E-Records Workshop University of California Archivists Council

1. E-Records WorkshopUniversity of California Archivists Council Rob Spindler spindlers1@cox.net October 26-27, 2006

2. Workshop Goals • Review and understand fundamental digital preservation challenges and opportunities • Create resources and tools that facilitate creation of campus-specific action plans • Identify potential stakeholders and executive champions for e-records management and archiving work • Identify resources needed to undertake e-records work • Identify and prioritize critical or endangered records series

3. Workshop Products • List of vital and core archival records • List of resources needed • List of justifications for e-records work • List of desired outcomes from e-records work • List of possible executive champions • A set of campus-specific action plans to be presented at a future UCAC meeting

4. Workshop Outcomes • Greater comfort and familiarity with digital preservation and e-records concepts • Improved coordination and collaboration between records management and archival personnel • Expanded knowledge of recent and existing projects in progress at other colleges and universities

5. Workshop Outcomes • Increased networking of UC archivists and records managers with other C&U experts working on similar issues • Sense of strategic priorities for action on e-records • Specific actions at each campus

6. So, What’s the Problem? Digital Preservation Concepts • Physical Degradation of Storage Media • Physical Obsolescence of Storage Media • Obsolescence of Media Recording or Playback Devices • Migration Failure

7. So, What’s the Problem? Digital Preservation Concepts • Human Error/Vandalism • Backups, Snapshots and Crawling • Lost or Absent Metadata • Linkage/Addressing Failure • Neglect

8. Access vs. Ownership • Custodial Tradition • Archive takes physical possession • Enables enduring public access • Requires: • Substantial and cumulative storage capacity • System maintenance/software upgrades • Migration/emulation performance and QC • Are you a Trusted Digital Repository?

9. Access vs. Ownership • Post-Custodial Theory: • Originating Office retains • Archivist serves oversight role • Are they a Trusted Digital Repository? • Will they provide access? • Most common large system model • What happens in dissolution/reorganization? • Prepare for custodial and post-custodial!

10. Getting Bits: Acquisition Strategies • Retrospective Digitization • Paper to image • Text on paper to e-text (Optical Character Recognition) • Digitizing analog AV material • Hard media delivery • Save Email attachments to server

11. Getting Bits: Acquisition Strategies • Save electronic mailboxes • Remote creator submission by upload/FTP • Download and save website files • Website acquisition by crawlers/spiders

12. Break! • Please return by 11:10

13. What is the Record?Content, Context & Metadata • Types of Metadata (Exemplary Standards) • Descriptive (Dublin Core) • Administrative/Preservation (PREMIS) • Structural (Text Encoding Initiative) • Hybrid (Encoded Archival Description)

14. What is the Record?Content, Context & Metadata • Item-level description • Who does the work? • Librarian-supplied • Professional and thorough • Enables precision and standards compliance • Manual piecework • Interpretive, not organic • Supplied post-submission

15. What is the Record?Content, Context & Metadata • Who does the work? • Author-supplied • Institutional repositories and ETD projects • Non-standardized/imprecise • Manual piecework • Organic – preserves author intent • Supplied during submission

16. Skeletons in the Closet: Storage • Capacity: (See Reagan Moore, UCSD) • Amount of space appropriate to need • Scaling space to growth • Write/ingest speed • Redundancy/Disaster Recovery • LOCKSS model • Geographic distribution • Compression – Lossy vs. Lossless

17. Lunch!

18. Case Studies • Web-based Policy Manuals/Course Catalogs • Ever-changing content • Used as evidence – admissable? • (Skupsky: “produced in regular course of business”) • High accuracy required • Date of implementation significant • Obsolete editions needed over time • Electronic text or database structure

19. Case Studies • Web-based Policy Manuals/Course Catalogs • Electronic Texts: • Control update cycle to enable snapshots • HTML/XML Encoding – TEI? • Print or electronic snapshots • Database • Needs accurate metadata for retrieval • Proprietary systems?

20. Case Studies • Student Info. Systems/Campus Directories • Very fluid data • What is the record? • Privacy issues – FERPA definition of directory information • Proprietary systems (Peoplesoft, SAP, Microsoft) • Certifying graduates is core university function that requires permanent/lifetime access

21. Case Studies • Student Info. Systems/Campus Directories • PESC XML transcript standard • ASCII dumps/Data Warehouse • Snapshot timing w/final grades, but appeals? • Snapshot timing w/directories

22. Break! • Please return by 2:45!

23. Case Studies – Open Forum What’s happening at your university??? 3-5 minute overview, then discuss for 10…

24. Components of E-Records Costs • Acquisition: • Software: • Web Crawlers • Upload/FTP utilities • Video capture and reformat • Storage: • Professionally managed • Redundant/recoverable • Sufficient and scalable

25. Components of E-Records Costs • Preservation: • Software (new releases over time, conversion tools) • Migration support – IT staff • Storage: Redundant and disaster-prepared • Quality control: Staff and software • Access: • Software: Access tools/search engines • Policy development • Software/file format licensing • (Content Management/JPEG 2000) • Expertise/Training (Library cataloging staff?)

26. Components of E-Records Costs ASU ETD Pilot Project: • 50% Graduate Assistant Format Advisor, Graduate College$ 17,000/year • Training Materials and Support, Ctr. for Learning and Teaching Excellence: • 50% Graduate Assistant Instructional Designer $ 17,000/year • Printing/Support Materials $ 3,000/year • Electronic Submission Interface Development $ 30,000 • ETD Storage (startup purchase model ): • AFS Space/Hardware $ 60,000 • Systems Administration/File Maintenance $ 15,000/year • ETD Migration (starting July, 2003) • Technology Support Analyst Salary $ 45,000/year • Libraries/IT Software Licenses $ 10,000/year • Pilot Startup Costs (July, 2001) $ 90,000 • Pilot Annual Costs (July, 2001-June, 2005) $ 52,000/yr. • Pilot Migration Annual Costs (July, 2003-June, 2005) $ 55,000/yr.

27. Outcomes! • Your homework for tonite: • How will e-records work make UC a better university?

28. Preserve to Serve: Advocacy and Strategic Thinking • Core and Vital Records Model • Review for completeness • Highlight especially key records series • Learn about current records production/ retention context

29. Preserve to Serve: Advocacy • Justifications/Statement of the Problem: • Why is action necessary at this time? • General digital preservation issues • Records/system-specific issues

30. Preserve to Serve: Advocacy • Outcomes: • How will e-records work make UC a better university? • How will you know when you are successful? • Is any of this measureable?

31. Preserve to Serve: Advocacy • Who are our Executive Advocates?

32. Lights, Camera, Action! • Prepare for Small Group Work • Identify meeting rooms • Count off • Take break • Return to your designated meeting room by 10:15

33. Lights, Camera, Action! • Small Group Work Products (3 bulleted lists) • (10:15) What resources do you need? • (10:35) What actions should you take? • (10:55) Are there any possible system-wide or other UC collaborations? • (11:15) Return to big room and report out

34. Wrap-Up/Evaluation • Review Products • Complete Workshop Evaluations • Congratulate yourselves • Have a great weekend! THANKS FOR PARTICIPATING!

35. E-Records WorkshopUniversity of California Archivists Council Rob Spindler spindlers1@cox.net October 26-27, 2006 Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License