What can we take away from her experience? Basically, that even the simplest possible tools require a level of knowledge that will likely confuse all but developers or those who have ‘power user’ type IT experience. Over the past year, I’ve come to firmly believe that every practicing archivist and archivist in training needs to get a grip on basic IT concepts at both a conceptual and also a practicing technical level.   I’d like to suggest a two ways to do that:

• It is important that any digital preservation/curation curriculum include some training in basic IT skills.  Maybe “Information Technology for Archivists” should be a required course in every archives education program.   Angela is a fairly skilled computer user (in spite of her protestations),  but some of the conventions used in the Archivematica documentation threw her for a loop, at least until  I explained them.  .  Otherwise, “you literally don’t know what you don’t know,” as Angela put it to me this morning.  And, as I’ve discovered over the years, one thing that holds many graduates back from getting jobs is a sophisticated knowledge of technology.  A few years ago, I read a book (unfortunately I can’t recall the title or author) that systematically walked through every basic computer concept from input/out put, microcomputer hardware, networking, and programming concepts at a conceptual level.  Something like that is needed for archivists, in today’s idioms and expressions.  If you can’t take a class, Exploring the Digital Domain by Ken Abernethy and Tom Allen looks like a good place to start.
• The best way to begin making headway in preserving electronic records is to dive into software testing.  When you do so, and when you report your results back to a project, you do two things.  First, you begin to build your own competence. But more importantly, you provide critical feedback to developers, who have no way of knowing about problems, unless someone points them out.  In this respect, Angela’s post show me that she will have much more to contribute over the upcoming months, as she continues to work on projects to refine and implement my recommendations.

Now, on to Angela:

My first moments of confusion happened immediately.  Part of the problem resulted from my outdated equipment. Various attempts to download VirtualBox using the links the Archivematica Downloads page simply froze the computer. My next step was to download the program from the Oracle website. (screenshot below)

My confusion continued upon downloading VirtualBox, which is required to run Archivematica: what operating system do I wish to download, Windows or an open source operating system?  This confusion stemmed from my ignorance of the University Archives operating systems and from the way Oracle presented the download page.

Once I chose to download Windows, my efforts stalled yet again.  For an indiscernible reason, the program would not download successfully.  After the confusion and mounting frustration of not recognizing the source of the problem [editor's note: we later determined it was a Firefox issue], I successfully downloaded the complete program by right-clicking and selecting ‘save as.’  I had to go through the same frustration when downloading the Archivematica file [editor's note: disk image].

So far, the entire process seemed to confirm my status as the technology-challenged guinea pig.  Downloading all of the required components took approximately three hours.

Installing and starting the Archivematica appliance went smoothly, taking a little less than an hour from start to finish.  However, Microsoft Windows did not appreciate my attempt to install a non-Microsoft program, and I received several warnings against installing non-verified software.  The message, although annoying to me, and something Chris told me to click through, could easily intimidate others from continuing their installation.

In short, the Archivematica installation process was exasperating.  Not only was I working on an ancient computer, the various steps and instruction language were not aimed at IT neophytes.

At the same time, I’ve been training a new set of graduate assistants, including Angela Jordan, who will be working 20 hours a week for the University of Illinois Archives. Angela will be posting occasional updates over the next year, as she works with me on several project related to electronic records.

One of the top recruits in our Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Angela comes to us via Pacific Lutheran University (BA in Philosophy) and the University of Wyoming, where she earned an MA in American Studies.   She had some great work experiences in Montana as an AmericaCorps volunteer at the Northern Rockies Outdoor Center.   She also has great archival experience, having worked at the Southern Illinois Regional Archives Depository in Carbondale for two years.  More recently, she worked as a Reference Librarian at the Parmly Billings Library where she was in charge of the Montana Room, a special collection devoted to local and state history.

Angela’s interests in Library school include archives and special collections, management of libraries/archives, and digital curation issues.  She’ll be working on all of these issues with me quite a bit over the next year, and has already penned some thoughts regarding the Archivematica installation process which she’ll post later.

In her off hours, Angela enjoys the outdoors, cooking, and music: she is an accomplished pianist and vocalist. Please join me in welcoming her to Illinois and as a contributor to the practical e-records blog.

Wheeler addresses the issue of comparing OSS and proprietary software and explains that the methods set out in his paper can be used to evaluate OSS, whose outcomes can then be assessed next to traditional proprietary software evaluations. The particular aspects of OSS that make it difficult to compare to proprietary software are exactly the characteristics that might sway an implementer to use one over the other. That is, as comparing apples to oranges, one might not even desire to compare OSS/FS to proprietary software with the same evaluation methods and score weightings.

