Blog

Michaela Hart is Digital Archivist at Department of Health and Human Services in Australia and Councillor for the Australian Society of Archivists.

I’m getting a little twitchy for travel, something I’m sure many of you are also feeling. I thought I’d take you on a little journey around Australia and see what the Australian archives community has been getting up to during these times.

This post is by Matthew Burgess and Joanna Fleming; Digital Preservation Network co-leads for NSLA, and Aimee Said; NSLA Program Coordinator

National and State Libraries Australia (NSLA) is the peak body for Australia's nine national, state and territory libraries. Through collaboration, we deliver better collections, solutions and customer experiences than each library can do individually.

We also share our knowledge and expertise to increase the professional capability of our staff and to build a workforce for the future. NSLA staff networks form a key pillar of this strand of work. Networks are designed for professional development; information sharing; sharing of practical skills, methodologies and tools; and peer support.

The Digital Preservation Network is comprised of practitioners from all NSLA libraries. The network meets online quarterly to share updates and discuss issues of shared interest or concern. Digital preservation is at varying stages of maturity in NSLA libraries, with some having established preservation systems, policies and workflows and others still in the early stages.

While NSLA network members are also involved in DPC and Australasia Preserves, there are some issues-in-common that particularly benefit from sharing among those working within collecting institutions with similar remits and concerns. Our focus areas in 2021 are:

• Preservation planning and policy
• Workflows and technology for preserving materials held on obsolete physical digital carriers
• Preserving complex born-digital collections
• Audiovisual metadata and ingest.

The state libraries of Queensland, Western Australia, New South Wales and the National Library are also actively involved in planning with universities and cultural organisations across Australia for future emulation infrastructure, in a project led by Swinburne University.

The following updates, from a selection of NSLA libraries, give a taste of the range of digital preservation activities in process:

Daniel Walding is Senior Photographic Technician for Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies

Lantern slides are a unique format that were in wide use from the 18th to mid-20th century and allowed glass photographic transparencies to be displayed using a magic lantern projector. They were often shown to large groups of people as a form of entertainment, and are referred to as a precursor to cinema. Content was often enhanced with hand colouring and oration to provide a narrative.

AIATSIS has around 850 lantern slides across 18 sub-collections in its Pictorial Collection. The majority of these slides were collected and used by missionaries including Ernest Brainwood, Herbert Read and Arthur Mathews from the early 1900s to the mid-1940s. These document the people and activities undertaken at UAM (United Aborigines Mission) and other missions across Australia.

Rachel MacGregor is Digital Preservation Officer at the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick. 

This blog is a version of the presentation I gave at the DPC Briefing Day on Preservation Planning and Technology Watch in February 2021.

One of the most exciting (or is that offputting?) things about digital preservation is that things don’t stay still – new formats and software are appearing all the time. The sheer variety of formats out there and which are continuing to be developed can make the task of “keeping up” with technological advances seem overwhelming. There’s a massive temptation to leave the problem to someone else – either the provider of your preservation software or maybe to your successors.

DO NOT GIVE IN TO THAT TEMPTATION!

Audrey Drohan is Digital Library Manager at University College Dublin

UCD Digital Library went into ‘Work From Home’ mode on Friday 13^th March 2020, and it was quite a surreal transition. One minute I was in the building with all of my colleagues, putting a few things into Google folders for the two weeks we were going to be out of the office, and the next minute my office became a roving location in my house: first the kitchen, then the sitting room, and finally the spare room.  A few things threw me initially: my five-year-old trusty personal laptop was suddenly getting lots of new software that it was not happy with, and it could not cope with the work that my higher spec workstation handles with ease; there was no printer, which in hindsight, is probably a good thing; I was battling neighbours for broadband; my amazing colleagues were miles away; the VPN connection was appalling; and everything just changed.

Being immersed in the digital world meant I could transition most of my work easily enough, but suddenly everything became harder and slower to do. Data transfers felt like they took years. Suddenly storage on my local machine became an issue. And then Zoom entered my life.

Ali Hayes-Brady is Digital Archivist at Records and Archives Services, Monash University

A little over a year ago, when the world began to shut down, the DPC Australian and Asia-Pacific Office had its launch party. It was the last real “event” I attended in person for almost an entire year and it was wonderful. When asked to write a blog for DPC from Monash University’s perspective I thought it would be a nice time to reflect on the year that was – both joining this wonderful community and what we’re hoping to do in the future.

This blog was written by Frederick Alexander (Archivist, Digitisation) and Iram Safdar (Digital Archivist), from Historic Environment Scotland

What do a Dutch shipwreck and file format migration all have in common? These topics might seem dissimilar, but they were both a part of a four-year project in Historic Environment Scotland’s Archive.

In 2018 Historic Environment Scotland Archives launched a digital project with the goal of making 750,000 new digital records available for public access through the Canmore website. This project has generated digital records through digitising our physical collections, as well as cataloguing our externally deposited born-digital records. Additionally, this project has improved organisational knowledge of digital preservation through advocacy, research, and cross-departmental collaboration. 

Adriana Kolar, Ph.D., Archives Management Senior Analyst and Gudrun Beger, Ph.D, Archives Management Senior Analyst are both members of the ‘Total Digital Access to the League of Nations Archives (LONTAD) Project’.

Information Technology has taken a quantum leap since 1938, when Dr. Pieter Sevensma, Director of the League of Nations Library, ordered Photostat machines for the new premises of the organization, at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. Photostat machines were devices that made photographic copies of manuscripts, maps and documents. At the time, this system was not only state-of-the-art for making facsimiles but also for storing information on a medium other than paper, i.e., on film rolls.

Gareth Cole is Research Data Manager at Loughborough University. 

I feel I can pretty confidently say the answer is no. But, things may be changing.

As with many universities worldwide, at Loughborough we are working with our academic community to increasingly make their research data publicly available. This is not without its challenges. Some researchers deposit data because they want to make it openly available, some deposit because they are under a funder or publisher obligation, and some don’t deposit! The range of motivations means that a one size fits all approach isn’t appropriate. However, we have to balance this with our limited staffing resource as there is only so much we can do.

Tim Evans is Deputy Director at the Archaeology Data Service.

As I would imagine is the case with the vast majority of people, it's been an unusual year at the Archaeology Data Service. Since moving into lockdown 12 months ago most members of staff have been working remotely, connected only by the ubiquitous Zoom meetings. With Spring in the air, and things  just showing signs of returning to normal here in the UK it's inevitably a time for reflection.