What gets archived?
From booktorrent
Today, the Evergreen State College's archives contain an enormous amount of history pertaining to the opening of and constant progression of the school and its alumni past and present. The archives department collects and maintains all previous professor's teaching materials, program histories, photos, video, audio, books, and writings. The archives department also collects and maintains all student's thesis, graduation and commencement ceremony vidios, and other pertinent documents that may be looked to for references and research. The materials available here contain either continuing administrative, legal, or historical importance and provide institutional researchers with documentation.
There are also special collections the archives have assembled that contain many different sources or individual's work that relate to a refined subject. Some of the current collections include:
Chicano Archives - A collection of folk art and culture focusing on Chicano culture.
Nisqually Delta Association - The archives of the organization dedicated to preserving the last remaining non-industrialized river delta in Washington State.
Olympia Historical Society This link is broken
Peoples of Washington - A cultural research collection which grew out of research by Sid White and Pat Matheny-White into the diversity of Washington State's population.
State Folklife Council - Through the use of photographs, video and audio tapes documents a variety of Washington State resident creators of folk arts and crafts .
Socialist Literature Collection
Also housed within the archives are artifacts, art work, built to scale models, posters, fliers, handbooks, advertisements, newpaper clippings, journals, audio history tapes, video tape, and a rare books room collection. Special care is given to these items to ensure their history can be passed on for generation to generation.
As well as the archives being the keeper of our school history, the archive staff is constantly processing, adding, fixing, digitizing, and curating items that constitute the archives. Every day is a history just past, and the archives department will eventually outgrow its lodging on this campus. What the future holds for this delicate department only time will tell.
"While reprocessing archives for a client, a case of 5 ¼” floppy discs were found. No one in-house knew exactly if these were of value, what was on them or even if they were created by the organization. When we offered to open them on a computer with a floppy drive, we were told just to throw them out. This is the fear that archivists are living with. Each time an archivist approaches this obsolete media, the questions come: How many others are out there? How many are being thrown out because it is easier? How many are left? How long do I save them? If I am able to find a player/drive/ etc. will I be able to open the software that the data is formatted in? Will it even be playable? Are we missing decades of human knowledge? How long will this continue? How can archivists slow down the moving train of media change? Can archivists increase re-formatting awareness? Is reformatting my only option? Where does emulation stand? Who do I call? Who do I write? How do I make a difference in this loss that flies in the face of everything my profession holds dear?"
"A recent IDC/UC San Diego study estimated that the average American is taking in 34 gigabytes of information per day. As an archivist, let’s think about the volume of data that is being created and disseminated. If even half of one percent were historically significant, we still have a large preservation problem"
To read the full article:
http://archivemediapartners.com/AMPed/digital-fragility-is-just-the-beginning/#more-954
Digital Fragility is Just the Beginning
May 4th, 2011
by Kim Schroeder
Core Archival Functions
The SAA includes a very comprehensive list of processes and procedures used by archivist when creating digital archive records. This core is accepted throughout the archiving world and provides a standard format for material that has proven successful for providing the most accurate data possible.
