Tracy Seneca
Head, Digital Programs and Services
University of Illinois at Chicago
Jordan Bass
Coordinator, Research Services and Digital Strategies
University of Manitoba
Natalie Vielfaure
Digital Curation Archivist
University of Manitoba
Seon Young (Sara) Min
Digital Curation Assistant
University of Manitoba
“Life at Level Zero: Digital Preservation without a Repository” (Seneca)
The University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) is currently establishing its first digital asset management system, using the LibSafe platform. We are late to the game. Until now, UIC has been storing its 53 terabytes of digital assets on simple file servers, relying on directory structures and filenames to find and manage over 2 million files. While we have faced some of the risks accounted for in the National Digital Stewardship Alliance “Preservation Levels” rubric, such as format obsolescence and file degradation, most of our challenges occur below Level One of that rubric, and our greatest challenges are not even named there. How many times have we used the same filename for different objects? What are we paying to store that is out of scope for digital preservation? What, fundamentally, do we even have? Our experience as a participant in the Digital Preservation Network suggests that UIC has not been alone in that challenge. UIC very much needed the services DPN had to offer, but participation for us was a catch-22; without a repository to manage our content, it was a struggle to isolate the files we needed to preserve. This session will cover UIC’s strategies for managing a noteworthy amount of content without a repository, our decision to temporarily (we thought) step out of DPN, and the lesson that, above all else, digital preservation is management.
“Digital Dawning: A New Digital Preservation Program at the University of Manitoba Libraries” (Bass et al.)
The University of Manitoba Libraries has made great strides in digital preservation over the past five years despite limited funding and staff resources. From the introduction of a digital asset management system, the use of open source preservation software applications to employing standardized metadata schema and large-scale format migrations, the Libraries continues to develop its capacity as a trustworthy steward of digital objects. Recently and in response to the rapidly changing landscape of digital preservation, the Libraries’ Research Services and Digital Strategies unit was created to confront the challenges of preserving digital assets through a more coordinated and targeted approach. In its nascent stages, our digital preservation program thus far has involved determining the extent of our requirements through environmental assessments of our digital holdings, reviewing the Libraries’ digitization services, and discussions with key stakeholders. Evaluation and testing of preservation software and hardware, pursuing low-cost and open-source options, and work in digital forensics has further supported the integration of Archivematica and a Forensic Recovery of Evidence Device into our processes. The Libraries also assisted in the initiation and development of a distributed digital preservation network in Western Canada. This project brief will expand on this process, and contextualize what brought us to this point, where we now stand, and where we aim to go from here.