SPEC Kit 329: Managing Born-Digital Special Collections and Archival Materials · 77
management of university archives according to the security classification of these records. The previously described
issue of using multiple systems to manage and provide access to born-digital materials is another challenge, which
will be addressed through future development of a library digital repository to rationalize storage and access, and also
federated search tools to facilitate searching across multiple systems, when necessary.
Arrangement and description, processing.
Arrangement and description are the primary challenges to access and discovery. Born-digital materials arrive on legacy
media with scant metadata to inform development of effective finding aids.
Arrangement and description of legacy material is a challenge because the media was managed as a physical item and
arranged into one series, when the content may intellectually belong to a number of different series. We need to modify
our gift agreement to clarify what kind of online access we can provide to born-digital material acquired from external
parties (web access, library-only access, etc.) and also address the technological challenge of restricting access.
Arrangement and description technical skills commitment from institution. Copyright and privacy lack of policies and
procedures. No good sustainable delivery mechanism.
Arrangement and description: collecting particular metadata up front knowing what to collect (what subject experts
or users might want plus what programmers will need—and how to crosswalk those elements) much manipulation
of web display elements. File management-naming standards, organization, quality control, migrating files from DLI to
Tech Services to Systems Programmers to Archive. Discovery and searchability of our digital collections, including Trace
repository—OAI, OCR, finding aids, etc., as well as copyright issues.
Arrangement and description. The library provides simple searchable metadata records through the institutional
repository. However, not all metadata is represented in these records.
Confidential content. We have records that are restricted for up to 10 years by the donor and have closed the entire
collection until we are able to provide access only to the open content in a manner in which it cannot be altered by
users. Copyright. We may not wish to make the full copy of an item available, or to make it available at a useable
resolution. Remote access to large files. We’ve used Dropbox in some instances.
Copyright. Arrangement and description—currently focused on developing program.
Copyright: collection donor does not have copyright over content. Arrangement and description is not in line with the
analog part of the collection, it is done separately and sometimes well after we have provided access to paper based
materials. Time: we often focus on digitizing collections and providing access to those before we can work with the
born-digital content.
Copyright: attempt to reach agreements with providers/publishers. Creating relevant descriptive metadata: metadata
librarian supervises student workers. Development of access interface: Libraries are piloting Islandora, Archives are in
the process of developing access interface.
Copyright and confidential content. We are investigating the applicability of the “one item one user” model that would
limit access to copyrighted material to one authenticated user at a time. Similar to checking out a book or document in
the reading room. Levels of granularity. Users expect item level access (or beyond) how do we describe this content in a
meaningful way? We are exploring automated metadata creation tools such as document analysis.
Copyright and licensing. Consistency in user entered metadata.
Copyright: we use systems that allow very granular control of permissions and access. Privacy: we have policies
governing access to confidential records, but procedures specific to born-digital materials are still being developed. We
hope to use systems that allow very granular control of permissions and access.
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