Digital Processing: Exploring the Enigma
Archivists have spent the past several decades seeking solutions for managing born-digital collection materials. While progress has undoubtedly been made in the areas of acquisition and digital preservation, a recognizable gap exists in the area of processing. Defining what, exactly, born-digital processing is and what it entails is a conundrum. Following the 2016 Born Digital Archiving & eXchange (BDAX) unconference at Stanford University, a group of ten archivists produced the Digital Processing Framework to articulate what archivists do when processing born-digital archival collections. This article examines the current professional digital processing landscape and reflects on the framework group's lofty endeavor. It frames four issues that make born-digital processing enigmatic and challenging: defining the scope of digital processing; the ongoing tensions between minimal processing and digital preservation; confusion in terminology about the functions in digital processing; and the convergence of two fields of inquiry that borrow and share language and practice that have become digital processing. It concludes by recommending further actions and explorations for defining and guiding born-digital processing.ABSTRACT
Example of one activity, or matrix, within the FrankenModel
Contributor Notes
Erin Faulder is the assistant director for Digital Strategies at Cornell University Library's Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections (RMC). She leads RMC's digital program by coordinating efforts with other RMC units to develop policies and processes for accessioning, arranging and describing, and providing access to born-digital and digitized collections. In collaboration with library colleagues, Faulder advances the library's digital preservation and access ecosystem to serve users. Previously, Faulder was the digital archivist at Tufts University's Digital Collections and Archives where she oversaw the collections management software and the Tufts Digital Repository.
Laura Uglean Jackson is archivist for University Collections at the University of Northern Colorado where she plays a central role in collections management, accessioning, and processing of all formats. Prior, she worked at the University of Wyoming American Heritage Center and the University of California, Irvine. She has a BA in art history from Colorado State University and an MS in library science from Simmons College.