Digital Accessions Program

About

The Digital Accessions Program (DAP) is a centralized service supporting technical appraisal and digital forensics of digital content for Harvard University.  Digital Preservation Services (DPS) leads this initiative by providing effective, low-barrier ingest activities to assist curatorial units. By providing this service, with the DPS Digital Accessions Specialist (DAS) in the lead role, the DAP empowers curatorial units across the Library and University to achieve their digital accessioning needs and goals.  Support of these goals is provided through centrally supported service functions and/or individualized solutions particular to local workflows. 

Background

Acquisition is one of the most significant activities in the digital content lifecycle.  While proactive management of content is not an absolute guarantee of digital preservation success (although we’ve been doing a pretty good job for over 25 years!), failure to initially collect that content for management will almost certainly result in preservation failure.  To remove barriers to the growth – and ultimate long-term viability – of Harvard’s deep and rich digital collections, the DAP and DAS focus on development of effective policies and strategies; advocacy and outreach; consultation on best practices and workflows; and direct technical support for digital accessioning projects and activities.  One aspect of this, particularly pertinent to the area of born-digital content collection, will be establishing a digital forensics laboratory for in-depth technical evaluation and preservation appraisal of digital media and resources as a preliminary stage for subsequent curatorial assessment and selection. 

Originally proposed in the 2017 final report of the Digital Forensics Working Group, the DAP directly supports the University Archives and many other Schools’ “digital-first” initiatives to prioritize the acquisition of born-digital records by 2026, as well as more general acquisition of special and general digital collections critical to the University’s research, teaching, and learning mission. It also supports the Library’s strategic objectives to simplify and advance systems to acquire, preserve, and provide access to Library digital assets by current and future generations of scholars and administrators. The DAP further supports digital stewardship at the Library by serving as a resource for implementation of various components of the Born Digital Stewardship Working Group’s five-year vision to establish centralized born-digital services and enhance staff knowledge and productivity. To achieve these goals, the DAS works closely with Library and University stakeholders as well as Library, Preservation Services, and Library Technology Services colleagues with relevant technical and curatorial expertise.  

Using the Digital Accessions Program at Harvard 

The Digital Accessions Program provides ingest and appraisal services including: 

• Technical, structural and intellectual characterization of digital accessions 
• Preservation appraisal of digital archival and special collections 
• Forensic disk imaging of common removable media in-house and vendor recommendations for formats not supported in-house  
• Strategies for ingesting digital content into the Digital Repository Service (DRS) 

 Curatorial staff across Harvard University may utilize this service.  Please contact Digital Preservation Services [digipres@HU.onmicrosoft.com ] for a consultation about your digital preservation questions or needs. 

Implementation Timeline 

In accordance with DPS’s Annual Roadmap of objectives, the first key results for the new DAP will be: 

• Forensic lab furnished with initial space and minimally-necessary hardware and software  
• Media “test set” established for workflow testing 
• Pilot projects with curatorial partners completed 
• Successful outreach and socialization of this as a new DPS service offering 

Resources 

• From Acquisition to Access: Improving Capabilities Across the Digital Stewardship Lifecycle at Harvard. A Report by the Digital Forensics Working Group, submitted November 20, 2017
• Five-Year Vision for Stewardship of Born-Digital Content at Harvard Library 
• FY24 Multi-Year Goals and Objectives (MYGO)