New Report from OCLC: The Archival Advantage: Integrating Archival Expertise into Management of Born-digital Library Materials

OCLC Research has just released a new report by Program Officer, Jackie Dooley.
The report is titled, The Archival Advantage: Integrating Archival Expertise into Management of Born-digital Library Materials and can be accessed here (28 pages; PDF).
From the Description:

This essay also focuses on ten areas of archival expertise and their relevance to the digital context. These include confirming ownership, appraising the significance of content, documenting the context of creation, negotiating with collection donors and nurturing these relationships over time, recognizing and navigating legal issues, ensuring authenticity of files, and using practical approaches to creating metadata for large collections. Each of these is equally relevant for digital and analog (physical) materials. Archivists’ in-depth knowledge of each area helps to ensure that the right questions are addressed.
Report Highlights

• The full array of traditional archival skills is equally relevant in the born-digital context.

• Research data sets, email, websites, blogs and many other born-digital library materials have characteristics similar to analog archival materials.

• It is beneficial for digital librarians, IT experts, curators, library administrators and other research library colleagues who manage digital materials to be aware of archivists’ skills and expertise and their relevance to the digital context

• Areas of archival expertise that other experts may lack include donor relations, appraisal, context of creation and use, authenticity, transfer of ownership and permanence.

Direct to Full Text Report (28 pages; PDF).
Report Homepage

Filed under: Academic Libraries, Data Files, Digital Collections, Interactive Tools, Libraries, Management and Leadership, Public Libraries