Trevor Owens, a digital archivist at the Library of Congress, advocates for a "do less more often" approach to digital strategies for cultural heritage organizations. This involves software, metadata, and processes doing less but serving specific local needs, and making collections available more quickly while still focusing on digital preservation, exhibition, and user access. The approach promotes sustainability through modularity, transparency, and flexibility to shift work between experts, computers, and volunteers.

1. Trevor Owens, Digital Archivist,
The Library of Congress
trow@loc.gov
@tjowens
Do Less More Often
an approach to
digital strategy for
cultural heritage
organizations

2. just one digital
archivist’s
perspective…
not The Library’s

3. A cultural heritage digital
strategy needs to be
about
exhibition, discovery, acc
ess, description, process
ing & preservation

4. For example
 Software should do less: Serve particular purposes
 Metadata formats and schemas should do less, and
serve local needs
 We should be doing as little as possible before
making digital archival collections available to users
 We should start implementing and improving on
practices to mitigate risk of data loss (digital
preservation)
 We should think about how we can serialize as
much of our work as possible to get it out there
quicker
4

5. Why?
• This makes our work more sustainable: We
can swap out the parts when they are smaller
and discrete
• It makes our work more responsive to our
users or our patron’s needs
• Our work becomes more transparent; people
can see what is happening more frequently
• The modularity enables the flexibility to shift
work back and forth between
experts, computational processes, and
volunteers and patrons.
5

6. Three stops
1. WiscoHisto: Exhibition/Storytelling
2. NDSA Levels of Digital Preservation
3. MPLP and Born digital Processing

7. [WiscoHisto img]

8. This is
syndicated
exhibition

11. What about
preservation?
Sustainability?

12. Will tumblr be
here in 100
years?!

13. No…
and that’s the
wrong question.

14. Tumblr is great
for presentation
RSS makes it
trivial to keep a
copy

16. Don’t confuse
tools with the
content. It’s the
content we
steward.

17. 2. Digital
Preservation

18. So digital
preservation…
is there an app
for that?

19. In short, no, nor
should there be.

20. A piece of
software can’t be
an institution.

21. But that’s not how
we think about
software… It’s
more like.

22. I just want to say
one word to you.
Dspace…

23. ContentDM…

24. Omeka…

25. Archivematica…

26. No! Our plan’s
can’t be about
pieces of software

27. Say no to the idea
of software as
swiss army knife

28. “The Swiss knife (don’t tell the Swiss army) is
a bad can-opener, you can’t even kill a rabbit
with the knife, and worst of all the corkscrew
will ruin your fine bottle of French wine. So
always keep it simple, solve problems step
by step and stay focused on one problem at
a time. Single purpose tools are good in what
they are designed for, so if there is no direct
need for multiple solutions, stick to single
solutions.”
- Bram van der Werf, the Open Planets
Foundation

29. So what should
we be doing?

30. TRAC/TDR has a
laundry list for us.

34. Overwhelmed?
Where to start?

35. National Digital
Stewardship
Alliance is trying
to help clarify
where to start.

36. Prioritizing
actions for
different levels of
preservation

37. Level One Level Two Level Three Level Four
(Protect your data) (Know your data) (Monitor your data) (Fix your data)
Storage and Two complete copies that Three complete copies At least one copy in a All copies in geographic locations
geographic are not collocated with different disaster threats
At least one copy in a geographic location with a
location different disaster threat
different geographic
location
File Fixity Check fixity on ingest if it Check fixity on all Check fixity on all Check fixity of all content at fixed
and has been provided with the ingests transactions intervals
Data content Ability to replace corrupted data
Virus-check high risk Check fixity of sample
Integrity
Create fixity info if it wasn’t content files/media at fixed
provided with the content intervals
Maintain logs of fixity info
Ability to detect corrupt
data
Virus-check all content
Information Know who has write, move, Restrict who has write, Maintain logs of who has Maintain logs of who performed what
Security and delete authorization to move, and delete accessed individual files actions on files, including deletions
individual files authorization to and preservation actions
individual files
Metadata Inventory of content and its Store administrative Store standard technical Store standard preservation
storage location metadata and descriptive metadata metadata
Ensure backup and non-
collocation of inventory
File Formats Encourage use of limited set Inventory of file formats Validate files against their Perform format migrations, emulation
of known and open file in use file formats and similar activities
formats and codecs Monitor file format
obsolescence threats
Technology For data coming in on Document your storage Start an obsolescence Have a comprehensive plan in place
obsolescenc heterogeneous media system(s) and storage monitoring process for your that will keep files and metadata on
e (optical disks, hard drives, media what you need to storage system(s) and currently accessible media or
floppies) get the digital use them media systems.

