"Stuff goes into the computer and doesn't come out": a cross-tool study of personal information management

This paper reports a study of Personal Information Management (PIM), which advances research in two ways: (1) rather than focusing on one tool, we collected cross-tool data relating to file, email and web bookmark usage for each participant, and (2) we collected longitudinal data for a subset of the participants. We found that individuals employ a rich variety of strategies both within and across PIM tools, and we present new strategy classifications that reflect this behaviour. We discuss synergies and differences between tools that may be useful in guiding the design of tool integration. Our longitudinal data provides insight into how PIM behaviour evolves over time, and suggests how the supporting nature of PIM discourages reflection by users on their strategies. We discuss how the promotion of some reflection by tools and organizations may benefit users

UT Digital Repository: 08-09 Annual Report

UT Librarie

A Guide to Distributed Digital Preservation

This volume is devoted to the broad topic of distributed digital preservation, a still-emerging field of practice for the cultural memory arena. Replication and distribution hold out the promise of indefinite preservation of materials without degradation, but establishing effective organizational and technical processes to enable this form of digital preservation is daunting. Institutions need practical examples of how this task can be accomplished in manageable, low-cost ways."--P. [4] of cove

Illinois Digital Scholarship: Preserving and Accessing the Digital Past, Present, and Future

Since the University's establishment in 1867, its scholarly output has been issued primarily in print, and the University Library and Archives have been readily able to collect, preserve, and to provide access to that output. Today, technological, economic, political and social forces are buffeting all means of scholarly communication. Scholars, academic institutions and publishers are engaged in debate about the impact of digital scholarship and open access publishing on the promotion and tenure process. The upsurge in digital scholarship affects many aspects of the academic enterprise, including how we record, evaluate, preserve, organize and disseminate scholarly work. The result has left the Library with no ready means by which to archive digitally produced publications, reports, presentations, and learning objects, much of which cannot be adequately represented in print form. In this incredibly fluid environment of digital scholarship, the critical question of how we will collect, preserve, and manage access to this important part of the University scholarly record demands a rational and forward-looking plan - one that includes perspectives from diverse scholarly disciplines, incorporates significant research breakthroughs in information science and computer science, and makes effective projections for future integration within the Library and computing services as a part of the campus infrastructure.Prepared jointly by the University of Illinois Library and CITES at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaig

Designing the Born-Digital Archive

Light spoke generally about the major issues facing archivists who manage born digital records and how the UCI Libraries responded when providing access to the Richard Rorty papers. She discussed the challenges, such as dealing with rapid technological change, ensure present and future accessibility of legacy files, managing privacy and copyrights, guaranteeing the authenticity and integrity of files, preventing loss and destruction, and selecting the most important material for preservation. She also discussed numerous decisions archivists make that impact the future archive, such as emulation or preservation of the original computing environment, the organization of files, the migration of materials to new formats, and human or machine-generated description of the materials. She concluded with a description of the UCI Libraries\u27 Digital Scholarship Service, which endeavors to help faculty manage their digital research for future generations

Metadata and Cataloging Practices

Metadata standards existing today range from very complex to very simple. Relative simplicity or complexity of metadata standards depends in large part on the resources for which they were created and the depth of description that is deemed necessary to make these resources accessible. This paper reviews the differences between metadata standards and current cataloging practices, and discusses how the various metadata standards are applied in libraries. In addressing these issues, the authors introduce definitions of key concepts of metadata and cataloging standards and provide an overview of the most common metadata schemes. The discussion of current cataloging practices includes an overview of the most commonly used cataloging practices and standards, the impact of metadata on library practice and the role of librarians related to metadata. The authors will discuss the OHIOLINK Electronic Thesis and Dissertations (ETD) as an example of how Anglo-American Cataloging Rules 2nd (AACR2) and Machine Readable Cataloging (MARC21) are used as metadata to store, describe and access this unique information resource

A Collaborative Workflow for Digitization of Unique Materials

This paper examines the experience of one institution, the University of Maryland Libraries, as it made organizational efforts to harness existing workflows and to capture digitization done in the course of responding to patron requests. By examining the way this organization adjusted its existing workflows to put in place more systematic methods for digital capture of unique collections, the authors hope to provide insight into the benefits and pitfalls of one model for scaling up digitization

A Collaborative Workflow for Digitization of Unique Materials

This paper examines the experience of one institution, the University of Maryland Libraries, as it made organizational efforts to harness existing workflows and to capture digitization done in the course of responding to patron requests. By examining the way this organization adjusted its existing workflows to put in place more systematic methods for digital capture of unique collections, the authors hope to provide insight into the benefits and pitfalls of one model for scaling up digitization

Critique of Architectures for Long-Term Digital Preservation

Evolving technology and fading human memory threaten the long-term intelligibility of many kinds of documents. Furthermore, some records are susceptible to improper alterations that make them untrustworthy. Trusted Digital Repositories (TDRs) and Trustworthy Digital Objects (TDOs) seem to be the only broadly applicable digital preservation methodologies proposed. We argue that the TDR approach has shortfalls as a method for long-term digital preservation of sensitive information. Comparison of TDR and TDO methodologies suggests differentiating near-term preservation measures from what is needed for the long term. TDO methodology addresses these needs, providing for making digital documents durably intelligible. It uses EDP standards for a few file formats and XML structures for text documents. For other information formats, intelligibility is assured by using a virtual computer. To protect sensitive information—content whose inappropriate alteration might mislead its readers, the integrity and authenticity of each TDO is made testable by embedded public-key cryptographic message digests and signatures. Key authenticity is protected recursively in a social hierarchy. The proper focus for long-term preservation technology is signed packages that each combine a record collection with its metadata and that also bind context—Trustworthy Digital Objects.