Due to the new and complex challenges presented by born-digital materials, many special collections and archives are struggling to develop and institute practical policies and procedures for the intake, selection, processing, and access of digital content. Key to sifting through the possible options is the need to find out from others what has worked for them, and what has not. In order to guide our choices at the University of Alabama Libraries, we developed a survey to uncover the selection of practical tools, the development of productive workflows, and recommendations that more experienced digital archivists have to share. In May we are distributing this survey widely, and in June and July we will sift the results to generate guidelines that are useful for a range of material types, media, and formats.
We will begin the session by sharing the results of our survey, and asking attendees if they have useful tools to demonstrate or practical workflows to share in the areas of intake, selection, processing and access of any form of digital content. Based on their responses and the interest areas of the attendees, we will divide into small groups around either the stage of workflow or the types of content (or both). Attendees will be invited to share their own positive and negative experiences, and each small group will be asked to add notes to our shared Google Document, and to then share highlights of their discussion with the larger group. The Google Document will serve as a basis for future reference, and will be organized post-conference for increased usability, and the link shared again on SAA listservs.
The intent of this presentation is to engage participants in sharing useful information and tools, and to expand the capabilities of all participants to better manage their own incoming digital content.