This document summarizes Helen Bailey's presentation on starting small steps for digital preservation at Dartmouth College. It discusses Dartmouth's growing digital collections including ejournals, ebooks, and digital archives without a repository system. The presentation outlines initial steps taken for digital preservation including inventorying formats, bagging files with metadata, backing up to multiple locations, and planning for future management. It acknowledges current limitations but provides resources for further developing digital preservation practices.

1. Starting Small: Practical First
Steps in Digital Preservation
ALCTS-PARS Digital Conversion Interest Group Session
ALA Annual
June 23, 2012
Helen K. Bailey

2. Background
v Dartmouth College: small school, big mission
Baker-Berry Library, Dartmouth College

3. Increasing e-Resource
Collections
v 35,000 e-journal titles
v 60,000 e-books
v 1800 digital collections and databases

4. e-Resource Preservation?
v “Final Report of the 2CUL LOCKSS Assessment
Team” - Cornell University Library & Columbia
University Library
v http://2cul.org/sites/default/files/
2CULLOCKSSFinalReport.pdf
v “less than 15% of Cornell e-journal titles as a whole”
preserved in either LOCKSS or Portico

5. Growing Digital Archives
v From the familiar…

6. Growing Digital Archives
v …to the slightly less familiar…

7. Growing Digital Archives
v …to the totally bizarre

8. Increasing Digital Collections
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~library/digital/collections/index.html

9. But…No Repository

10. What is digital
preservation anyway?
CC Image courtesy of noegranado on Flickr

11. Learning Resources
v ICPSR Digital Preservation Management Workshop:
http://www.dpworkshop.org/workshops/fiveday.html
v Charles W. Bailey, Jr’s Digital Curation and Preservation
Bibliography:
http://digital-scholarship.org/dcpb/dcpb.htm
v Digital Preservation Coalition’s Digital Preservation
Handbook:
http://www.dpconline.org/advice/
preservationhandbook

12. Step One: Inventory

13. Format Inventory

14. Shared Documentation

15. Step Two: Gather the Bits
Bag-It

16. Bag-It
v https://wiki.ucop.edu/display/Curation/BagIt
v http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/tools/#b
v Manifest
v Checksum
v Checksum validation

17. Step Three: Backup
CC Image courtesy of William Hook on Flickr

18. Backup Distribution

19. Step Four: Manage

20. Step Four-and-a-Half:
The Near Future
v File Information Tool Set (FITS)
v http://code.google.com/p/fits/
v Identifies, validates, characterizes file formats and
extracts technical metadata using:
v Jhove
v Exiftool
v National Library of New Zealand Metadata Extractor
v DROID
v FFIdent
v Windows File Utility

21. FITS Output Example

22. Current System: Pros
v Inexpensive
v Minimal staff time
v Low barrier to entry (esp. technical)

23. Current System: Cons
v Not scalable
v “Dark archive”… no clear access plan
v Lack of security

24. Step Five: The Future*
?
*Actual implementation decisions not yet made. Any resemblance to real or imagined
repository software is purely coincidental.

25. Other Considerations
v Awareness and buy-in
v Funding
v Policy:
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~library/preservation/
docs/dartmouth_digital_preservation_policy.pdf
v Growth

26. Thank You!
v hakbailey@gmail.com
v http://www.slideshare.net/hakbailey
v http://dartmouthpreservation.blogspot.com