Margot Note's Blog, page 35

Integrating Digital Preservation into Your Archives Program

The challenge that many archival repositories face is assimilating digital preservation activities into everyday workflows. In my past positions, preservation of digital assets was an afterthought—if thought about at all. As a consultant, I’ve found that planning for long-term digital preservation is still unclear in most digital initiatives. Awareness about digital preservation is growing, though work and education are still needed.

As materials become more accessible through digitization efforts, their preservation after the project is completed and the funding dispersed is not always thought about. Ironically, the discovery and development of digital preservation activities have been understood primarily through special projects. Most projects, of course, are supported by grant-based funding. Let’s face reality: most funders wish to support something innovative, like digitizing 10,000 artifacts during a grant reporting cycle, rather than preserving 10,000 digital images forever. As with many projects, the excitement lies in completing a bold new effort, not in maintaining the work once complete. All the efforts involved in creating digital assets are at risk if a digital preservation plan is nonexistent. As archivists, it is up to us to include the costs involved in digital preservation activities in our grant proposals, so that funders back work that has a long-lasting impact.

Digital as the Default

Preservation planning should be integrated into the project at its conception. With the ever-increasing amount of born-digital and digitized materials, archivists need to think and design their projects with digital as the default.

For digital preservation to become standard, it must be a quotidian process of archives, like appraisal or processing, integrated into workflows and procedures. Digital preservation will only be successful when it becomes embedded in how institutions manage and approach digital information and resources on an ongoing basis. It can no longer be viewed as a standalone activity.

Preservation Advocacy Strategies

Archivists can advocate for integrating digital preservation activities in their institutions by:

Being prepared to articulate the value as well as the risks of digital preservation. What’s lost when information is not preserved properly?

Building relationships with different departments at their institutions and sharing their expertise on good digital preservation practices.

Learning about their organization’s current practices so that they can help identify gaps that threaten access to and re-use of valued digital information.

Identifying ways to embed digital preservation strategies into everyday practice. How can resources that support digital preservation be included in project funding, staffing, and work assignments?

Dedication

Some promising changes that awareness about digital preservation has brought to the field are emerging. Libraries, archives, museums, and other institutions are starting a shift from temporary, externally funded posts in digital preservation to hiring full-time positions that are funded by operational budgets in Digital Preservation teams and departments. Dedicated positions are key to integrated digital preservation.

Preservation Capability Maturity Models

Maturity models also provide guidelines for improving digital preservation within institutions. The Digital Preservation Capability Maturity Model (DPCMM), developed by consultants Charles Dollar and Lori Ashley, for example, is a framework used to access a repository’s ability to preserve and provide access to electronic records. It assesses 15 facets, including policy, strategy, governance, collaboration, technical expertise, open source and neutral formats, designated community, electronic records survey, ingest, storage, device and media renewal, integrity, security, metadata, and access. Each component is given a range from 1 (nominal) to 5 (optimal). Organizations can use the model to plan on how they will improve their digital preservation endeavors.

The need for digital preservation remains urgent, demanding new approaches and new ways of addressing its challenges. Archivists need to consider different pathways so that digital preservation is embedded into business as usual. As the field develops, more archivists and information professionals are addressing digital preservation concerns and developing the tools to make a real difference in our digital future.

The blog was originally published on Lucidea's blog.

If you like archives, memory, and legacy as much as I do, you might consider signing up for my email list. Every few weeks I send out a newsletter with new articles and exclusive content for readers. It’s basically my way of keeping in touch with you and letting you know what’s going on. Your information is protected and I never spam.

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Nuts & Bolts of Scope Statements for Archival Projects

A clear understanding of the scope is the basis on which successful archival projects are built. Without it, archivists will struggle to deliver a project well.

Some organizations lack a separate scope statement. Instead, project objectives and deliverables determine when something is within scope. However, taking the time to develop a succinct statement of the scope will help everyone in due course, especially when evaluating whether later changes are within project parameters.

