Society of American Archivists Jump In Initiative
Special Collections and University Archives, University of Maryland
Lauren Cahill, May 2015
Background
Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA) at the University of Maryland has
five major collecting areas: Literature and Rare Books, Labor Collections, State of Maryland and
Historical Collections, Mass Media and Culture, and University of Maryland. This survey
focused on the State of Maryland and Historical collections, which holds material ranging from
organizational records to political and personal papers to historic preservation collections. The
goal was to locate born-digital records on physical storage media within these collections and
then make recommendations for further action.
The University of Maryland’s program for working with born digital records is still in a
development stage. We have some capacity for working with born digital formats; however,
workflows and procedures for accessioning, processing, and storing these materials are still
being explored. Prior to this survey, SCUA had no sense of the amount or format of born digital
material already existing within our collections. We hoped that participation in this survey would
provide baseline information that could be used for more systematic planning as well as
establishing an approach to surveying other collections within SCUA for born digital content.
Staffing
Graduate student Lauren Cahill completed this survey as part of a field study (120 hours)
plus additional hours as part of her ongoing student employment in SCUA. Lauren is completing
an MLS with a concentration in Archives, Records, and Information Management from the
University of Maryland iSchool. This survey took approximately 240 hours over the course of 14
weeks.
Survey Method
Of the 301 collections in State of Maryland and Historical Manuscripts, 85 (4,716 linear
feet) were identified as potentially containing born digital materials. This number was
determined by searching our online finding aids and abstracts, which describe both processed
and unprocessed collections, to identify collections with bulk dates 1975 and later. 1975 was
chosen as the cut-off date because while certain types of storage devices were already in use in
years prior, they were not widely adopted. A small number of collections with earlier dates were
examined because the finding aids made biographical notations such as “pioneer in the field of
information science”, in one case.
After compiling the list of 85 collections, SCUA’s homegrown content management
system, a Microsoft Access database, was used to generate several queries to sort the
unprocessed from the processed collections and to identify shelf locations. The database was
searched using document type keywords such as “electronic”, “disc”, or “floppy”. Using these
results and the recorded bulk dates, a determination was made for each collection regarding
whether it was definite, likely, or possible that born digital records were present. VHS tapes,
audio cassettes, or reels of audio tape were not included in the survey.
For the 85 identified collections, finding aids and inventory lists were consulted to find
any mention of electronic media. Boxes that noted the presence of electronic media were opened
to document the type and number of storage devices present. The majority of the unprocessed
collections did not note any electronic materials in the preliminary inventories and boxes were
opened to discover material. Generally, if the collection was 20 feet or less, every box was
opened and for every other collection, 20%-30% was surveyed.
Survey Challenges
There were some logistical challenges conducting this survey. Document types were not
consistently labeled in our database, which meant more boxes than necessary had to be opened.
Furthermore, our online finding aid search function was limited and did not work well
identifying relevant collections.
Results
Through this collections survey, 14 collections were identified with born-digital records,
which totaled 353 devices and a maximum storage capacity of 70.42GB. Surprisingly, the most
prevalent medium was reels of computer magnetic tape, such as IBM tape, with a total count of
172. The other formats present were CD-ROMs, 5.25” floppy disks, and 3.5” floppy disks.
The most important finding is that SCUA has less born digital material than anticipated. Based
on the work in these collections, it is unlikely we will find many born-digital records before
2000. The survey showed that while the documents might have been written on Microsoft Word
or a similar program, the printed copy was the format that was saved to become a record.
Recommendations
It is recommended that, when resources permit, we send the magnetic tape out to be
imaged. We do not have the technology to perform that work in-house, but those collections are
important enough to warrant it. We should also consider migrating the other formats forward
while we can still do that onsite and the numbers are small enough to do so quickly. Finally,
SCUA should develop consistent and standard language for describing born-digital materials in
preliminary inventories and finding aids.