there and get these into the chat box.
14:24:49 Links should now be in the chat box for those three. So at this point I''m going to start orienting you guys, two ways that you should assess your peers collections and do our breakout activity at the end of the session.
14:25:03 That concludes our walkthrough which I think was a pretty step by step one of the different elements of the framework. So what I want to start with first is that there are two ways in general that you can do assessments.
14:25:14 The first is to interview, one organization and just get the whole interview done with that organization finish up make your recommendations and then maybe your peer goes over and assesses you, so it''s very much, you know one organization does an interview,
14:25:27 and it''s over. Then the next organization that was interviewed interviews, the interviewer from the last time. and so very much separated. Those two different sets of interviews different assessments.
14:25:42 There''s also co assessment which is a little different. During this process you and your peer will just go section by section, assessing each other as you go.
14:25:50 So this is much more broken up. And while it doesn''t lead to this very holistic full assessment all at once.
14:25:57 It''s better for sharing ideas and collaborating between each other section by section so it''s more conversational the CO assessment strategy. These are just things to think about.
14:26:10 If you should choose to do a digital preservation peer assessment in the future. Now, in general, I do have some pointers to consider before I break you out into groups.
14:26:19 You never want to judge the place your peers in when it comes to digital preservation, we all have different resources and strengths, and you should also keep an open mind to new strategies you hear sometimes when I hear an organization is doing something
14:26:30 that sounds questionable I wait until I can research myself before making a judgment call in my recommendations, the world of digital preservation is vast.
14:26:42 And they might have a valid reason for making certain choices. You should be engaged as a listener to and demonstrate the fact that you''re paying attention.
14:26:52 This always brings out the best in an interviewee when you show compassion if they express a roadblock, or if you demonstrate your excitement when they express they''ve recently made an accomplishment that they are proud of.
14:26:57 You should also decide on a deliverable with your peer ahead of time, not for our little breakout activity. This time it''s just taking notes reporting out, but in general you want to agree on a form of deliverable that might be, let''s say, could be an
14:27:12 email with five big roadblocks observed five big accomplishments, and then five recommendations for building on the program, it could be as simple as that.
14:27:21 And make sure you find out what is working well for your peer and celebrated in the assessment that you do, it''s very important that we build on successes, not just shore up weaknesses.
14:27:30 So at this point I''m going to get ready to break you guys out loose for a 20 minute activity for this activity. We are going to break you out into small groups, you will use the peer assessment handbook to assess two sections.
14:27:45 The first will be the collection section. From there, ask other questions and get answers from your peer to peer that you''ve been broken out into.
14:27:58 Now, make sure everyone in the group has a chance to ask some questions and get answers to that collections section. And then, after you''ve taken some notes and have written down what your peer has shared.
14:28:09 I want you to choose at least one more section, if you have the time to co assess.
14:28:15 So it could be any section that we just talked about.
14:28:18 What I''m going to do what this point is make sure you have the peer assessment handbook in the chat box. I''m going to give you a minute to click it and navigate to the page, where the Table of Contents is, and then we''re going to automatically break you
14:28:32 out into groups.
14:28:47 It is in the chat box now so make sure you take a moment to click it.
14:29:02 And what I''m going to ask you to do for the 20 minutes again is do co assessing with the collection section.
14:29:09 And then after that, go to any section you like and co assess that one if you have time do another one.
14:29:15 You can keep going for the full 20 minutes, but we''re going to regroup at 250 for a little report out. I see that we have 27 participants left so I''m sure some people got a little scared, with the idea of having to do a peer assessment, which is ok.
14:29:31 But I think everybody has had enough time to click that link in the chat box. I''m going to orient you to the link, one second.
14:29:38 And just make sure we all see this is the handbag book you should be seeing. And as you scroll down, the table of contents, the organization collection is down here on page five will do that one first, and then keep going on any of the other topics you
14:53:23 Okay.
14:53:26 Getting all back together. Okay, I see, Stephen. All right.
14:53:34 So I think we''re good. All right, I''m going to start recording again and then you can get the show on the road.
14:53:41 Okay, great.
14:53:45 Actually I will say as you start recording, do people now have the ability to still share verbally, with the group by unmute your microphones.
14:53:56 Because that would be.
14:53:58 I hear you guys. Okay, good, good, good.
14:54:01 Okay, so I''d like us to report out now. Very briefly, If we could get a couple of volunteers. So I''m curious. In addition to the collection section. What did you tackle.