The scoping stage identifies the size and shape of the project and describes it in a way that helps everyone concerned understand the project’s intentions. The project’s scope captures all of the work, and only the required work, which the project must include for the it to be complete. As a first step, ask yourself: What is the problem to be solved?

Defining Boundaries

Scoping is essentially about deciding what lies inside and outside the range of the project. The statement is a macro view of what the project will achieve and what to anticipate when the project is complete. It is sometimes called a ‘statement of work’ and is often included in a legal agreement if the project involves hiring a vendor. For instance, if you were hiring a vendor to digitize your historical assets, the scope of work would be an agreement on what was expected.

Everyone in Agreement

The purpose of creating a scope statement at the outset is to have a basis on which to make future decisions. An unambiguous scope statement helps prevent a project from expanding beyond its boundaries. Sharing the scope statement with the team helps keep them focused on the tasks to be completed and discourages people from doing unnecessary work. In my consulting practice, I am clear in my proposal what my scope of work is. If I am not, I will wind up doing tasks outside of my scope. Even worse, if I do not fulfill my scope successfully, I won’t get paid. Therefore, a scope of work allows everyone involved in an archival project to understand exactly what will be achieved in their joint venture.

Components to Consider

The scope statement should give an overview of what to expect throughout the life of the project and what the desired outcome will be. This statement has several components, which may include:

Objectives

Scope description

Deliverables

Requirements

Boundaries

Acceptance criteria

Constraints

Assumptions

Project organization

Risks

Schedule milestones

Fund limitations

Cost estimates

Project specifications

Approval requirements

Who Needs to Weigh In?

The scope statement includes the project’s context, needs that it’s intended to meet, and the outcome—how the organization will adopt the results and how its success will be measured. The statement should include the functions of the project, user and interface needs, quantitative performance and reliability requirements, documentation, training, support, and any other post-delivery needs. Archivists should identify the people who will provide input in the scope of the project, such as senior executives, as well as those who have political power in the organization.

What Won’t You Do?

Equally important is a statement of scope exclusions. Stating the omissions enables you to discuss them (and add them to the project, if necessary) before any estimates are given. Write the scope exclusions in a separate section of the project plan or a portion of the scope statement. What are you not doing in this project?

At the planning stage of the process, the project team can only describe what is known at the time. The scope statement then becomes part of the project charter. Further planning steps will elaborate on this initial scope statement, providing additional details for estimating, assigning, controlling, and accepting project deliverables.

The blog was originally published on Lucidea's blog.

If you like archives, memory, and legacy as much as I do, you might consider signing up for my email list. Every few weeks I send out a newsletter with new articles and exclusive content for readers. It’s basically my way of keeping in touch with you and letting you know what’s going on. Your information is protected and I never spam.

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Eliciting Archival Project Requirements

Archivists can use several elicitation techniques to gather requirements for their projects. These methods, ranging from document analysis to in-depth interviews, provide ideas for needed projects.

The Importance of Face Time

There are several ways to elicit requirements for your projects. The most common method is face-to-face meetings to gather information about stakeholder needs. If your archival project involves several departments, hold meetings with representatives from each faction to discuss their needs. These meetings identify necessities and also assist in obtaining buy-in from the attending department members. You may want to hold separate meetings for different audiences, such as the reference team and the IT department.

Users Sometimes Don’t Know What They Want

Requirements do not have to come directly from people. I’ve learned while working as a lone arranger and an archival consultant that many stakeholders and clients may not know or be able to articulate their requirements. Sometimes, requirements emerge indirectly based upon research, reviewing existing documents, and studying other data.

Many Ways to Uncover What’s Needed

Interviewing users can help identify the processes they use and the functions they require. A structured approach helps provide the necessary information. For example, the first series of interviews could document fundamental requirements while the second round could review and refine them.