Wheeler explains that OSS/FS programs make much more information publicly available than proprietary software, such as source code, and forums for discussions between developers and users.

Like most of the other resources examined in this review, Wheeler’s guidelines are primarily aimed at evaluation for selection, as opposed to evaluation as a continuing best practice approach to OSS project management. Wheeler does note that implementers “need to be able to evaluate OSS/FS programs, because you will always need to know how well a given program meets your needs, and there are often competing OSS/FS programs.”

Many of the attributes Wheeler suggests to examine are helpful to consider when developing any software assessment model: functionality, cost, market share, support, maintenance, reliability, performance, scaleability, useability, security, flexibility/ customizability, interoperability, and legal/license issues.  Some of these attributes differ greatly in OSS/FS versus proprietary software.  For example, in assessing functionality, one might consider the opportunity  to alter the OSS/FS directly, by editing or adding to the source code.  Wheeler examines each of these aspects in-depth and provides an analysis of what and how an OSS/FS evaluation model might use the criteria.

The evaluation tools and methods that we found help users select software.  While they may may facilitate project improvement or self criticism, that is not their primary purpose.   Therefore, Emily Brock and I will be putting together a new method for OSS project evaluation/self criticism, then testing whether it works.

All this is just to say, by way of introduction, that over the next few days, Emily and I will be releasing some posts based on the initial literature review we completed.  Before getting to that, Wikipedia contains a helpful overview and comparison of existing open source software assessment methodologies.  It lists the Open Source Maturity Model (OSMM) from Navica, the Qualification and Selection of Open Source software (QSOS), and the Open Business Readiness Rating (OpenBRR).  Look out soon for more in depth reviews of these, and other methods!

Starting in mid-September, I will be teaching the on-line/distance ed course “Electronic Records Management,” through the Centre for Archive and Information Studies at the University of Dundee. Over the next weeks, I’ll be reviewing the excellent curriculum, developed by the prior instructor, Mark Conrad, and supplementing it with findings from my own work.

If you are interested in engaging with E-records issues in a sustained fashion, it is not too late to register for the course, which begins Sept 20th and last through mid-December.  Simply go to the Continuing Professional Development Page on the CAIS website, download an application form, and send it in!

I know I am self interested in saying this, but the CAIS programs really do offer excellent value for money.  Again, speaking to my own interest, I would benefit by having full enrollment in the course (it is capped at 15), since I learn a great deal from the experiences students bring to bear when I teach.  Finally, I would mention that CAIS includes a strong international focus, and has been commended, both under the University of Dundee’s internal quality assurance  process and the Society of Archivists accreditation process .  So, even though it may seem a bit out of the mainstream of US archival ed programs–you might want to consider it.  The cost is similar or even less on a per course basis.  More to the a point, the programs, in my opinion, are second to none.

As I noted in my original post, Outlook includes a number of frustrating features that work against digital preservation best practice, such an auto-archive function that writes files to a proprietary non-standard but documented format (edited 7/29; see comment below) and deletes what it assumes to be unnecessary messages.  Here is another one:  If  you follow the default settings and configure Outlook to read a Gmail account, it will delete all email from the Google server and transfer it to your desktop in the .pst format–as the screenshots below  illustrate.

Unless you go into advanced settings–which 99% of users won’t do–you can’t set outlook up to connect to Gmail’s IMAP Server. But wait, it gets worse–the tool that Outlook uses to configure the connection sets it up so that the POP server does not leave message on Gmail’s server!

Sure, it’s possible to set it up for IMAP connection, which I did, but how many average users are going to do this???

Bottom line: if your uncle Harry were to use this, he’d find all of Gmail erased from his server and downloaded automatically to his desktop computer!  Strike Two against MS for email preservation.

Tools ->Account Settings -> New

POP3 Account Appears!

Two Layers Deep into Advanced Settings: "Leave Messages on Server" unchecked by default

As I noted a while back, The SIARD tool is one (java based) option that is available. The overall architecture and functioning of the software are very good (it is based on production of SQL99-compliant files and xml), and it is very easy to use from an end user point of view.  However (at least at the time I reviewed it), it was not available under a standard Open Source License–which may or may not raise issues in terms of its potential integration into other tools/projects, such as Archivematica or Hydra, and it did not yet support mysql, postegres, or serveral other DB formats.

Evelyn McClellen pointed out another option, which is currently being considered for integration into Archivematica: the DB migration and dissemination layers in RODA.  The basic technology was described a few years ago at the Extreme Markup 2007 conference.  (I think it is worth pointing this link out since, like many conferences on the bleeding edge, it is not exactly easy to find authoritative information about the conference, the proceedings link on this site is dead.)  The problem here is that the code would need to be disentangled from the rest of RODA, likely to be very difficult.