14:54:14 what sections did we co assess.
14:54:21 Actually we just stayed on the collection section behind.
14:54:25 Oh wow, it was a rich enough section to result in 20 minutes I''m curious, what did you talk about.
14:54:31 So, I had the pleasure of meeting Jackie from the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh, I, my name is Jen I''m at the University of Maryland Special Collections and University Archives.
14:54:43 And so we because of the vastly different institutions that we come from just the act of comparing the digital programs at these different places just took the full amount of time.
14:54:56 Can I can I ask the follow up question that is on the screen, what did you learn about your own organization through that discussion.
14:55:12 Um, you know, we ended up, comparing like how far along we are in our digital programs. And so, I mentioned you know we''re always trying to measure ourselves up against like larger institutions, so I learned that like, Yes, while we keep trying to compare
14:55:21 ourselves to like the yells and the Library of Congress.
14:55:24 There''s, you know, certain, certain institutions are just going to be at different places in their in their digital programs, and that''s fine.
14:55:34 You know, Public Library, like the fact that they, there''s.
14:55:40 Well, I''m not going to speak too much on behalf of Jackie, but we like I personally learned that like,
14:55:49 perhaps, despite the fact that University of Maryland''s collections digital collections are very siloed we''re doing okay.
14:55:57 This.
14:55:58 Yeah, it was. It was a bit of a like and also it was good to be able to learn about like what what''s going on it in public libraries in comparison to like a university library.
14:56:15 I will say from my own perspective it''s very valuable to have been working with sites that are at universities or historical societies or public libraries because there''s lessons to be gained from each of those types of organizations, I love that you
14:56:29 shared that Jennifer I really appreciate you being are bold first volunteer.
14:56:35 Can I ask for another person to share some, you know, a section they tackled and something that they learned about their own organization through that discussion.
14:56:47 Well,
14:56:49 I''m not sure it was it was just, I''m a digital conversion technician at the Library of Congress, and was with people with for smaller public libraries and colleges, it was interesting to see some of the differences, and I guess similarities in a library
14:57:09 card says immense Digital Collections the first born digital collection.
14:57:27 That was acquired was the September 11 web archives. I mean, but I was talking with the people, for the smaller colleges and trying to pay it forward by with links from the library cards is digital, you know, content management section, but also giving
14:57:34 my insights from my former job when I was a contractor to Sony and archives which gives survey. I worked at a survey born digital media there you know DVDs floppy disks, etc.
14:57:47 So, I was trying to share knowledge, and you know compare and contrast the situation, the different institutions.
14:57:59 And I shared a lot of links for the Smithsonian library Congress which hopefully would be helpful.
14:58:04 That makes me very very happy to hear, and I found myself in my own group trying to share as many links as I could and as many resources I feel like most recommendations in the assessment model are strengthened, when a link to a resources included is
14:58:19 they help you actually achieve that recommendation. So I love that you shared that example, I''m going to at this point for the sake of time, wrap us up with our last two slides here.
14:58:30 So this is just about next steps. I think what I''d like to highlight is that if you did have a good conversation with your peer and would like to maybe stay in touch with them, or complete a full assessment with them.
14:58:42 I would love it if I saw that happened from this session, and ultimately it''s a good idea to turn your findings from one of these assessments into a roadmap for success.
14:58:51 And the last slide that I''d like to leave you with before I close out is the idea of turning these assessment findings into something of a planning spreadsheet.
14:59:03 And so, because you have the slides, these are pretty easy spreadsheets, to create, but this is sort of a strategic plan for your digital collections and how you build capacity, over time looking at this, this is just one example of how you might categorize
14:59:17 your activities over the broader types of programmatic elements that are included in the framework, and then looking at different strategies and steps that one might take to achieve a certain level of progress or measure of progress that has articulated,
14:59:35 and then putting it down on the calendar for a time you plan to complete it.
14:59:39 In the times that I''ve done assessments I found that this has been the act of calendar rising recommendations for improvement is one of the best ways to make sure things actually get done.
14:59:50 And so at the very end, because we are at 259. I''m going to just say thank you very much for all your time for sticking it out till the very end I know a lot of folks here stayed, just for the presentation and not for the activity.
15:00:02 So thank you to the guys who did stay here for the activity, really appreciate it. And I hope you enjoyed this session.