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In: BornDigital

The (paradigm) Personal Archives Accessible in Digital Media was designed to provide support and guidance for preserving digital private papers in terms of accessioning, ingesting digital private papers into digital repositories, and processing them in line with archival and digital preservation requirements. The project is a bit older (2005-2007), but the paradigm documentation is still very useful as a primer for anyone new to the ideas and concerns for working with born digital materials. In particular, I like the section on Practical Tips, which advises against overly long filenames and spaces in names. This might  seem to be a bit basic, but because it’s basicRead More →

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In: BornDigital, DigitalCuration, eliterature

OCLC published “Defining Born Digital” which is a short 4-page intro, and isn’t in any way meant to be comprehensive. The document doesn’t (and can’t without being much longer) begin to address many areas and doesn’t include references for further reading. For anyone interested in working with born digital materials, publications from the Electronic Literature Organization (ELO) are essential reading: Acid-Free Bits Born-Again Bits These publications are essential because electronic literature defines and redefines “born digital”. Electronic literature does so a highly experimental creative form that pushes the boundaries of existing technologies, creates new technologies, and uses/connects technologies in new ways that creates new conceptualRead More →

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In: BornDigital, CLIR, DigitalCuration, digitalhumanities

Matthew Kirschenbaum is one of the authors on this report and he’s also one of the authors on the Preserving Digital Worlds report and the author of the brilliant Mechanisms: New Media and the Forensic Imagination (which rightfully won MLA and SHARP book awards, and many others). I’ve been eagerly awaiting this report, and now it’s out in time for holiday reading! News Release: Digital Forensics and Born-Digital Content in Cultural Heritage Collections by Matthew G. Kirschenbaum, Richard Ovenden, Gabriela Redwine with research assistance from Rachel Donahue PDF Download of Complete Report (1 MB file) >> While the purview of digital forensics was once specializedRead More →