Using Mac Finder and PathFinder for Appraisal
Posted by Chris Prom in Research on March 10, 2010
Over the past day, I continued to work with my files from the OIF, FTRT, and Merritt Fund. Droid provided me a better understanding of issues I was likely to confront in identifying and migrating important content, so I turned my attention to examining files quickly and efficiently so that I could make appraisal decisions about them. As I took actions, I recorded them in a file (appraisal actions.txt), in the root of the files, for potential inclusion in the AIP or a descriptive system, at a later time.
Every operating system, of course, includes a built in file manager, such as Windows Explorer, the Mac Finder, or Gnome Nautalis. In addition, each operating system may have one of more paid or free file managers which can be used to replace or supplement the default application. For example, Pathfinder is a well-reviewed and powerful file browser for the Mac.
My impressions/evaluation of working with both the MAC Finder and Pathfinder are after the break. Tomorrow, I’ll review some Windows applications.
More on using DROID for Appraisal
Posted by Chris Prom in Research, Software on March 10, 2010
Over the past day, I have been testing tools for appraisal, using records from the American Library Association Office of Intellectual Freedom (OIF) the Freedom to Read Foundation (FTRF), and the Leroy J. Merritt Humanitarian Fund. The files are particularly appropriate for this purpose since they represent the completing functioning of related groups within a larger organization, since no prior appraisal has been conducted on the files, and since the files are likely to have continuing value to the organization, as well as future research value for students, scholars, and members of the public.
Under a research/nondisclosure agreement, I was supplied a snapshot of a office’s working files on July 28, 2009. Although the files were given to me for research purposes only, it is possible that the Office of Intellectual Freedom will decide to include some of the files in the American Library Association Archives, at the end of the research project.
The files comprise a complete electronic record of the office since the time that office began storing files on a shared server. The folders use a deep file structure and include a wide range of file formats. In addition, some of the materials are sensitive and will need to either be removed from the archives or placed under a restriction policy. (This is particularly the case for Merritt Fund materials, which include case files.) For this reason, it is important that potentially private materials be identified and then segregated and removed from materials to be deposited, or placed under appropriate restriction policies, in agreement with the creating office.
Obviously, one needs a semi automated way to identify potential files for inclusion. Such work could be completed either by an archivist or a records creator, but tools are needed to sort through these materials. As a result, I tested several approaches.
E-Records at the Danish State Archives
Posted by Chris Prom in Projects on March 8, 2010
For the past week, I was in Copenhagen, hosted by Finn Aaserud at the Niels Bohr Archive, located at the Niels Bohr Institute. I gave Finn and his staff a hand with his installation of Archon and also spoke at the Bohr Institute’s history of science seminar.
In conjunction with my visit, Finn arranged for me to meet some of his archival colleagues from the Danish State Archives, the Aalborg Archives, and the Byhistorisk Samling og Arkiv Blaakildegaard, a historical museum and archives in the town of Taastrup, west of Copenhagen. In addition, several archivists from the Danish State Library attended my talk (“Preserving the ‘Papers’ of 21st Century Science”).
I learned quite a bit about digital preservation and archives work in Denmark, particularly at the state archives. They have developed a particularly interesting approach to digital preservation.
New Recommendation: Submission Agreements
Posted by Chris Prom in Research on February 28, 2010
Over the past week, I’ve been testing some tools for preservation migration of email (In particular the Email Parser) and a beta version of Aid4Mail, which will allow for PDF and custom output formats.
I’ve also been preparing for a talk I will give next week at the Neils Bohr Archives in Copenhagen, concerning “Preserving the ‘Papers’ of 21st Century Science.” As I’ve prepared the talk, I posted a first draft of a submission agreement template, under my recommendations section. It may be suitable for local customization as part of an entire program to accession, process, preserve and provide access to electronic materials, and the fields used in it could possibly be used as the basis for designing a data management system for submission agreements, which would ideally interaction with an accessioning/ingest system.
Using DROID for Appraisal
Posted by Chris Prom in Research, Software on February 17, 2010
DROID, developed by the UK National Archives, is a tool that can also assist archivists in identifying file formats. It is sometimes used as part of processes to preserve electronic records. The FITS tools, for example, make use of it to extract information concerning the identity of the file type, and the proof of concept version of Archivematica stores some of the information that DROID extracts in the archival information packet that it generates.
However, I think it may be equally valuable as part of an appraisal process, when an archivist is trying to understand the components of a particular series of records.