Surveys or questionnaires can provide useful information to help you gather your requirements. You will want to design the questionnaire carefully and determine whether you want to ask open- or closed-ended questions. One challenge is making sure you are not leading people’s responses but allowing them to tell you what is important.

You may also need to employ some of the following techniques:

Comparative analysis: Be alert to the ways in which other organizations are being innovative.

Document analysis: Study the existing documentation to determine questions to ask.

Focus groups: Work with a gathering of five to ten people; solicit their suggestions and assess requirements.

Forecasting: Focus on trend analysis as a basis for predicting future needs and expectations.

Interface analysis: Examine interfaces with your technical stakeholders to understand how the system interacts with other systems, hardware, and users.

Interviews: Ask questions of your interviewees to explore and understand the answers that will shape your requirements.

Observation: Watch users perform tasks to get an insight into an organization’s operations.

Prototyping: Develop a model of the project so users can envision what the solution will look like.

Requirements workshops: Also called facilitated work sessions or Joint Application Development (JAD) sessions, this technique gathers team members in highly structured meetings.

Reverse engineering: See how a product is built by taking it apart. With software, this approach means examining the code.

Surveys: Use these appraisals to elicit requirements from stakeholders and to understand user needs or desires.

Leverage Existing Materials

There are also elicitation tools for gathering requirements from existing materials, such as document analysis, interface analysis, or reverse engineering. These techniques are not meant to stand alone. They should be combined in a way that is most useful for your project. They should also be iterative. You will never receive all the information at once. You may start with a critical mass of data to begin analyzing and determining the requirements; then you can return to your stakeholders to get more information that clarifies and expands upon your findings. 

Try Recycling and Prototyping

Consider reusing existing requirements. If you are working on a project similar to one performed in the past, you can use existing requirements as a foundation for your current project. This approach reduces effort, and you may be able to improve on the previous solution based on past feedback.

For software applications, creating a prototype can encourage creative ideas and help users explain what they need. A prototype is a rough model used to test an idea. Built early in the development phase of the project, it provides insight into how an application will look, feel, and work. Prototypes are used to gather and document requirements, and, after feedback, gain additional requirements.

The prototype, or even a rough draft of the requirements, can act as a straw man for stakeholders to critique. Users can use the draft as a tool to better articulate their needs. By stating what they do not need, stakeholders show what they are seeking in the project.

Uncovering Assumptions

As the project evolves, you may discover implied requirements that were never documented. You may also find infeasible requirements given existing project parameters. Additionally, extraneous requirements may be identified.

The requirements baseline for an archival project is the standard agreement that pending change requests are measured against. Its purpose is to fend off defects and poor quality, as well as the small, undocumented changes to the project scope—collectively called scope creep. When stakeholders sign off on the requirements scope, they agree that these identified needs will serve as the baseline for the project, and these items are mandatory for project acceptance.

The blog was originally published on Lucidea's blog.

If you like archives, memory, and legacy as much as I do, you might consider signing up for my email list. Every few weeks I send out a newsletter with new articles and exclusive content for readers. It’s basically my way of keeping in touch with you and letting you know what’s going on. Your information is protected and I never spam.

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Gathering Requirements for Archival Projects

Requirements for archival projects are different from goals and objectives. Requirements specify what the deliverables of the completed project must be. Requirements define the final product, service, or result. These are statements of quantitative criteria, each of which provides a measure of one or more of the project’s critical success factors. You can visualize the requirements when you consider the current condition of an organization and then examine its future state once the project is completed.

Managing Expectations

As a project manager, you may handle gathering the requirements—although this responsibility often rests with the business analyst. It is helpful for you to understand the process techniques and outputs of collecting requirements so that you can form a complete picture of how the project is defined and what the stakeholders are anticipating from your project.

Requirements should be detailed and specific, and usually vary in type and intention. They can be:

External: Requirements from outside the organization to which the project must adhere.

Functional: Requirements relating to the performance of the project result.

Operational: Requirements concerning the use of the project result.

Design: Requirements pertaining to the realization of the project result.

