by Sara Ring
Quick Summary
For any institution that needs to preserve and provide access to electronic records for the long-term, the following report may be helpful as you develop local workflows and documentation for managing this type of content.
For any institution that needs to preserve and provide access to electronic records for the long-term, the following report may be helpful as you develop local workflows and documentation for managing this type of content. Published by the University of Minnesota Libraries Electronic Records Task Force, the report details the steps the task force took during their first year to explore working with and caring for electronic materials. Some of the first steps involved educating staff and developing expertise, building the technological infrastructure to support ingesting electronic records, defining workflows and policies to support the process. One outcome included building a digital processing workstation for working with electronic records that includes both Windows and Macintosh machines, external hard drives, and software designed for ingesting and processing electronic materials such as BitCurator. A list of hardware and software used on each Windows and Macintosh workstation is included in the guide.
The appendices may be especially useful as they include examples of the workflows and other documentation the group created. For example, the group created a guide for staff who work directly with donors. The guide includes discussion points and questions to use when talking with donors to better understand what they have, file format considerations, transfer option considerations, and more. There is also a one page version of the guide that can be given to the donor ahead of time to read through to prepare them for talking with Libraries staff about their content. Appendix 10 includes a draft of an amended deed of gift for electronic records.
Cover image created by Jørgen Stamp, Digitalbevaring.kd, CC BY 2.5 DK
