ARCHIVES*RECORDS 2016

*** Date Changed from Monday, August 1, to Sunday, July 31. ***


Fees: Advance / Regular
SAA Members: $205 / $265
Employees of SAA Member Institutions: $235 / $295
Nonmembers: $265 / $325


Course Description
(1 day, .75 CEUs; 1 DAS, 5 ARCs)

For archivists working in contemporary collecting institutions, basic digital skills are essential. As technology makes it easier to create text, image, audio, and video files and archivists continue digitizing analog collections, the impact of electronic records on our work only increases. For archives, there is a heightened risk of loss or inability to access these records if basic computing skills for ingest, management, and preservation are not acquired as part of the archivist’s toolkit.

In this course you will learn hands-on skills for working with digital archival objects at the most basic levels: files, data, and the computer operating systems in which they live. These basics establish manual and automated capacities for protecting the bits, automating/extracting metadata, and preparing for the next steps of building and managing digital archives. You will get an overview of the landscape of digital collections in archives, including digitized materials, born-digital acquisitions, and the various approaches employed in the field to acquire, stabilize, describe, store, and preserve collection content. And you will learn simple methods to deconstruct file formats in order to understand the difference between file metadata and file system metadata. More specifically, you will receive an introduction to and hands-on training in the use of command line programs for working with files and metadata that come included with many operating systems, as well as additional GUI and command line tools such as MediaConch (previously MediaInfo), ExifTool, MDQC, NARA FileAnalyzer, DataAccessioner, Bulk Extractor, Bagger/BagIt/Exactly, and Fixityall tools that support identification, transfer, storage, metadata generation, and monitoring of digital collections. You will come away with a clear knowledge of how to use computers' natural languages, how to combine multiple tools and skills, what role these play in collection management workflows, and a sense of how to implement their use. Participants will be required to use a laptop with all applications downloaded and installed in order to participate in hands-on exercises. All applications are available free of charge on the Internet. A list of applications and file sets will be distributed to participants.

Upon completion of this course, you'll be able to:

• Articulate the basic functions and components of computers, computer applications, and their salient features.


• Describe the basic composition of an individual digital file and how computers and software create and work with them. 


• Identify applicable data and metadata that enable a digital file to be understood, preserved, and used. 

This course is less about a specific processing approach and more about providing archivists with basic computing skills that will help them make use of any tools that come their way and will help them speak the native language of the computing environments in which files (archival objects) reside.

Who Should Attend?: Archivists, Managers, Practitioners, Museum Professionals, and Records Managers

Attendance is limited to 35.

Fees: Advance / Regular*
SAA Member $215 / $275
Employee of Member Institution $245 / $305
Nonmember $275 / $335 

Course Description
(1 day, .75 CEUs, 1 DAS, 5 ARCs)

The field of digital forensics often evokes imagery of prime-time television crime dramas. But what is it, and how can archivists put digital forensics tools and processes to use in their home institutions? Archivists are more likely than ever to be confronted with collections containing removable storage media (e.g., floppy disks, hard drives, thumb drives, memory sticks, and CDs). These media provide limited accessibility and may endanger the electronic records housed within, due to obsolescence and loss over time. Caring for these records requires archivists to extract whatever useful information resides on the medium while avoiding the accidental alteration of data or metadata.

You’ll explore the layers of hardware and software that allow bitstreams on digital media to be read as files, the roles and relationships of these layers, and tools and techniques for ensuring the completeness and evidential value of data. 

This course is specifically designed as a precursor and prerequisite to the two-day DAS course “Digital Forensics for Archivists: Advanced.”

Upon completion of this course you’ll be able to:

• Demonstrate an understanding of the principles, tools, and technologies behind the practical field of digital forensics






• Explore how digital forensics tools and techniques can apply to an archival setting






• Consider a range of digital forensics tools, and use some of them to create disk images and analyze their content for different types of information.

Who should attend? Archivists, manuscript curators, librarians, and others who are responsible for acquiring or transferring collections of digital materials—particularly those that are received on removable media

What you should already know: Basic computer literacy; participants should understand how to install and use software tools listed in the syllabus and be able to read and comprehend basic (though detailed) technical concepts

If you intend to pursue the DAS Certificate, you will need to pass the examination for this course.

Attendance is limited to 35.

* Register for both Digital Forensics for Archivists: Fundamentals and Digital Forensics for Archivists: Advanced and save!