Requirements must meet several conditions to be part of a successful project. Some of these conditions include:

Complete: Requirements define constraints, assumptions, and risks. There is enough accurate information that the team may create the requirements based on the documentation provided.

Consistent: Requirements should complement other project requirements.

Correct: Requirements should describe the functionality accurately.

Feasible: Requirements should be possible to implement based on the resources, schedule, cost, quality, and risks.

Modifiable: Similar requirements should be grouped together so that changes can be made. When requirements are grouped, it is easy to see how a change in one requirement affects other requirements.

Necessary: Requirements should have value and contribute to meeting goals and objectives as stated in the project charter.

Testable: Each requirement must be verified upon delivery by testing to confirm their completeness.

Unambiguous: The requirements documentation should be written in clear, concise language so readers arrive at the same understanding of what the requirements demand.

Keep two components in mind as you determine requirements: gathering the correct information and translating it into workable requirements with measurable deliverables.

Evolving Requirements

Requirements may start out broadly, but as the collection process evolves, they may be reduced into smaller requirements. At that level, requirements tend to be interrelated. For example, a high-priority requirement may be dependent on a lower priority one. Requirements also necessitate documentation at the start of the project so that, throughout the project, the fulfillment of the requirements can be gauged.

A Consultative Process

Stakeholders often combine wish-list items with conditions. Sometimes, people who are not stakeholders append their requirements onto your project. As the project manager and archivist, you must distinguish between essential, desirable, and unnecessary requirements. Essential requirements are what the project must deliver. Desirable requirements are included in the scope but could be dropped without damaging the project. Unnecessary requirements can be excluded without impact on the project. One approach you can use to prioritize the requirements is the MoSCoW Analysis, which breaks out each requirement into one of four imperatives:

Must: These requirements must be implemented for the solution to be deemed a success.

Should: These requirements should be implemented in the solution, but are unnecessary for the solution’s success.

Could: These requirements would be nice to include in the solution if possible, but they are not the most important of the requirements.

Will not: These requirements have been identified but are now not going to be implemented in the project solution due to cost, complexity, timing, or any number of other reasons. These requirements may be implemented into the solution later.

To prioritize your requirements, you will need to decide—with the assistance of your stakeholders—what requirements are must-haves, good-to-haves, or like-to-haves. Requirements prioritization is a consultative process with the stakeholders making the final decision.

The blog was originally published on Lucidea's blog.

If you like archives, memory, and legacy as much as I do, you might consider signing up for my email list. Every few weeks I send out a newsletter with new articles and exclusive content for readers. It’s basically my way of keeping in touch with you and letting you know what’s going on. Your information is protected and I never spam.

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Developing Goals and Objectives for Archival Projects

Goals and objectives are instrumental in strategic planning for archives because they turn the project’s vision into measurable targets. Goals are the ends towards which a project is directed; objectives are more detailed than goals and explain how goals will be accomplished. With both in hand, archivists build and support the vision for what they wish to achieve with their projects.

Goal-Setting

Goals describe the purpose of the archival project, while objectives express the steps necessary to achieve goals. The goals should be prioritized, so the team knows which goal is most important if a trade-off needs to be made. Document each goal and tie it to the project vision. Goals describe what you want to achieve in non-technical terms, and they should align with organizational strategy. They clearly define the outcome of the project so that everyone understands what is to be accomplished.

A goal statement is a point of reference for any questions that arise regarding the project’s scope or purpose. The sponsor and project manager must set expectations and encourage the refinement of the goals so that the team gains ownership of the project, builds cooperation, and reduces areas of conflict.

A goal should be presented in such a way that one can determine if it has been achieved. If the goal of the project is to produce a deliverable with a specified quality at a particular time and within a cost limit, it is easy to check whether the goal is achieved. Goal statements should be short and to the point. The goals should exclude any information that might commit the project to impractical dates or deliverables.

