Historians' Experiences Using Digitized Archival Photographs as Evidence

Widespread digitization has presented scholars with unprecedented access to archival sources. In particular, the availability of archival photographs through online collections has been championed as an opportunity to fill in underrepresented histories absent from archival collections. Yet the degree to which scholars are using digital visual sources, and how they are using them, is relatively unexplored in the literature. In part, this can be attributed to the difficulties of modeling visual information use; no empirical models currently link scholarly interpretive practices to how scholars actually use visual materials. This dissertation sought to address these gaps in the literature by examining the experiences of one group – self-identified historians using digitized archival photographs as evidence in their scholarly activities. This study uses an embedded case study approach to explore how and why historians use images in the construction of their arguments. Fifteen participants were recruited during the spring and summer of 2015. I conducted semi-structured interviews with each participant, eliciting descriptions about their image practices and specific experiences related to image use. I used thematic analysis and thematic synthesis to reveal salient aspects of historians’ experiences as they interpret and decide to use (or not use) materials. To strengthen and verify the analysis, I used triangulation strategies at different stages in the study. The results of this exploratory research can be used to inform designs for archival description and access, and to provide guidance for historical image use. In particular, my findings disclose the various factors that matter to historians in their experiences interacting with archival photographs in digital environments. Examples of image use are largely absent from the historical literature; the case studies presented in this research help to illustrate the functional ways historians currently use digitized photographs in both research and instructional capacities. Each case also sheds light on the processes and practices historians employ as they construct evidence from photographs and supplementary materials. This research also makes important theoretical contributions to the LIS literature. While there has been unquestionable growth in access to digital sources, few empirical studies have examined scholarly interactions with digitized archival materials. Toward that end, this study introduces a conceptual framework for exploring how and why historians use digitized photographs. It presents a holistic methodology that focuses attention on information experiences as spaces for meaning-making in digital environments. Attending to my participants' experiences using photographs as historical evidence helped to reveal, in the words of Gregory Bateson, “the difference that makes a difference.”Doctor of Philosoph

Metadata Quality Evaluation in Institutional Repositories: A Survey of Current Practices

Metadata plays an important role in the discovery, access, and use of materials in institutional repositories (IRs). Thus far, little empirical research been conducted to assess and evaluate metadata quality practices in place. This study begins to address that gap in knowledge by gathering data on current practices and procedures relating to metadata quality and evaluation in institutional repositories. A survey was distributed to individuals at ARL-member institutional repositories with knowledge of their institution's metadata procedures. The survey specifically gathered data on what metadata practices were in place and whether quality control procedures were being used. Forty respondents provided results that offer a state of the art view into the current metadata quality practices in place at IRs. Survey results indicate that metadata activities may not yet be streamlined into institutional workflow. For most institutions, metadata quality checking is a manual process, with only a small percentage (4%) employing the use of automated tools. Additionally, institutions rely on users as much as repository to staff to discover quality problems. Other results indicate that the majority of institutions surveyed are maintaining documentation relating to metadata policies. For example, 75% of respondents reported that their institution had developed either minimum metadata requirements or metadata submission guidelines for contributors. Overall, these results reflect the challenges and growing pains facing institutions as they adapt to managing materials in the digital world

Integrating Digital Forensics Techniques into Curatorial Tasks: A Case Study

In this paper, we investigate how digital forensics tools can support digital curation tasks around the acquisition, processing, management and analysis of born-digital materials. Using a real world born-digital collection as our use case, we describe how BitCurator, a digital forensics open source software environment, supports fundamental curatorial activities such as secure data transfer, assurance of authenticity and integrity, and the identification and elimination of private and/or sensitive information. We also introduce a workflow diagram that articulates the processing steps for institutions processing born-digital materials. Finally, we review possibilities for further integration, development and use of digital forensic tools