DROID reads internal header information from one or more files then uses a sophisticated algorithm to compares that information to signature files stored in the PRONOM database. Based on the comparison, DROID declares whether a match is ‘positive,’ tentative’ or ‘unidentified’. For each positive or tentative match, DROID provides the Pronom Unique ID (PUID), MIME type, format, and version. The exact process that the software uses is described in the technical manuals for the system, but obviously the success of the process depends largely on the completeness of the database/signature file to which DROID refers.
The tool is very helpful, but I don’t think many people outside of large scale digital preservation projects are actually using it, since it is somewhat of a power tool and since its main purpose is to support preservation of digital objects in a repository. You can download versions of it for all major platforms from Sourceforge; the stats provided seem to indicate that it has been downloaded around 8,000 times (version 4.0 1,600 times).
Aside from its use for digital preservation, it can also be used when assessing files for potential accession. In the future, DROID (or an application like it) could be even more useful. When UDFR proposal and resources such as the PLANETS Core Registry (PCR) come to fruition, particular file formats could be linked t lists of software that can render and/or undertake preservation actions for particular file types. The PLANETS tools, such as PLATO and the Testbed,, when they are released in May, may include some of this expanded functionality.
In any case, my full ‘evaluation’ of DROID, which I used to ID my test records, is after the break.
Read the rest of this entry »
Appraisal Actions and Decisions
Posted by Chris Prom in Research on February 15, 2010
After I spoke at the Society of Archivists’ Data Standards Group, a member of the audience asked if I have been working to evaluate sofware suitable for appraising records, i.e. helping archivists or producers select records for deposit into a trusted digital repository. At the time I responded (somewhat off the cuff) that I had found particular file managers, renames, and bulk deletion programs to be useful, but that I hadn’t really considered the question all that much.
But as I reflected on it later, the question seemed to grow more complex. Most, if not all, of the development work concerning digital repositories focuses on meeting the requirements of the OAIS reference model. However, the reference model itself has nothing to say about how records should be selected for deposit. On one hand, this makes sense, since each archives has a different focus. But appraisal (i.e. the selection of records for inclusion in an archives) has always been the most debated (or at least most heavily written about) archival topics.
Review of RODA demo site
Posted by Chris Prom in Research on February 5, 2010
As I’ve been working with RODA (I managed to get the Virtual Machine installed on my laptop, and also managed to ALMOST install it from scratch–as usual my unfamiliarity with how to configure Open LDAP is the source of the problem), I came across a review of the RODA demo site posted in June of last year. Since I suspect few people in the US have come across this review, I’m passing on a link to the posting on “Alan’s Notes on Digital Preservation”.
I really agree with one aspect of the review. The RODA end user interface is S-L-I-C-K. Especially when viewing images, it is thing of beauty. The staff management side of is also excellent, it seems to use some pretty advanced AJAX techniques and has a clean, well designed UI. You really don’t need to spend much, if any, time learning to use the application. Everything just seems to be in the right place and more or less self-explanatory, even when the messages are in Portuguese!
Data Standards Group
Posted by Chris Prom in Projects, Research on February 4, 2010
I was down in London yesterday to speak to the Data Standards Group of the Society of Archivists at the British Library.
As follow up, I’d like to point you to the blog of one of the people in attendance, Alexandra Eveleigh, who is collections manager at the West Yorkshire Archive Service. Alexandra has an excellent blog–her most recent post contains some information concerning my project as well as a host of useful information concerning digital preservation projects in the UK and elsewhere, many of which are specifically applicable to smaller archives.
It is also worth taking the time to read the report regarding her Churchill Fellowship, during which she visited many of the best regarded digital achives/preservation programs on a worldwide tour.
Software Evalution
Posted by Chris Prom in Research on February 1, 2010
If all goes according to plan, you’ll see a number of software reviews emerge on this site over the next several weeks, as I work through applications that might be suitable for various parts of an archival workflow for electronic records management. Basically, I’ll be using the software as I attempt to work with my test record sets.
While I don’t intend any of these reviews to be the last word regarding any of the projects (after all, it is much easier to be a critic than a performer), I do think that the process of formally ranking the usefulness, etc of various software is a helpful exercise. To that end, I put together a very brief description of my software evaluation criteria, about half way down this page.
While putting these criteria together, I also reorganized my ‘resources’ pages for software and tools into the following categories:
RODA Virtual Machine
Posted by Chris Prom in Research on February 1, 2010
Keep Solutions (a spin-off that the University of Mihno started, which develops the RODA application), has just released a Virtual Machine version of RODA. If you want to try it out, you can get a copy using the instructions provided. It is over 3GB download, so be prepared to wait.
Once I have finished downloading it and set it up in Virtual Box, I’ll post my impressions regarding working with it.
A BIG thank you to Luis Faria, who put this VM together!
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