38. Still overwhelmed,
then let’s just look
at level one.

39. Getting our digital
boxes off the
digital floor.

40. Storage and Two complete copies that are not collocated
geographic
location
File Fixity and Check fixity on ingest if it has been provided
Data Integrity with the content
Create fixity info if it wasn’t provided with the
content
Information Know who has write, move, and delete
Security authorization to individual files
Metadata Inventory of content and its storage location
Ensure backup and non-collocation of inventory
File Formats Encourage use of limited set of known and open
file formats and codecs
Technology For data coming in on heterogeneous media
obsolescence (optical disks, hard drives, floppies) get the
digital content off the medium and into your
storage system.

41. Everybody needs
somewhere to
start. Somewhere
to work from.

42. 3. Processing
and MPLP

43. Curatecamp:
Processing

45. Familiarity with
MPLP “More
Product Less
Process”?

46. More Product, Less Process:
Revamping Traditional Archival
Processing, Mark A. Greene and
Dennis Meissner The American
Archivist, Vol. 68, No. 2 (Fall -
Winter, 2005), pp. 208-263

47. I’ll bring in
some quotes
from them…

48. “We need to articulate a new set of
arrangement, preservation, and description
guidelines that 1) expedites getting
collection materials into the hands of users;
2) assures arrangement of materials
adequate to user needs; 3) takes the
minimal steps necessary to physically
preserve collection materials; and 4)
describes materials sufficient to promote
use.”

49. “In other words, it is time to
focus on what we absolutely
need to do, instead of on all the
things that we might do in a
world of unbounded resources.”

50. Why is this the
case?

51. “we tolerate this situation in
part because our profession
awards a higher priority to
serving the perceived needs
of our collections than to
serving the demonstrated
needs of our constituents.”

52. The Ideas of MPLP fit
quite well with a
maxim of Open
Source Software;
Release early and
release often

53. “Release early, release often is a software
development philosophy that emphasizes the
importance of early and frequent releases in creating
a tight feedback loop between developers and
testers or users, contrary to a feature-based release
strategy. Advocates argue that this allows the
software development to progress faster, enables
the user to help define what the software will
become, better conforms to the users'
requirements for the software, and ultimately results
in higher quality software. Wikipedia.

54. So, where does this
leave us?

55. It leaves us, as we
were before, in
perpetual beta

56. Perpetual Beta from Tim O'Reilly
"Users must be treated as co-
developers…The open source dictum,
'release early and release often', in fact
has morphed into an even more radical
position, 'the perpetual beta', in which
the product is developed in the open,
with new features slipstreamed in on a
monthly, weekly, or even daily basis.."
O'Reilly, Tim (2005-09-30). "What Is
Web 2.0".

57. Making Museums
into a Perpetual Beta
“the museum is always in
flux, incrementally releasing new
versions, refining procedures, and
responding to audience desires.” Nina
Simon, Museum 2.0
http://museumtwo.blogspot.com/2012/10/dreaming-of-
perpetual-beta-making.html Oct, 17, 2012

58. History is itself a Perpetual Beta:
“history, like many Web 2.0
applications, is in a perpetual "beta," or
in a constant state of testing, revision,
and improvement.”--Jeremy Boggs
http://clioweb.org/2006/09/29/history-is/

59. So, lets do less and free
ourselves up to
accomplish more often.

60. Trevor Owens, Digital Archivist,
The Library of Congress
trow@loc.gov
@tjowens
Do Less More Often
an approach to
digital strategy for
cultural heritage
organizations