Discovering Objectives

Goals need to be translated into objectives if they are to be used for planning and guiding the project’s assessment. Objectives should define what is to be achieved, when it will be completed, and how it will be performed. Objectives are a more detailed version of the goal statements. The purpose of objective statements is to clarify the boundaries of the goals and define the scope of your project. Objectives specify a future state, rather than an activity.

They are statements that tell the project team what result is to be achieved. Problem-solving to determine methods of reaching objectives should be kept open so that solutions can be determined later. If the approach is written into the objectives, it may lock a team into a method that is unsuitable for the project in the long run.

Objectives range widely. Financial objectives refer to the budgets themselves or to the standards organizations employ to assess their performance. Examples of financial objectives include staying within budget, increasing revenue or profit, or cutting costs. Performance objectives include meeting deadlines, satisfying requirements, or conforming to specifications. Technical objectives relate to the implementation or improvement of technology. Quality objectives represent improvements in services.

Prioritizing objectives may help eliminate tasks if the commitment to your budget or completing the project on time becomes an issue. Priorities will also assist you if you need to reorganize the project or deploy team members. If two people are completing a task, and assistance is required with another task associated with a higher priority objective, you will be able to adjust the efforts to be most useful.

Being Smart about Objectives

Use the word SMART to remind yourself of the areas to consider when setting objectives. The acronym stands for specific, measurable, accurate, realistic, and time bound. Specific objectives tell exactly what, where, and how to address the need. Measurable objectives have metrics in place so that you know whether you have succeeded or not. Accurate objectives should be described in a precise manner, so errors are nonexistent. Realistic objectives should be achievable in the time allowed. Time bound objectives must include a precise date for achievement. You may also consider writing SMARTER objectives that are extending and rewarding. The objectives should stretch or extend the capabilities of the organization. Rewarding objectives may be more difficult to gauge, but the achievement of an objective that serves the parent body will often translate into greater support for the organization and the project in future.

Goals and Objectives: An Example

For an archives, one goal of a project could be to increase the use of primary sources in history education by encouraging cooperation between historical records repositories and educators. Several objectives may stem from that goal. For example, one objective may be to support a project of history educators and archivists to create history curriculum based on analog and electronic records. Another objective may be to develop models for student tours and the use of archival facilities. These objectives can be further broken down into activities, performance indicators, and possible leads for partnerships.

Being Flexible

As in planning, the process of developing objectives is continuous. As information becomes available, and as the project progresses, modifications that contribute to the achievement of the completed project should be made to the objectives. In the planning phase, the project is in flux, so archivists can revise their objectives later as they receive more information about their project

The blog was originally published on Lucidea's blog.

If you like archives, memory, and legacy as much as I do, you might consider signing up for my email list. Every few weeks I send out a newsletter with new articles and exclusive content for readers. It’s basically my way of keeping in touch with you and letting you know what’s going on. Your information is protected and I never spam.

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Ethical, Legal, and Cultural Considerations for Digital Archival Projects

When digitizing collections, archivists should always take legal and ethical rights into consideration and proceed with caution when documenting culturally sensitive content—with sympathy as to the context of how the materials were collected, and consideration in the manner in which such content is presented.

Sensitive content includes anthropological images, materials related to Native American communities or heritage, or any cultural property. Additionally, it includes items that involve people photographed against their will or in exploitative situations. Please read on for a list of important rights, restrictions and considerations for the ethical archivist.

Publicity Rights

The right of publicity generally is associated with public figures. Publicity rights address commercial gain based on one’s name, likeness, voice, persona, or other commercially exploited aspects of personality. Laws vary internationally and, in the United States, state by state. A further complication is that in some regions this right may continue after death, but in others, it ends at the death of the subject.

Privacy Rights

The right of privacy relates to private citizens rather than celebrities, though there are significant exceptions. In contrast to publicity rights, privacy rights are noncommercial in nature and protect people from intrusion into their private affairs, from the public disclosure of private information, and from being presented in a false light. If the materials are sufficiently intrusive or embarrassing, the likelihood of obtaining permission from the subject to share them is slim.

