Digital Records Inventory 1
Instructions for records inventory instrument:
This inventory is in three parts: an interview with the creator, or failing that the contact for the project; an overall look at the files; and a more granular look at sections of the digital collection. The first two parts are carried out without actually accessing the files, through interview and examination of physical media.
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. When you carry out the interview with the creator, if s/he clearly does not know the answer to many of the technical questions, ask if therre is someone else who might know (e.g., TA, technical support staff). Whatever you cannot find out may have to be discovered through investigation of the files themselves.
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 physical media. Note that the brand and type of media, as well as the labeling on the media, can go far to providing basic dates that can in turn suggest potential application program versions used in file creation. 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 . This step must be carried out in a non-destructive way using a copy of the medium. The level of granularity will differ depending on the kinds and heterogeneity of materials.
Part I: Creator Interview
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Creator Name
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Collection Title
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What do you expect to get out of managing your personal files? Do you need some kind of repository to support their preservation?
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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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What kind of ownership control do you expect to retain over these materials (can vary across the collection)?
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What are your main professional areas of interest? (narrative)
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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)
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How does this material complement or relate to your main areas of interest?
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What other materials exist that are worthy of being saved? o Paper material o Digital material o Describe:
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Do you have materials in your collection that you habitually save but do not
“own”?
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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
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When was the earliest file created?
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Are you still creating digital files?
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Describe technology use. o When did you begin using digital technology? o How has your use of digital technology evolved?
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Did it start as word processing and evolve into more complex uses of digital technology?
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Have your uses of technology remained consistent over the years: using only a prescribed set of tools, etc.
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Do you create metadata for your files?
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Do you keep materials on computers that you do not own?
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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?
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How many different software migrations has this material undergone (approximately)?
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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?
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Artifacts
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Content loss
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Formatting loss
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Other
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Are there any significant collaborators on the material in the collection or significant amounts of “unowned” materials?
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o If yes, list all and describe the nature of the collaboration or “unowned” materials.
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How does the material relate to each of the functions indicated above?
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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.
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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)
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Has the backup process that you use failed? (i.e. Have you lost information due to some glitch in the backup process?)
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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)
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Operating system o Windows o Mac o Linux o Other (specify)
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Indicate the version(s) of the operating system(s) if so far known
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Indicate important creating or viewing software and version (if known)
Part III: Granular look at the files
Determine hierarchical (and relational, if exists) structure (i.e.: what is the file and folder structure of the collection as presented on the media in hand). Draw a basic map of this or capture directory structure.
File folder by file folder (if necessary)
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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.
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Update frequency: o Daily o Weekly o Monthly o Yearly o Event driven (please explain) o Other (please explain)
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Function: (Use the function list developed in the first part of the process) o Personal o Student o Employee o Other
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Creating Software and version (describe all)
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Viewer exists?
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File specifications exist and are available? If so, where?
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Size (in gigabytes, megabytes, or whatever the appropriate size)
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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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