Visualisation of hard drive content to support archival processes for personal digital archives

This research explores visualisation of data for working with personal digital archives (PDA). Large scale PDAs, comprising content from several personal hard disk drive images, are not receptive to ‘open the box and take a look’ approaches to appraisal traditionally adopted by analogue archives. By employing a Sunburst visualisation to represent file directory structures, this paper demonstrates that it is possible to gain an ‘at a glance’ comprehension of content organisation and date distribution, whilst concurrently allowing for the dynamic and interactive exploration of information such as usage patterns, content metadata and original order relevant to archival appraisal processes

One Size Does Not Fit All: Exploring Email Archiving Workflows

The purpose of this study is to examine email processing workflows of archivists at universities in the United States. Through in-depth, semi-structured interviews with seven archivists at six universities, this study explores the working practices and perspectives of archivists processing email collections. From selection and acquisition to access and discovery, participants shared their thoughts and experiences on email archiving at their institutions. With the assistance of qualitative coding software, I analyzed the latent and manifest content within the interview data. The goal of the study was not to determine standards and best practices for processing email. Rather, the study is intended to be a resource for archivists who are interested in learning how peers at other institutions are transforming the high volume of email data into accessible, significant records with documentary value.Master of Science in Library Scienc