Archives in the Digital Age: Standards, Policies and Tools

Archives in the Digital Age

Standards, Policies and Tools

Lina Bountouri

Chandos Information Professional Series

Table of Contents

Cover image

Title page

Copyright

About the author

Prologue

Introduction

1. Archival description

Abstract

1.1 Archival description standards

1.2 Archival description metadata

1.3 Archival content description standards and rules

2. Archival management software

Abstract

2.1 Choosing the right type of information system

2.2 Archival description authoring tools

2.3 Archival management systems

3. Digitization

Abstract

3.1 Digitization: An obligation of archival institutions

3.2 What is digitization and why digitize?

3.3 Digitization policies

3.4 Metadata schemas for digital objects

4. Digital preservation

Abstract

4.1 Defining the digital preservation issue

4.2 Reasons for taking action and faced challenges

4.3 Digital preservation plan

4.4 Digital preservation strategies

4.5 Conceptual models and metadata

4.6 Digital preservation systems

5. Promoting archival material in the Social Web

Abstract

5.1 Defining Social Media

5.2 Social media in archives: quantitative and qualitative use

5.3 Social media policies

5.4 Big impact?

6. Archival integration and dissemination: The trends

Abstract

6.1 Semantic Interoperability for the archival description

6.2 Archival description and Linked Data

7. Archival information sources: A survival’s kit

Abstract

Bibliography

Epilogue

Bibliography

Index

Copyright

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About the author

Lina Bountouri is as a full-time IT Services Officer in the Publications Office of the European Union, where she works on the management and implementation of Semantic Web and digital preservation projects. In the past, she has worked as an Archivist and Information Scientist in the General State Archives of Greece (Central Service) and as a part-time Academic Lecturer in the Department of Library Science and Information Systems (Technological Institute of Education, Athens), teaching archives management and history of administration in Greece and in the European Union. She is a Member of various scientific committees and participates as a Researcher in the activities of the Database and Information Systems Research Group of the Department of Archives, Library Science and Museology (Ionian University). She has published scientific works in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings. Her research interests are oriented to metadata interoperability issues in libraries, archives and museums, while she is also interested in other topics, such as the use of Semantic Web technologies and Social Media in cultural heritage institutions. In the past, she has worked in the development of libraries and archives information systems and in digital libraries.

Prologue

As an Archivist and Librarian, working for 14 years in the field, I have to admit that all the traditional daily tasks of an Archivist have changed in various ways. This has happened due to many reasons, but the most important one is the domination of the online, digital environment. Our work has dramatically changed in many levels.

Twenty years ago, users had to visit the Reading Room of an archival institution in order to gain access to the archival material. Nowadays, users can access the digital archival material through online catalogues even via their mobile phones. Archival institutions have to support these new access methods, by having the technical knowledge. Moreover, in the past, archivists and conservation/preservation specialists had to deal with the preservation of analogue material, such as manuscripts and printed books. Currently they have to additionally cope with the long-term preservation of digital archival material, taking into account various parameters: the obsolescence of software and hardware, the fragility of digital media, the preservation of the authenticity and integrity of the digital material, etc.

In this new environment an archivist must have knowledge of a variety of fields and be able to rotate more deeply in whatever field is required to meet his or her job responsibilities. This book will give an overview of new trends in archive and information management in general, in an attempt to deepen the knowledge of archivists and act as a manual for archival science students.

Introduction

Dear reader,

In case you need help in order to get an in-depth knowledge of archival description as well as be updated on the new trends in archival science, this book will solve your concerns. This book is targeted to archivists, documentation experts, archival science students, but it is not limited to them. Everyone working with archives, IT systems in cultural heritage institutions, digital preservation workflows, information management can read this book and find useful information and references for his/her work. This book provides expert guidance to everyone involved in the archival tasks of description, digitization, digital preservation, and outreach. What is more, the book explores how new technologies trends, such as the Semantic Web and the Social Media, are having an impact on the dissemination of the archival material and its metadata.

You will learn the most common standards, metadata schemas, and content description standards implemented by archival institutions worldwide, as well as the most well-known archival management software. This knowledge will help you to more efficiently manage your archives and follow the current developments in the field (such as the newly published version of Encoded Archival Description and the development of the Records in Contexts—Conceptual Model). You will also discover the importance of digitization, as well as the reasons for which it is not considered as a means of digital preservation. In addition, you will learn how to deal with digital preservation issues, which is and will be one of the most hot topics in information management field for the following decade. The book will also help you to define a Digital Preservation Plan, which is the documentation of the strategies and policies that an archival institution is putting in place aiming to achieve its digital preservation goals.

