Digital Records

There are two types of digital material in an archive collection – material that has been digitised and material that is born-digital. It is important to understand the difference between the two.

Digitised items are items that have been created from an analogue original for example photographs of paper documents or digital audio files of sound recordings. These are often termed “digital surrogates” or “access copies”.

Born-digital items are items which were created digitally and for which there are no physical originals, for example digital images, word documents or excel spreadsheets. They are dependent on software and hardware to render their information, because of this dependency it is not always possible to preserve born digital items in such a way that allows them to be viewed as originally intended. When preserving born digital items it is therefore necessary to identify their significant properties and concentrate on preserving access to these.

Digitisation is the process of creating digital surrogates of physical items in your collection. It can be a time consuming and costly initiative so think carefully about your reasons for digitising and make sure you have a clear purpose in mind. It is important to remember that you are creating a surrogate only and you must still preserve the original item.

Good reasons for digitising are: To protect fragile items or items that are frequently used; to allow new ways to use and search the material; to enable easier access to archive collections.

If items are not frequently used, contain personal data, are difficult to digitise due to their size or structure and may lose useability, or if you are unsure of copyright, then they may not be good candidates for digitisation.

Things to consider before starting a digitisation project:

Do your staff need training in handling items and/or using the equipment? Make sure that you and your volunteers are confident handling original archive material and using both the hardware and software used to capture the digital images

Could your documents do with a surface clean before digitising? It is worth investing a bit of time to make sure the items look the best they can

Do you have a suitable space? If possible, set aside a designated digitisation space to avoid packing and unpacking or dismantling the equipment.

Do you need to purchase equipment? It is likely that your digitisation project will be undertaken by yourself and your staff with a camera or scanner. If using a camera, it is worth investing in a tripod to keep the camera steady and to enable better positioning. If you need to purchase equipment or wish to outsource your digitisation project, you could investigate funding streams such as the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Do you have enough time? This is particularly important if you are digitising for a specific event. Also, if you are digitising audio recordings be aware that this must happen in real time – digitising a 10 minute analogue recording will take 10 minutes plus editing if required – so leave plenty of time.

Have you recorded the information you need to manage your analogue item and digital surrogate through your digitisation process? This may include key information such as a unique reference number, title and description, which will help you keep track of your surrogate and/or access copies. It can be helpful arrange and catalogue your items prior to digitisation (see Cataloguing).

How you deal with your digital material will depend on whether it is digital material for preservation i.e., material destined to go into your archive or if it is working/access copies – these can be copies of digital material or digitised versions of physical items in your collection.

AT A GLANCE
	PRESERVATION COPIES	ACCESS COPIES
NAMING	Give these the catalogue reference number as a title	Decide on an easy to use naming format – perhaps one that includes the year or project an item has been digitised for
STORING	Multiple copies in multiple locations is the key to storing and preserving digital material	Keep these separate from your preservation copies in clearly named folders arranged by digitisation project
FORMATS	Where possible make sure digital items created for your archive are in preservation formats	These can be in smaller and easier to access formats unless you are using for publication or exhibitions
ACCESS	Strictly control access to digital archive material to avoid accidental loss or damage	Make sure you are aware of any copyright or data protection issues before sharing your digital material
EDITING	Keep editing to a minimum	Explore free editing software such as Gimp or Windows/Mac photo editors and Audacity for sound editing

Use metadata (data about data) and keywords to link access copies to the original digital or physical item. Note the existence and name of access copies in your catalogue. If you don’t have a catalogue keep this information in a spreadsheet.

You should consider a combination of cloud storage and hard drive storage for your digital archive. Avoid using DVDs or CDs as these are not suitable for long term preservation. See the section below for more information on storing and preserving your digital collections.

You must also give some thought to file formats. Avoid creating material or accessioning material that is in obscure formats which may become obsolete and therefore difficult for you to preserve long term. The Digital Preservation Coalition’s introductory guide for small businesses (available on online at www.dpconline.org) includes a section on selecting file formats as well as other useful advice. Keep in mind that a “file format” – a format used for everyday access and sharing e.g a Jpeg image or Mp3 audio file – is not always suitable as a “preservation format” – a format that holds a superior amount of data e.g a TIFF image or WAV audio file.

Free editing software is available and can allow you to remove personal information from access copies of sound recordings for example. Born digital material should be added to your digital archive in its original state with any barriers to access such as data protection or copyright noted in the catalogue.

Digital archives require regular monitoring and migrating to protect against data loss. The main risks to digital archives are:

Hardware and software obsolescence: An example of this is the floppy disk, which computers no longer have the capacity to read. It is important to migrate digital material from obsolete storage media even if this means losing some of the functionality, remember you are trying to preserve the information on the digital item not necessarily an exact replica of it.

Storage deterioration: Portable storage media such as CDs and DVDs are at risk of physical decay or damage as is the information they hold. It is important to transfer digital material to more robust storage such as external hard drives and cloud storage. However, neither of these are infallible, so it is important to retain at least two copies of digital items using two separate technologies.

N.B When transferring digital items to new storage it is important to document any information that may be physically recorded on the storage media such as text on a DVD or CD case. You can do this by capturing it in your archive catalogue or by taking a photograph of the storage media and keeping this as a print out or as a digital file alongside your digital item.

User error: The more digital items are accessed the greater the risk of data loss or corruption. It is important to limit access to digital material and to make sure that those who do have access are aware of the possibility of accidental deletion or alteration.

Like physical archives, digital archives are also at risk from natural disasters such as fire and flood. If possible, keep a copy of your digital archive at a separate geographic location.

It is good practice to run a virus check on any recently acquired digital material. If possible, keep it somewhere temporarily and conduct a second check at a later date before adding it to your archive.