This course WILL count towards the in-person requirement for the DAS (tactical and strategic tier) certificate program.
Course will run two half days---May 10, 2023 (9:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. U.S. central time) and May 11, 2023 (9:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. U.S. central time).
Perhaps your institution has found itself in a situation where a prominent donor has offered a trove of significant Office documents and digital photographs stored on a hard drive; or, an important department is ready to transfer records of long-term value from a file server to the archives; or, a professor drops off an external hard drive and DVDs with video footage from a symposium featuring nationally recognized participants.
If you were unprepared or unsure of how to handle such a donation, this course will introduce you to basic policies, resources, and procedures that will enable your institution to successfully accession and ingest common born-digital materials (Office documents, PDFs, images, audio, video, and email).
In this context, “ingest” (as outlined by the Open Archival Information System Reference Model) encompasses “accessioning” in its traditional sense (i.e., “to take legal and physical custody of a group of records or other materials and to formally document their receipt”) but includes additional steps to validate the transfer and make the content suitable for long-term preservation. The course will focus on working with "born digital" archives (i.e., content that originated in a digital format), but core concepts and strategies will be applicable to digitized surrogates of physical and analog materials.
NOTE: Links to software will be included in registration materials. Students are encouraged to pre-install applications and will be invited to attend office hours with instructors prior to the course to attempt to resolve any issues. Students will have the opportunity to participate in hands-on activities as part of the course, but instructors will have limited ability to troubleshoot during the class.
Previously titled Accessioning and Ingest of Electronic Records
Instructors:
Lara Friedman-Shedlov (she/they) is the Digital Records Archivist for the Archives and Special Collections (ASC) Department at the University of Minnesota Libraries. They are responsible for coordinating ingest and processing of born digital archival materials for the department. They are currently serving as co-chair of SAA Metadata and Descriptive Objects Section and are also active in the DLF Born Digital Access Working Group, the Digital Archival TraNsfer, iNgest, and PackagiNg Group (DANNNG), the Midwest Archives Conference and the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section (RBMS) of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL).
Mike Shallcross (he/him) is an senior associate archivist at the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) and previously served as the Digital Preservation Librarian for the Indiana University Libraries and Assistant Director for Curation at the University of Michigan’s Bentley Historical Library. He has taught graduate courses in archives and digital preservation at the University of Michigan School of Information and Indiana University Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering; was a member of the SAA Publications Board from 2011-2018; and is a co-chair of the SAA Metadata and Digital Object Section (2020-2022).
Upon completion of this course, you'll be able to:
- Discuss current practices and resources
- Develop policies and workflows best suited to your institution’s mission and resources
- Identify relevant issues and challenges
Who should attend?
Practitioners and managers with little or no experience handling born-digital materials (as opposed to digitized versions of paper/analog items) as well as IT professionals who seek to better understand archival concerns. Note that this course will not explore the creation, support, and use of database systems used to create and maintain accession records or to track the ingest, location, and status of digital deposits.
What should you know?
This course touches upon topics taught in Appraisal of Digital Records, Arrangement and Description of Digital Records: Part I and Part II, and Digital Forensics for Archivists: Fundamentals and Advanced.
DAS Core Competency:
1. Explain the nature of digital records and their lifecycle.
3. Formulate strategies and tactics for appraising, acquiring, describing, managing, organizing, preserving, and delivering digital archives.
This course is part of the Digital Archives Specialist (DAS) Certificate Program. If you intend to pursue the DAS Certificate, you will need to pass the examination for this course.
Testimonials:
Responses to “what aspect of the workshop was most valuable to you?” included:
- “I feel like the information was presented in such a way that I could really use it to create a process for ingesting and acquiring electronic records at my institution.”
- “The combination of the real-life examples and the description of tools was most valuable and will help me apply what I've learned to my work at my organization.”
- “Group discussions were helpful. Content was communicated effectively.”
- “Normally I'm worn out after one of these workshops. I was energized when I left this one. Thank you.”
- "I learned a lot."
- "Great course!!"
SAA Members: $219 /$279
Employees of SAA Member Institutions: $269 / $329
Nonmembers: $309/ $389