Besides, you will discover the various ways through which you can promote the archival material and/or the archival institution’s activities by using Social Media, which is one of the most promising outreach tools. Related efforts by various archival institutions will be presented, along with statistical information showing their widespread use and implementation methods in archival institutions. In addition, you will find a study of the current IT trends and the impact of the Semantic Web in the description, dissemination, and reuse of archival material and their respective metadata.

Finally, you will find a section dedicated to the information sources, professional and scientific events related to archival science and archives management, such as scientific journals, archives of electronic mailing lists and a list of scientific conferences and meetings. Included are chapters outlining some of the most significant aspects of archives’ management, accompanied by related bibliography that can be used for further reading. The book is divided into the following sections:

• Archival description

• Archival management software

• Digitization

• Digital preservation

• Promoting archival material in the Social Web

• Archival integration and dissemination: the trends

• Archival information sources: a survival’s kit

Hope you will enjoy reading this book, as much as I have enjoyed writing it.

1

Archival description

Abstract

In this section, the author presents all the necessary tools in order to create a standardized and interoperable archival description. Archival standards, metadata schemas used in archives and digital collections and Knowledge Organization Systems are analyzed in an effort to familiarize the reader with the available archival description options.

Keywords

Archival description; General International Standard Archival Description; International Standard Archival Authority Record for Corporate Bodies; Persons and Families; International Standard for Describing Functions; International Standard for Describing Institutions with Archival Holdings; Encoded Archival Description; Encoded Archival Context—Corporate bodies; Persons; and Families; functions; archival repositories; KOS; cataloguing rules

According to the Society of American Archivists (SAA) Glossary (SAA Glossary Working Group, 2013), archival description is the process of analyzing, organizing, and recording details about the formal elements of a record or collection of records, such as creator, title, dates, extent, and contents, to facilitate the work's identification, management, and understanding, and also the product of such a process. In this book, the term archival description will be used to express both meanings of the term. Archival description is the most important task of an archivist. The main reason is that the products of the archival description (i.e., finding aids, inventories, registers, indexes, and guides) are the final tools used by the users in order to access the information they are searching for.

Up to these days, archivists around the world have managed to disseminate these tools in printed and electronic formats through the use of standardized forms. Especially in the case of electronic formats, archivists have implemented standards, such as the General International Standard Archival Description (ISAD (G)) (International Council on Archives, 2000), and specialized metadata schemas, such as the Encoded Archival Description (EAD) (The Library of Congress, 2016a), enabling in that way the archival description’s interoperability and exchange in the web environment.

It is a fact that it took the archival community a long time to handle in a homogeneous way the archival description. In the 1970s, the archivists, inspired by the librarians’ efforts that tried to automatically produce a printed library catalogue and exchange bibliographic records between database systems, adopted a version of the USMARC bibliographic standard oriented to the description of archival material, named USMARC Format for Archival and Manuscripts Control (USMARC AMC). As it is mentioned in (Walch, 1994), USMARC AMC is one of the primary standards used for the exchange of information about archives and manuscripts (along with the associated cataloging rules provided in Archives, Personal Papers, and Manuscripts: A Cataloging Manual for Archives, Historical Societies, and Manuscript Libraries (APPM), firstly published in 1993 by the Library of Congress (Hensen, 1989)). Both tools derive from work done in the library community.

After this effort, as it will be presented thereafter, the archival community engaged itself in producing a variety of standards, metadata schemas, and rules targeted to achieve the archival description’s goals. Some of them are the second revised edition of APPM (published by the Society of American Archivists in 1989), the Rules for Archival Description (RAD) that were firstly published in 1990, the ISAD (G) that was firstly published by ICA in 1994, and the EAD that was officially released in 1998.

In this section, I present the tools and guidelines used for the archival description and I categorize them in the following: standards, metadata schemas, cataloging rules, and Knowledge Organization Systems (KOS). Standards form the basis of the archival description by defining the general rules, the basic elements and principles of this task. A standard is an agreement on common principles among multiple parties (Schmelzer, 2009). Nevertheless, standards do not guide on how the archival description products will be created, edited, stored, disseminated, and retrieved. Metadata, on the