[Personal_archives] FW: dialogue on arrangement and digital personal archives

Tue Apr 17 14:44:04 EDT 2012

Your last question, Rodney, hits on one of my concerns:

I think that one limitation of a software-based approach may be that there is or will be an increased reliance on form first and then a determination of the series later.  If you look at the FTK video round about minute 2.3 we see the downloading of documents by document type;  later on (minute 9.39) we see the selection of documents into series based on what, we don't really know.  If this donor is living and the archivist has the capacity to trace the arrangement in his/her workspaces (both digital and  physical), then there should be some insertion of that series arrangement information during this process.  We can hope that this type of analysis is taking place after the documents are recovered from the hard-drive, but I think that we're probably in a situation where the emphasis is on the technology and on the recovery, followed by composing series because documents appear to be related by virtue of the archivist's subject knowledge, rather than any transfer of what we might term an understanding of original order (i.e. the person processing is putting documents together whose content seems to be related without first trying to understand how the documents functioned together in the creator's contexts).  Of course, this type of information is only available when the archivist has access to the creator and can gain knowledge of the work spaces, but that is no different from what we've experienced in the past.

Having said that, as those who were able to see Jeremy Leighton John at the ACA at UBC Symposium or who are familiar with the high-resolution site visit photographs taken at Stanford will know that these archivists are attempting to have a better understanding of the site of creation merge with description.  I am left wondering if the kind of semantic understanding archivists have had in the past about sites of creation and original order can still find a place here to bridge the gap between the site photographs and the records.  I worry that archival appraisal fact-gathering is unjustly falling out of fashion because of how we tend to champion technology and large scale solutions....  Does the technology for recovery make us start at the back end?

Catherine

-----Original Message-----
From: Rodney Carter [mailto:rgscarter at gmail.com] 
Sent: April-17-12 1:50 PM
To: Hobbs, Catherine
Cc: Personal_archives at mailman.yale.edu
Subject: Re: [Personal_archives] FW: dialogue on arrangement and digital personal archives

In my current position, the proportion of digital records I come across is quite small. Other than the odd file here or there (mostly digital photographs) I have not had to contend with the acquisition let alone arrangement of large groups of digital files. I am quite thankful that the Sisters still print a great deal and have not, to my knowledge, started using any cloud storage.

The only exception to this was when a Sister left the position of Superior last year, I copied her "My Documents" folder onto the Archives' external harddrive. I haven't dealt with her fonds yet, but the paper and digital files appear to mesh quite well together. There is some overlap with files she had printed and, by and large, the filing system echoed that used previously (minutes to council meetings; correspondence; financial matters; files on Sisters; photographs etc).

My (extremely limited) experience here suggests that the archival principles underlining arrangement - based on function or form - remain the same. Even with this rather straightforward example, documents exist in multiple locations in multiple formats and capturing that in the description will be important. Noting which documents were printed and which were not (or not kept in printed
version) might be important to demonstrate importance or use. I am not terribly concerned about the arrangement of these records but description might be tricky -- the metadata (folder and file names) are rather sketchy, particularly with the photographs. At least the technical metadata provides a date of creation.

Because of my limited experience to date arranging digital files I feel that I am rather ill equipped to comment on many of the issues raised in Catherine's emails. However, I am sure there are folks out there who have begun to delve into digital arrangement issues in a serious way.

I was fascinated by the video of the FTK software and would love to hear if anyone here has had experience using that or similar software.
Have people had success using it to assist with arrangement? Are there limitations to a software-based approach?

Rodney

On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 11:29 AM, Hobbs, Catherine <Catherine.Hobbs at bac-lac.gc.ca> wrote:
> Hi There,
> We seem to be lagging a bit with this dialogue but we still have two days so I hope you'll give it another go and share your thoughts and reflections.
>
> I have some questions to put to you:
>
> For those of you who are considering arrangement for digital personal archives you are treating, can you reflect on how this might be different when we look at current technologies (including the Cloud and removable media)?  What would your strategies be for capturing these fast-changing and complex contexts?  Are there types of modelling that come to mind, for example?
>
> For those of you who haven't weighed in on digital arrangement, can you tell us why?  I think this topic has the double disadvantage of combining two topic that archivists find difficult:  arrangement and technology.  In the same way that the NASARM guidelines and other documents in the last dialogue provided some clarity about when to decide on a series, and how to discern elements of arrangement, is there guideline that needs to be created that speaks directly to the digital?
>
> Something to chomp on,
> Catherine
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: personal_archives-bounces at mailman.yale.edu 
> [mailto:personal_archives-bounces at mailman.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Sarah 
> Kim
> Sent: April-06-12 5:18 PM
> To: Personal_archives at mailman.yale.edu
> Subject: Re: [Personal_archives] dialogue on arrangement and digital 
> personal archives
>
> Hello all,
> I would like to add something to previous comments related to diskettes.
>
> "The diskette seemed to be acting as we normally understand the file to act in traditional physical archives. (Catherine Hobbs)": I share the thought that diskettes are more than temporary storage media. In some cases, they indeed function as folders, thus they are part of the "original order" of a collection showing how the creator categorized/grouped her files. Pat Galloway at UT Austin has taught a digital collection preservation class. In her class, she experiments how to incorporate diskettes in the arrangement of personal digital collections. Once personal digital collections are processed and deposited into institutional repositories, it is possible to build multiple virtual arrangement structures without actually re-arranging individual files. A diskette base arrangement can provide an additional picture of "the character of personal archives" and the personality of a creator.
>
> "I would say that this is changing rapidly, but has reflected the way in which the creators have seen this material - as different from the other material but unified through its difference. (Heather Home)":
> Adding to this, I also think old diskettes as physical objects evoke and bring out some sort of sentimentality and/or historical aspects of personal digital collections. Many of my research participants said that they still keep their old floppy diskettes (e.g., 5.25" and 3.5") that they cannot render anymore. In some cases, people already transferred files on them to newer storage like their current personal computers or external hard drives but still keep the diskettes.
>
> It is highly likely that personal digital collections will be transferred or donated to archives in a very different form and method in the relatively near future (probably no more diskettes at some point and probably less, a lot less analog documents): thinking of the increasing use of cloud storage where the IT service providers get involved more deeply in the formation of personal digital collections at the first place and where the word "archives" is often used without clear distinction from backup data or date warehousing (e.g., "Gmail's "archive" feature (Rodney Carter)" is an example!). Since floppy diskettes already became a part of history in some sense and their physical longevity is unknown, they seem like particularly interesting objects to think of and question their preservation needs at this point.
>
> Just my two cents.
> Sarah Kim
> (My hands-on experience with personal collections is extremely limited 
> compared to many people in this group. My thoughts are based on my 
> work with a few personal digital collections and individuals mostly 
> for my research.)
> --
> Sarah Kim
> Doctoral candidate
> School of Information, University of Texas at Austin 
> http://srhkim.com/ _______________________________________________
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