[Personal_archives] Original Order for digital records

Fri Nov 20 14:29:41 EST 2009

I have been lurking, reading the posts, and enjoying the discussion all week.  Now that it's officially over I have found the time to weigh in on a few points raised.  I find the challenge to original order interesting because it really hits at a key tenet of archival theory.  I had never considered before the possibility of tracing changes to the arrangement through time.  Is the last original order the "official" order?  In the analog world we thought that way.  When the archives acquired the personal papers, at that time the original order was fixed, theoretically at least.  It's also possible in the digital universe to find things in more than one place.  If a file is found in multiple folders on a hard drive, to what series does it belong?  To all three?  What of generous use of links and shortcuts so that one document can be accessed from multiple folders?  Archival theory will have to adapt to more flexible concepts of original order and arrangement.

>From the paradigm article, I was struck that the challenges of digital personal archiving fit into two types:  

1. Challenges of donor/	creator interaction, i.e. the need for timely intervention, donor resistance
2. Preservation challenges, technical considerations, formats and migration issues

The second category looms large right now because many big institutions are trying to figure it out.  These challenges are not just common to personal archives but to all archives and digital libraries.  It seems to me that many of questions will be tackled first by our colleagues in government records whose challenges seem exponentially bigger and more immediate than ours on the private side.  We may be able to ride on their coat-tails as they begin to define best practices. Smaller archives may be able to use their solutions.

The first challenge is what will be most particular to personal archives.  Paradigm's challenges in dealing with politicians seemed to represent what everyone in personal archives eventually will face.  I was struck by the number of times Susan mentioned in the article that politicians were concerned about transferring sensitive records, the difficulty in persuading politicians to give more personal material, concerns about others' personal information in digital form, and concerns about negative leaks.  Reading between the lines one wonders how good a record was actually received from these donors?  It appears that timely intervention too has potential drawbacks.  And here the shortage of resources will be the big challenge to most archives.  At least with politicians (and probably writers and artists) it is often possible to identify early on in their careers who are the most significant creators and establish these relationships.  With most of the creators in the broad acquisition spectrum, this question of significance is not so clear as early (as mentioned in the article), and often the archival resources devoted to these fields are less.  Archivists acquiring in these have-not fields will have to depend on the fortuitous survival of digital archives, which ultimately will privilege those creators who are the most attuned to the preservation of their own archives, those who take the steps during their lifetimes and careers to transfer, migrate, and preserve over time their most significant digital files.  Individual awareness will be the key to long term preservation.

Thanks to Susan and SISPA for organizing this very interesting discussion!  

Cheers, 
Rob 

_______________________________________
Robert C. Fisher
Archiviste, Archives sociales / Archivist, Social Archives
Bibliothèque et Archives Canada / Library and Archives Canada
550 boulevard de la Cité, Gatineau, QC, Canada  K1A 0N4
Gouvernement du Canada / Government of Canada
www.collectionscanada.gc.ca 

_______________________________________

The opinions expressed here are my own and do not necessarily represent those of Library and Archives Canada.

-----Original Message-----
From: personal_archives-bounces at mailman.yale.edu [mailto:personal_archives-bounces at mailman.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Hobbs, Catherine
Sent: November 20, 2009 9:15 AM
To: Rodney Carter; Personal_archives at mailman.yale.edu
Subject: Re: [Personal_archives] Original Order for digital records

I too was caught by the new possibilities for exploring and making evident original order in digital archives and also presenting user-oriented orders.  Particularly the idea of expressing different orders, evolutions of orders or even parallel evolutions of orders depending on the number of types of uses of digital technology by the creator in combination with his/her various roles.  There are many factors at play here that need to be teased when determining arrangement (which have come up earlier in our discussion):  how does a choice to use a certain medium or free email service overlap with the creator's own ideas of what they are doing or role they are playing?  Which will become the defining factor in the arrangement?

