Digital Curation

Overview

The Bentley Historical Library's digital processing procedures reflect not only our institutional policies and the traditional archival functions of appraisal, arrangement and description, but also encompass additional procedures that ensure the authenticity, integrity and security of digital content.

Digital Processing Defined

In this context, "digital processing" corresponds to the Generate AIP function of the Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System (OAIS)'s Ingest entity.

After digital content is accessioned and transferred into Archivematica's backlog or the Digital Archive server backlog, digital processing permits archivists to establish the integrity of materials, assume intellectual control over them and perform preservation events on them (e.g., scans for viruses and personally identifiable information, conversion to preservation formats, recording of descriptive and technical metadata, etc.). This creates one or more Submission Information Packages (SIPs) and transforms them into Archival Information Packages (AIPs), which are then deposited to Deep Blue, a DSpace repository where repackaged AIPs usually double as Dissemination Information Packages (DIPs). In some cases--e.g., very large audio, video, or image files--an additional DIP will be created to make it easier for patrons to download and access materials.

Evolution of Digital Processing Procedures

Then Bentley's current digital processing procedures have evolved from a highly manual workflow that involved more than 40 discrete steps, the operation of numerous stand-alone applications, and saving output in various log files. AutomatedProcessor (AutoPro), a homegrown tool developed by Bentley staff, made digital processing more efficient and reduced technical barriers, thereby permitting archivists to focus their energies on the traditional archival functions of appraisal, arrangement, and description.

In 2016, the Bentley began using Archivematica, a web- and standards-based, open-source application that allows institutions to preserve long-term access to trustworthy, authentic and reliable digital content, in our digital processing workflow, as well as the Appraisal and Arrangement tab, an outcome of our Mellon Foundation-funded ArchivesSpace-Archivematica-DSpace Workflow Integration project which concluded in October 2016.

This project added features to Archivematica which permit archivists to:

• • review and appraise files in a particular transfer;

  • logically arrange digital content with archival description from ArchivesSpace; and

  • ingest SIPs and deposit AIPs from Archivematica into DSpace, including metadata linked from ArchivesSpace.

In 2021, the Bentley began to use a hybrid approach for reviewing, appraising, arranging, and ingestion of digital materials. The closely coupled ArchivesSpace-Archivematica-DSpace Workflow has had some processes, such as backlog transfer and arrangement of materials, decoupled from the workflow to allow for more flexibility based on the needs of the materials and processor. 

This section of the manual will provide an overview of the current born-digital processing workflow, including more detailed guidelines for individual steps in the workflow.