SAA Member $514 / $634
Employee of Member Institutions $584 / $704
Nonmember $700 / $764

Fees: Advance / Regular*
SAA Members: $339 / $399
Employees of SAA Member Institutions: $379 / $439
Nonmembers: $465 / $489


Course Description
(2 days, 1.5 CEUs, 10 ARCs, 1 DAS)

Are you starting to receive disks as parts of collections or have you discovered disks in boxes of paper records? Caring for the records stored on removable storage media (e.g., floppy disks, hard drives, thumb drives, memory sticks, and CDs) requires archivists to extract whatever useful information resides on the medium while avoiding the accidental alteration of data or metadata. In this course, you’ll learn how to apply existing digital forensics methods and tools in order to recover, preserve, and ultimately provide access to born-digital records. We’ll explore the layers of hardware and software that allow bitstreams on digital media to be read as files, the roles and relationships of these layers, and tools and techniques for ensuring the completeness and evidential value of data. We’ll apply digital forensics tools and methods to test data in order to illustrate how and why they are used.

Note: This course includes exercises with open-source tools in the BitCurator environment. BitCurator is distributed both as a virtual machine and as an installable ISO image.

Students must bring a laptop to the course with the following software already installed. (All software programs are free.) iPads and other tablet devices will NOT be able to perform the hands-on tasks, as these devices do not have adequate resources or allow the level of user control required to run the associated software. 

Upon completion of this course, you'll be able to:

• Explain the roles and relationships between the main layers of technology required to read a string of bits off of a physical storage medium and treat it as a file 




• Identify various forms of data that may be "hidden" on the physical storage medium 




• Use write blockers and create disk images in order to prevent accidental manipulation of volatile data 




• Identify and extract the data that a file system uses to manage files 




• Apply digital forensics tools and methods to collections of records 




• Identify and compare alternative strategies for providing public access to data from disk images 

Who Should Attend?: Archivists, manuscript curators, librarians, and others who are responsible for acquiring or transferring collections of digital materials, particularly those that are received on removable media

What You Should Already Know: Participants are expected to know basic archival practice and have intermediate knowledge of computers and digital records management.

This course builds on others in the Digital Archives Specialist (DAS) curriculum, including Basic Electronic Records, Thinking Digital, Accessioning and Ingest of Electronic Records, and Metadata Overview for Archivists.

Attendance is limited to 35.


* Register for both Digital Forensics for Archivists: Fundamentals and Digital Forensics for Archivists: Advanced and save!

SAA Member $514 / $634
Employees of Member Institutions $584 / $704
Nonmember $700 / $764

Fees: Advance / Regular*
SAA Members: $339 / $399
Employees of SAA Member Institutions: $379 / $439
Nonmembers: $465 / $489


Course Description
(2 days, 1.5 CEUs, 10 ARCs, 1 DAS)

Are you starting to receive disks as parts of collections or have you discovered disks in boxes of paper records? Caring for the records stored on removable storage media (e.g., floppy disks, hard drives, thumb drives, memory sticks, and CDs) requires archivists to extract whatever useful information resides on the medium while avoiding the accidental alteration of data or metadata. In this course, you’ll learn how to apply existing digital forensics methods and tools in order to recover, preserve, and ultimately provide access to born-digital records. We’ll explore the layers of hardware and software that allow bitstreams on digital media to be read as files, the roles and relationships of these layers, and tools and techniques for ensuring the completeness and evidential value of data. We’ll apply digital forensics tools and methods to test data in order to illustrate how and why they are used.

Note: This course includes exercises with open-source tools in the BitCurator environment. BitCurator is distributed both as a virtual machine and as an installable ISO image.

Students must bring a laptop to the course with the following software already installed. (All software programs are free.) iPads and other tablet devices will NOT be able to perform the hands-on tasks, as these devices do not have adequate resources or allow the level of user control required to run the associated software. 

Upon completion of this course, you'll be able to:

• Explain the roles and relationships between the main layers of technology required to read a string of bits off of a physical storage medium and treat it as a file 




• Identify various forms of data that may be "hidden" on the physical storage medium 




• Use write blockers and create disk images in order to prevent accidental manipulation of volatile data 




• Identify and extract the data that a file system uses to manage files 




• Apply digital forensics tools and methods to collections of records 




• Identify and compare alternative strategies for providing public access to data from disk images 

Who Should Attend?: Archivists, manuscript curators, librarians, and others who are responsible for acquiring or transferring collections of digital materials, particularly those that are received on removable media

What You Should Already Know: Participants are expected to know basic archival practice and have intermediate knowledge of computers and digital records management.

This course builds on others in the Digital Archives Specialist (DAS) curriculum, including Basic Electronic Records, Thinking Digital, Accessioning and Ingest of Electronic Records, and Metadata Overview for Archivists.

Attendance is limited to 35.


* Register for both Digital Forensics for Archivists: Fundamentals and Digital Forensics for Archivists: Advanced and save!

SAA Member $514 / $634
Employees of Member Institutions $584 / $704
Nonmember $700 / $764