The right of privacy generally ends at the death of the subject. Each organization will have a different comfort level with the potential for controversy created by distributing images that could be perceived as violating privacy.

Donor Restrictions

Images may have restrictions or limitations placed on access to (or use of) materials stipulated by the donor individual or organization. The restrictions may require that portions of the collection be closed for a period or that a specific credit line be used if materials from the collection are exhibited or published. Donor restrictions are often mitigated by a deed of gift—a formal agreement between the donor and the repository that transfers ownership of and legal rights to the donated materials.

Digital Manipulation

Credibility problems created by manipulated images have existed since the early days of photography. Despite this, photographs are often assumed to be accurate representations of reality, unless it is evident that they have been manipulated. Viewing collections online cannot be a viable alternative to the reading room experience unless the integrity of the digital images can be assumed. There must be the presumption by the user that an honest effort has been made to replicate the original image digitally to the degree that the technological constraints allow.

Manipulation of digital images should always be done on a copy of the unprocessed image data file. The original raw data file is the standard to which the final image can and should be compared. Any deliberate or unavoidable deviations, such as cropping, must be documented. Institutions should establish a code of ethics associated with the creation, manipulation, and distribution of files. If a policy is in place, it will help authenticate image files and establish the institution as a credible source for historical materials.

The Ethical Archivist

Archivists and the institutions they work for should have a flexible legal policy framework, based on risk assessment. Clear, documented processes that reflect legal and cultural considerations allow archives to continue to offer access to their materials without trouble.

The blog was originally published on Lucidea's blog.

If you like archives, memory, and legacy as much as I do, you might consider signing up for my email list. Every few weeks I send out a newsletter with new articles and exclusive content for readers. It’s basically my way of keeping in touch with you and letting you know what’s going on. Your information is protected and I never spam.

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Research Methods Blog Post Summary

Here's a roundup of my best blog posts on Research Methods. I love learning and teaching these tips to make people into better scholars and writers. 

If you like archives, memory, and legacy as much as I do, you might consider signing up for my email list. Every few weeks I send out a newsletter with new articles and exclusive content for readers. It’s basically my way of keeping in touch with you and letting you know what’s going on. Your information is protected and I never spam. 

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Career Advice Roundup

The past two years for me has been a journey. I started my own consulting business, worked with a number of clients, and expanded my professional network substantially. I also shared some of the lessons I learned from working as a self-employed archivist. Here are some of my most popular posts on my career advice. 

If you like archives, memory, and legacy as much as I do, you might consider signing up for my email list. Every few weeks I send out a newsletter with new articles and exclusive content for readers. It’s basically my way of keeping in touch with you and letting you know what’s going on. Your information is protected and I never spam. 

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Peruse Popular Archival Management Blog Posts

I've compiled some of my best post posts on archival management. I love being a consultant who can help organizations fund, set up, or expand their archives programs. Interested in learning more about what I do? Check out my services. 

If you like archives, memory, and legacy as much as I do, you might consider signing up for my email list. Every few weeks I send out a newsletter with new articles and exclusive content for readers. It’s basically my way of keeping in touch with you and letting you know what’s going on. Your information is protected and I never spam. 

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Browse Creating Family Archives Blog Posts

I've written a lot about family archives over the past year, but sometimes my readers miss a post or are new to my community. I've listed my posts related to how anyone can learn methods to save their personal and family history. 

To learn the preservation secrets used by libraries, archives, and museums to protect their priceless materials (that you can also use for your family heritage items), read my book: 

Creating Family Archives: How to Preserve Your Papers and Photographs

By Margot Note

If you like archives, memory, and legacy as much as I do, you might consider signing up for my email list. Every few weeks I send out a newsletter with new articles and exclusive content for readers. It’s basically my way of keeping in touch with you and letting you know what’s going on. Your information is protected and I never spam. 

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