I wonder, Sue, if the FutureArch project or further thoughts about the Paradigm project have presented new ways of appraisal or mapping of the creator's overlapping digital worlds in cases where the creator has an extremely complex digital life (using mobile media, traditional email and desktop, and storage of their documents on the web)?  Can we think of archival description as including diagrammes of the creators' lifestyle, for example? 

Secondly, what became of the whole issue of recovering erased files from old hard drives?  Have you had creators who have agreed to let these stand as records?   I work with some literary archival creators who seem to be open to the possibility of recovering erased files (i.e. they seem to be fairly comfortable with drafts of literary works being recovered, not necessarily correspondence).  Have you included issues of recovered files in transfer agreements?   The issue of what a creator meant to destroy and whether or not this choice to destroy can or should be reversed raises an ethical delemma if the creator is deceased (would you do this in cases where the creator could not be consulted and the estate was involved?) and new complexities to donor negotiations. 

Catherine

Rick's question about the relevance original order of digital collections last night got me thinking quite a bit. Is it still relevant? If so, how do we express it in our finding aids?

While finding the notion of a singular "original order" somewhat problematic given that it only reflects a particular order at a particular time without easily acknowledging how arrangement changes over time, I do believe the concept remains relevant - perhaps more so than ever. Understanding where people store their information, and with what other files, and how these files are used and are moved over time from one storage media and/or device (from floppy disk, to harddrive, to USB, to "the cloud", etc.) will provide the context needed to allow for a richer understanding of the information.

The Survey questions ask for exactly this type of information. I wonder, however, how aware people are of their own/their office's filing system.
Personally, I frequently have to do a bit of digging to find which of the several email addresses I sent a particular message from or on which harddrive or external HD or USB key I have a particular file saved.

Has the prompting through the Survey questions been successful in identifying where donors' records are? [seeing Michael & Susan's last emails which came in as I type it seems this question has been answered - helpful as a starting point but may require follow-up].

The description of the Barbara Castle collection's catalog entry in Susan's email from Tuesday, with multiple "orders" allowed their browser interface is certainly intriguing. It could also be interesting to map the evolution of a digital collection, tracing when & how files were created and moved around, using the technical metadata held within the digital files (I am only assuming this is possible given my rather limited technical understanding of these sorts of things) or through comparing "snapshots" of the disc images you describe. I am thinking or something along the lines of the timelines on the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine except for personal fonds instead of webpages. This certainly would acknowledge the fluid nature of the creator's original order(s).

To briefly comment on Susan's question to me about the Sisters' personal collections - you are correct, as an "in house" archives, the problem of personal/professional it is less of a concern than it might be in a collecting institution. Individually, the Sisters vary greatly on their record creating/keeping and what gets transferred from the archives ranges from a few items to many boxes. Typically the files are what you would find in most people's personal collections - diaries & journals, correspondence, diplomas, certificates & awards, photographs, art done by the Sisters, also medical records and administrative records. To this date, however, very little has been given digitally. What I do have from the Sisters' personal digital collection is mostly photographs which I have acquired by getting them to allow me to copy the pictures onto a cd or a usb, which I then house on the Archives' computer. While many are computer literate, they still print seemingly everything. And this is the unofficial position of the administration here: if it is important it will be printed. I am not entirely convinced however (there are occasional comments about "never knowing what to keep" and "cleaning out my email/files" which send shivers down my spine & despite telling the Sisters that I am more than happy to help them out with their files I've yet to be asked to assist). I am planning to to try to get copies of files off the Sisters' computers on a regular basis. This will serve as a backup for them with the added benefit of having a scheduled transfer to the archives..or at least that is how I plan to sell it to them. We'll see how that works ...

Rodney

On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 7:47 PM, <RICKBARRY at aol.com> wrote:

>
>  [...]
> All of this also makes one think about another aspect -- the relevance 
> of "original order" in digital collections.
>  [...]
> Regards,
>
> Rick
>
>
>

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