TCDL 2022

I solemnly swear I will finish this project: Tackling a long-term digital preservation project
Speaker: Kristin Clark

In the fall of 2020, the Special Collections & University Archives at Texas Woman’s University embarked on its first ever born-digital processing and digital preservation project in an effort to collapse and preserve an over 60 cubic foot collection of born-digital University Archives photographs stored on roughly 4,500 CDs. The project began in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic that had many students and staff telecommuting, and over a year later the first phase of the project is coming to an end with phase two already underway and phase three on the horizon. To date, over 600 GB and 80,000 files have been extracted from the digital media in the collection.

The project is multifaceted including born-digital processing, physical processing, digitization, finding aid creation, stakeholder access point creation, and weeding. During the course of this project a number of stumbling blocks and questions were presented- Can we do this from home? What equipment do we need? These discs are not reading, what do I do? How do we create a finding aid for this collection for Special Collections staff? What do stakeholders need from this project? How do I work on this massive project when I have so many other projects to complete? Oh no, now we are out of server space!

This presentation will discuss creating remote projects, adaptability when working with different stakeholders, managing long-term projects, and digital preservation tools for processing CDs.

This Is the Way: Choosing the Right Digital Preservation Tools for Your Institution
Speaker: Kathryn Slover

In Star Wars: The Mandalorian, titular character Din Djarin learns that there is no one way to be a Mandalorian. The rules and regulations he was raised to follow are one way, but there are many others who do not adhere to this path. Similarly, in the field of digital archives, there is no singular solution to preserve digital materials. Each institution has different needs, resources, and goals, and digital preservation practitioners must recognize that there are a variety of solutions to the challenges they face. This presentation will chart the course taken by UTA Libraries through the asteroid field of early-stage digital preservation efforts that eventually led us to select Preservica as our digital preservation solution. This overview is not intended to be a one-size-fits-all path towards digital preservation enlightenment, but a guide to help any institution choose the solution that best fits their needs.