This book offers a comprehensive, entry-level guide for librarians and archivists who have found themselves managing or are planning to manage born-digital content. Libraries and archives of all sizes are collecting and managing an increasing proportion of digital content. Within this body of digital content is a growing pool of 'born-digital' content: content that has been created and has often existed solely in digital form. The No-nonsense Guide to Born-digital Content explains step by step processes for developing and implementing born-digital content workflows in library and archive settings of all sizes and includes a range of case studies collected from small, medium and large institutions internationally. Coverage includes:
the wide range of digital storage media and the various sources of born-digital content
a guide to digital information basics
selection, acquisition, accessioning and ingest
description, preservation and access
methods for designing & implementing workflows for born-digital collection processing
a comprehensive glossary of common technical terms
strategies and philosophies to move forward as technologies change.
This book will be useful reading for LIS and archival students and professionals who are working with, or plan to work with, born digital content. It will also be of interest to museum professionals, data managers, data scientists, and records managers.
Foreword - Trevor Owens
Introduction
What is born-digital content?
Why is this important?
About the book
Additional resources
Representing the world of libraries and archives
1. Digital information basics
What is digital information?
Hexadecimal
Digital file types
Storage media
Command line basics
Code repositories
Conclusion
Further reading
2. Selection
Types of born-digital content
Format- versus content-driven collecting decisions
Mission statements, collecting policies and donor agreements
Gift agreements
Stanford University's approach to selection in web archiving
Conclusion
Further reading
3.Acquisition, accessioning and ingest
Principles in acquisition
Acquisition of born-digital material on a physical carrier
Checksums and checksum algorithms
Acquisition of network-born materials
Accession
Ingest
Conclusion
Further reading
4.Description
General fields and types of information
Descriptive standards and element sets
General element sets
Descriptive systems
Use cases
Conclusion
Further reading
5. Digital preservation storage and strategies
A note on acquisition
A note on file formats
Thinking about storage
Certification
Digital preservation policy
Conclusion
Further reading
6. Access
Deciding on your access strategy
Methods of access
Use case
Conclusion
Further reading
7. Designing and implementing workflows
A note on tools
Design principles
Workflow and policy
Examples
Case study
Conclusion
Further reading
8. New and emerging areas in born-digital materials
Technology in general
Storage
Software and apps
Cloud technologies
Smartphones
Digital art and new media
Emerging descriptive and access methods
Growing your skills
Conclusion
Further reading
Conclusion
