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Engaging with Digital Archives Open Source Communities

Digitalbevaring.dk is a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Denmark license. Image: Jørgen Stamp.

Digitalbevaring.dk is a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Denmark license. Image: Jørgen Stamp.

In addition to the work we are doing here at the MIT Libraries, we are also engaged with the global community of archivist and preservation folks developing open source tools for digital archives, digital forensics, and digital preservation.  Here are a few of the ways in which we are participating in communities to enhance, improve, and consider future integration and development of these tools.

ArchivesSpace Community

MIT Libraries is a Charter Member of the ArchivesSpace Community with Tom Rosko, Head of Institute Archives and Special Collections, as our official representative. ArchivesSpace is the next-generation archives information management application. Kari Smith is also a member of the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) and the Chair of the TAC documentation sub-group.  These groups assist witharchivesspace_logo prioritizing and improving the technical development and technical documentation for the software system.  Just recently, she has been appointed to the cross-council Features Prioritization team that includes development and program management staff from ArchiveSpace as well as a few members from the User Advisory Committee and the TAC.

BitCurator Community and BitCurator Access

As the only digital forensics environment and tool set created specifically for collecting institutions, the BitCurator environment and BitCurator Access projects are critical for digital archives.  We participated in the BitCurator-in-a-Box assessment prior to the release of ver 1.0 and also hosted Cal Lee and Kam Woods at the Digital Sustainability Lab and a presentation to MIT Libraries staff and regional colleagues.  logoKari participates in the BitCurator Consortium monthly teleconferences during which users of BitCurator Tools discuss their use and thoughts about enhancements to the environment.  She was also recently appointment to the BitCurator Access Advisory Board.  BitCurator Access software tools will assist collecting institutions (libraries, archives, and museums) in providing web-based and local access to born-digital materials held on disk images.  Additionally, the Andrew W. Mellon funded project led by Cal Lee at UNC Chapel Hill will explore transforming and using digital forensics metadata in collecting environments, and redaction of file items, metadata and hidden data from disk images.

Archivematica users community

Although not a formal sub-group of the work by Artefactual Systems on the Archivematica digital preservation system, we are engaged with the intersections and integration of using Archivematica with BitCurator and ArchivesSpace.  logoKari and Nancy McGovern, Head of Digital Preservation and Curation at MIT Libraries are working on projects and with other uses of Archivematica to discuss case studies and explore how data objects and metadata can travel between the software systems for optimal use, automation, and to meet our archives and preservation requirements. Much of this work is happening under the aegis of the Digital Sustainability Lab at the Libraries.

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Digitalbevaring.dk is a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Denmark license. Image: Jørgen Stamp.


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