Main reason I bring this up is to ask, does anyone know of other tools–preferably stand alone and relatively simple to use–that can be used for migration/preservation of databases?  If so, please let me know in comments

I really leaned a lot by presenting to this group.  They have strong interest in preserving ‘born-digital’ records created by fraternities and sororities and are very tech savvy, that is, very comfortable using and applying all kinds of software on their desktops.  However, most of them would have difficulty implementing digital preservation tools that currently exist, and really have no awareness of the projects or of issues like metadata standards.  Also, they have to manage digital materials for online access within the bounds of whatever software a webhost supplies, in other words, a pretty basic technical package.  Nor would I have expected otherwise.

This really is an important issue affecting the preservation of future digital heritage since many if not most digital materials of permanent value are in such environments.  As I have noted in the past, most of tools to do DP work are tailored for consumption and use by large research libraries and the like, which typically have fairly robust tech support/staffing in place. But these fraternity and sorority archivists have no expectation of such tech help.  For example, many want to capture websites.  But, a tool like Heritrix is clearly too complex for them to use (it requires JRE installation, prefers Linux, need terminal skills to configure, etc.).  Something like that would also be too complex for archivists at many smaller colleges—or even some large research universities where the archives lacks dedicated research programmer support.

As William Kilbride remarked at the Practical E-records Seminar, the digital preservation community has been good at building tools that scale up, but horrible at building tools that scale down.  After talking with the fraternity and sorority archivists and listening to their stated needs, I’m even more convinced that we need to target future work not toward new, more complex systems but toward the general application of commonly-available, easily-implemented tools, within a policy framework that can be tailored to local needs.  In other words, it is time to begin applying, testing, and refining my recommendations.

In the summer of 2008 the Sousa Archives and Center for American Music acquired the papers of composer Salvatore Martirano (1927-1995).  This acquisition included the famous SalMar Construction, a musical electronic instrument that would revolutionize the field of computer music for years to come. Being somewhat familiar with the preservation and access of music materials I decided to conduct a survey of other college and university libraries and archives on the existence and preservation of electronic music archival materials within their collections in order to better care for the SalMar and Martirano’s legacy.

This survey was directed at colleges and universities in the United States given their connection to early electroacoustic music research. The survey yielded an 8.6% response rate with total of 43 responses out of 499 contacts, which although not representative of larger trends, it is a snapshot of how archivists and librarians are managing these materials. It covered three main areas: preservation, collection development and access. The goal of the survey was three-fold: establish if such materials currently existed in these institutions, determine whether libraries and archives were actively collecting electroacoustic music materials, or if these holdings were just a byproduct of other collection development policies and practices, and determine if libraries and archives with electroacoustic materials were pursuing any preservation strategies to ensure long-term access to this born digital content.

The results were quite revealing. In the interest of brevity I’ll lay out the conclusions I gathered from the data, which I am happy to share in more detail with any interested parties.

• The documentary output of musical compositions has changed dramatically over the past 60 years and this is what should concern archivists and librarians that care for electroacoustic music collections. Composers increasingly rely on proprietary software technologies and homegrown hardware (like the SalMar Construction). We should be getting involved with these creators to influence their mindset towards a “preservable” approach to their work.
• Accurate management and identification of electroacoustic music collections as well as other types of media and electronic archival materials is vital in the future development of preservation and access strategies. The survey included questions that inquired about the physical quantity of collected material and the responses varied greatly in the units of measurement used (linear feet, cubic feet, individual item counts, number of recordings, and titles in the library catalog) rendering the response useless.
• Out of 14 institutions with electroacoustic music collections, 3 had definite preservation plans for these materials, which centered on reformatting the recordings. This is, perhaps, the most important piece of information yielded by the survey. Archival materials do not exist in a vacuum, and the context in which the records exist is sometimes as valuable as the records themselves. In the case of music collections it is crucial to be able to relate to accompanying materials to electronic records (i.e., concert programs, correspondence, rehearsal notes, photographs, reviews, etc.) so that the user has better tools to recreate a musical work that was performed in the past and its relationship to the people and culture of the time.

This is a brief example of how born-digital records that emanate from creative endeavors and do not subscribe to “traditional” recordkeeping practices are heading towards extinction. While there is a minority of repositories whose mission centers on the preservation of this legacy, the reinterpretation of archival principles in the digital world will inform any developments that emerge for similar types of materials. Most importantly, preserving the data as well as the context and relationships between datasets, will matter for their long-term access.