Navigating Unmountable Media with the Digital Forensics XML File System

Some computer storage is non-navigable by current general-purpose computers. This could be because of obsolete interface software, or a more specialized storage system lacking widespread support. These storage systems may contain artifacts of great cultural, historical, or technical significance, but implementing compatible interfaces that are fully navigable may be beyond available resources. We developed the DFXML File System (DFXMLFS) to enable navigation of arbitrary storage systems that fulfill a minimum feature set of the POSIX file system standard. Our approach advocates for a two-step workflow that separates parsing the storage’s file system structures from navigating the storage like a contemporary file system, including file contents. The parse extracts essential file system metadata, serializing to Digital Forensics XML for later consumption as a read-only file system

From Bitstreams to Heritage: Putting Digital Forensics into Practice in Collecting Institutions

This paper examines the application of digital forensics methods to materials in collecting institutions – particularly libraries, archives and museums. It discusses motivations, challenges, and emerging strategies for the use of these technologies and workflows. It is a product of the BitCurator project. The BitCurator project began on October 1, 2011, through funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. BitCurator is an effort to build, test, and analyze systems and software for incorporating digital forensics methods into the workflows of a variety of collecting institutions. It is led by the School of Information and Library Science (SILS) at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH) at the University of Maryland, and involves contributors from several other institutions. Two groups of external partners are contributing to this process: a Professional Expert Panel (PEP) of individuals who are at various levels of implementing digital forensics tools and methods in their collecting institution contexts, and a Development Advisory Group (DAG) of individuals who have significant experience with software development.2 This paper is a product of phase one of BitCurator (October 1, 2011 – September 30, 2013). The second phase of the project (October 1, 2013 – September 29, 2014) continues the development of the BitCurator environment, along with expanded professional engagement and community outreach activities

Curation as “Interoperability With the Future”: Preserving Scholarly Research Software in Academic Libraries

This article considers the problem of preserving research software within the wider realm of digital curation, academic research libraries, and the scholarly record. We conducted a pilot study to understand the ecosystem in which research software participates, and to identify significant characteristics that have high potential to support future scholarly practices. A set of topical curation dimensions were derived from the extant literature and applied to select cases of institutionally significant research software. This approach yields our main contribution, a curation model and decision framework for preserving research software as a scholarly object. The results of our study highlight the unique characteristics and challenges at play in building curation services in academic research libraries

Managing and Transforming Digital Forensics Metadata for Digital Collections: Paper - iPres 2013 - Lisbon

In this paper we present ongoing work conducted as part of the BitCurator project to develop reusable, extensible strategies for transforming and incorporating metadata produced by digital forensics tools into archival metadata schemas. We focus on the metadata produced by open-source tools that support Digital Forensics XML (DFXML), and we describe how portions of this metadata can be used when recording PREMIS events to describe activities relevant to preservation and access. We examine open issues associated with these transformations and suggest scenarios in which capturing forensic metadata can support digital curation goals by establishing clear documentation of integrity and provenance, tracking events associated with pre-ingest and post-ingest forensic processing, and providing specific evidence of authenticity

Policy-Driven Repository Interoperability: Enabling Integration Patterns for iRODS and Fedora: Paper - iPres 2010 - Vienna

Given the growing need for cross-repository integration to enable a trusted, scalable, open and distributed content infrastructure, this paper introduces the Policy- Driven Repository Interoperability (PoDRI) project investigating interoperability mechanisms between repositories at the policy level. Simply moving digital content from one repository to another may not capture the essential management policies needed to ensure its integrity and authenticity. Platform-independent, policyaware object models, including policy expressions, and a distributed architecture for policy-driven management are fundamental building blocks of a sustainable access and preservation infrastructure. This project integrates iRODS and Fedora to demonstrate such an infrastructure. Using iRODS and its rules engine, combined with Fedora’s rich semantic object model for digital objects, provides the basis for implementing a policy-driven test-bed. Using a policy-driven architecture is an essential part of realizing a fully model-driven repository infrastructure capable of decoupling the permanent digital content from the constantly evolving information technology used to support them