Recommendations offered on 20231004
Query:
Matt, good day. The question of sending reviews/promotions to archives has come up in the Committee on Faculty Meeting. Since everything is digitalized [sic] do you need a copy of it? I do have all the records in a drive that the Dean and I only have access to. Is that acceptable?
Is there a best practice guide? I need to let the committee know at the next meeting on Monday, October 16th.
Thank you in advance.
Nancy
My reply:
Hello Nancy,
Thank you for your query. Because the University (Archives) does not have an institutional digital repository to effectively manage digitized archival content, I would advise you to maintain the files within your own current digital storage system. The best the University Archives would be able to do at this point would be to simply maintain another copy of the files in question. I do not have the capability currently to run the kinds of diagnostics and checks that are usually performed on digital content to affirm their authenticity.
There is no single best practice guide for digital content. However . . .
I would advise you to have at least two copies of the digital assets in your care. Three copies - with one in an entirely different physical location than the other two storage locations - is best.
Drew is a Google campus, but Google is a company that will not last forever. You might consider using Google Takeout or contacting University Technology to see how they advise backing up Google Drive files if that is your main method of digital storage. It is for most of us now.
I would also advise you to periodically, say every two years or so, review the file types that you maintain and migrate any files in formats that are nearly obsolete to the dominant file formats. Example: I wrote my dissertation in the late 1990s using Corel Wordperfect word processor software. I migrated these files to the MS Word file system in the early 2010s - I saw that MS Word was going to prevail.
If you have any digital content on external media such as CDs or DVDs, I would move those files into servers promptly. External digital media are increasingly at risk of obsolescence; fewer computers at Drew and elsewhere have the hardware to access content in these physical formats.
I hope this helps you some.
Sincerely,
Matthew