Durable Access to Digital Primary Sources

Ricc Ferrante

Smithsonian Institution Archives

Presented at NISO 2016 Virtual Conference

Making Certain Digital Content is Preserved: Archiving Digital Resources

170 years: Increasing and diffusing knowledge

The Archives holds records that document the Smithsonian’s people, events, buildings, and research. The history of the Smithsonian is a vital part of the history of American experience, scientific exploration, and international cultural understanding.

The Archives collections include Institutional records, personal and organizational papers.

James Smithson EngravingSmithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 95, Box 21, Folder 1

SI Building from the Northeast with Flowers Along Mall, by Russell, Andrew J, c. 1858, Smithsonian Archives - History Div, 9748-A or MAH-9748A.

Rocket Row, by Unknown, 1959, Smithsonian Archives - History Div, 73-7185

Buddha draped in robes portraying the Realms of Existence, Freer Gallery of Art, Purchase – Charles Lang Freer Endowment, F1923.15

Smithsonian Institution Archives, Image ID: SIA2010-0338From left to right: Ronald Winston, son of jeweler Harry Winston, Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield, Secretary

Carmichael, letter carrier James G. Todd, Harry’s wife Edna, and Secretary Carmichael at the National Museum of Natural History.

Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 158, United States National Museum, Curators' Annual ReportsNational Gallery of Art, 1919-1920

General log and notes on Persian Gulf and Jeddah (Jidda) on the Red Sea, Donald S. Erdman Papers, 1948,Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 7084.

Partial digital file listing from Devra G. Kleiman Papers, 1967 – 2010, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Accession 11-124

Exposing Collections & Access

• New expectations of catalogs and finding aids • Online catalogs and finding aids link to online digital surrogates

• One-at-a-time reading room access to 24/7 remote access

• Full Access requires complete collections• Devra G. Kleiman Papers, 1967-2010

• Paper, audio, video, born digital

• Databases, digital video & animation, websites, manuscripts, presentations, reports, custom programs & scripts

• Deep access• Data mining , similar strategies

• Strategies that work across multiple holdings

• Open access

Digital Curation at the Archives

• A Digital Preservation Approach

• Analog holdings

• prioritized and digitized at or above FADGI standards

• Born digital holdings

• Combined strategy of format migration and emulation

• Begins at accession or before

• Collection enrichment – crowdsourcing transcriptions

Digitized and Born Digital History

• Growth of SIA’s born digital holdings reflect the expanding role of computers in society

• Originally highly specialized, computers are now integral to the way we create and communicate knowledge, to how we record history

• In 2003, the Electronic Records Program was established dedicated resources to care for and preserve SIA’s growing body of high risk primary source material

• Since the mid 1990’s, over 21 TB of primary source material accessioned and preserved following an OAIS Reference Model workflow

Digitization

• Dedicated in-house resources assigned in 2008

• Supplemented with interns and volunteers

• Target collections prioritized by use, value and condition

• Digitization specifications exceed FADGI standards

• Access derivatives created from digital preservation masters

• Progress since 2008

• Over 700,000 images digitized

• On pace to reach 1M images digitized in Summer 2017.

Projects

• Record Unit 1, Board of Regents Meeting Minutes, 1846 -

• Record Unit 158, Curators Annual Reports, 1881 - 1964

• Record Unit 305, U.S.National Museum, Accession Records 1820 - 1958

• The Field Book Project: Establishing item-level intellectual control, cataloging of primary source material, various locations

The face of durable access

• Broader Access

• High quality digital surrogates

• 24/7 remote access

• Additional access through aggregators like DPLA & Biodiversity Heritage Library

• Deep access

• Full text searchability and data mining

• Open Access

The results of durable access

• Collections Stewardship

• Extended lifespan of holdings

• Increasingly “light archives” of born digital holdings

• Enriched collections

• Examples in Scholarship & Research

• Reexamination of the methodology of Dyar’s Law

• On demand review of governance history and precedents

• Identification and improved documentation of important figures and organizations

Final comments

• Digital holdings take many forms for which durable access is essential.

• The variety of formats and uses mandates a collaborative effort

• Good stewardship requires us to think beyond digitization for immediate use and to plan for sustained preservation and access