Digital Records Inventory1
Instructions for records inventory instrument:
This inventory is in three parts: an interview with the contact for the project; an overall
look at the files; and a more granular look at sections of the digital collection.
The interview section is geared toward faculty or individual papers. The purpose of the
interview is to gain an overall understanding of the collection itself and the manner in
which the creator utilized digital technology (thus offering clues that some digital
archaeology may be in order). Areas covered by the interview are: details of the
collection itself; the results that the creators would like to get from preserving their digital
records; temporal details of the careers of the creators; and some basic technological
questions.
The overall look at the files has two main goals: to ascertain the size and scope of the
collection and to gain information regarding the specific technological requirements of
the collection. This stage of the inventory will take place in consultation with the contact
for the collection. The method in which this stage will be completed will vary across the
projects in accordance with the contact’s wishes. The guidelines provided are a minimal
amount of information to be drawn from an overview of the files themselves. As each
group discovers the modes of access that they will be provided, more specific and guided
inventory instruments can be developed.
The third step of the inventory will be a more granular look at sections of the
collection. The level of granularity will differ depending on the kinds and heterogeneity
of materials.
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This instrument is adapted from one developed by Mary Anne MarDock for her capstone project in spring
2005, originally applied to faculty records to be archived in the iSchool institutional repository.
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Part I: Creator Interview
 Creator Name
 Collection Title
 What do you expect to get out of managing your personal files? Do you need
some kind of repository to support their preservation?
 What kind of ownership control do you expect to retain over these materials (can
vary across the collection)?
 What are your main professional areas of interest? (narrative)
 What are the functions served by this material? (Check all that apply)
o Personal: family, friend, individual
o Student: classwork, research, professional
o Employee
o Other (specify)
 How does this material complement or relate to your main areas of interest?
 What other materials exist that are worthy of being saved?
o Paper material
o Digital material
o Describe:
 Do you have materials in your collection that you habitually save but do not
“own”?
 Is there material that is not part of this collection that complements it?
o Published materials for which drafts exist in the collection, etc.
o Possible work by collaborators which has been published or deposited
elsewhere
 When was the earliest file created?
 Are you still creating digital files?
 Describe technology use.
o When did you begin using digital technology?
o How has your use of digital technology evolved?
 Did it start as word processing and evolve into more complex uses
of digital technology?
 Have your uses of technology remained consistent over the years:
using only a prescribed set of tools, etc.
 Do you create metadata for your files?
 Do you keep materials on computers that you do not own?
 Has this material been moved forward to new hardware and software platforms?
o If so, how many times (approximately, if necessary)? i.e. How many
computers has this information been on?
 How many different software migrations has this material
undergone (approximately)?
 Has it changed drastically (say, a move to a different operating
system or different creating software) or has it stayed with
different versions of the same software?
o Were there any problems with the migrations?
 Artifacts
 Content loss
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 Formatting loss
 Other
Are there any significant collaborators on the material in the collection or
significant amounts of “unowned” materials?
o If yes, list all and describe the nature of the collaboration or “unowned”
materials.
How does the material relate to each of the functions indicated above?
Are there any access restrictions on this material?
o What material is restricted?
o How long is the material restricted?
o Is the material restricted to a particular user group? If so, define user
group.
What are your version control methods?
o Overwrite file
o Create new file for each version (if this is the case, is there a naming
convention that you use?)
o Other (please describe)
Has the backup process that you use failed? (i.e. Have you lost information due to
some glitch in the backup process?)
How do your backup procedures relate to version control? (i.e. Is there a method
by which you keep track of the most current version of files? Do you rely on
memory?)
Part II: Overview of the files
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What physical media do the digital files reside on? (Check all that apply)
o Optical disk (number of disks)
o Magnetic tape (number of disks)
o Personal computer hard disk
o Office computer hard disk
o Mainframe computer
o External/portable hard disk
o Networked environment
o Solid-state memory (thumb drive, memory stick)
o Other (specify)
Operating system
o Windows
o Mac
o Linux
o Other (specify)
Indicate the version(s) of the operating system(s)
Indicate important creating or viewing software and version (if known)
Determine hierarchical (and relational, if exists) structure (i.e.: what’s the file and
folder structure of the collection). Draw a basic map of this or capture directory
structure.
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Part III: Granular look at the files
File folder by file folder (if necessary)
 Date created. This may be deceptive: if the material has been moved forward, the
“date created” in the properties of the document will most likely be the date it was
moved onto that computer, rather than the actual date created. It may take
detective work to discover the real creation date.
 Update frequency:
o Daily
o Weekly
o Monthly
o Yearly
o Event driven (please explain)
o Other (please explain)
 Function: (Use the function list developed in the first part of the process)
o Personal
o Student
o Employee
o Other
 Creating Software and version (describe all)
 Viewer exists?
 File specifications exist and are available? If so, where?
 Size (in gigabytes, megabytes, or whatever the appropriate size)
 Relationships to other folders (if known—is this supporting material for another
folder, is it related to another folder in a way not illustrated by the hierarchical
map that was drawn?)
o Specifically: is this material duplicated somewhere else in the files that we
have?
o Is this material duplicated in publicly available information?
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