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How Long Will Your Archive Last?

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When most people hear the term “technology obsolescence,” outdated hardware is probably what comes to mind. For archivists, though, a more covert danger to collections is outdated software. Once digitized, it’s easy to think that the collection is safe for decades or longer, but in reality, it may have far less time before it’s in danger of obsolescence. It’s not a matter of will this digital collection last, but will there be technology available to access it?

Backwards Compatibility

The consumer software industry relies on people upgrading from one version of their software to the newest version to make a profit, and that can be both good and bad for the consumer. On one hand, newer versions often fix problems found in previous iterations and add helpful new features. But if those changes aren’t enticing enough, and the old version serves its purpose just fine, what incentive does the consumer have to upgrade? Often the answer is forced on them by the software itself: no backwards compatibility.

Backwards compatibility is the ability of the software to read and run files created by previous versions of the software. A familiar example would be the difference between Word files ending in .doc and .docx. The current version of Word creates files as .docx, but it can still easily read .doc files (the format of Word from 1997-2003) without any problems.

For many types of software, backwards compatibility only goes back one or two versions, and this can have detrimental effects on digitally recorded archives. The film industry is already dealing with the problem of obsolescence. Digital film is saved on magnetic storage tape known as LTO, or linear tape-open. This type of storage is capable of  storing data for thirty to fifty years, which would seem like plenty of time to deal with any danger to the data.

But as each new version of LTO is released, the software that reads the magnetic tapes can only read one or two versions before it. Meaning by the time LTO-5 came out, LTO-1 thru LTO-3 were obsolete and unreadable by modern software. This has shortened the effective lifespan of the magnetic tapes from three to five decades to less than ten years, and if film archives don’t keep up, even films created in the last twenty years could be lost.

Hardware Obsolescence

While software obsolescence is a pressing problem for archivists, hardware obsolescence cannot be overlooked. It doesn’t matter how perfectly a collection is preserved if the media it’s recorded on can’t be read anymore.

Data on a well-preserved 5.25 floppy disk is just as inaccessible as data on a damaged or corrupted floppy disk, since modern computers no longer have a drive to read it.

Archivists need to be aware of what types of hardware they use to store digital data, and how close or far the technology is from becoming obsolete. The Digital Preservation Coalition maintains a “Bit List” of Digitally Endangered Species to help preservationists and archivists stay aware of the longevity and vulnerabilities of digital mediums and collections.

Properly configured cloud storage may be a good option for some archives to consider as it can be accessed by any device with internet access. This avoids the problem of computers needing compatible hardware to access a remote storage device. It also frees the archive of the responsibility to constantly purchasing new hardware to maintain the digital collection, as cloud service providers will manage all hardware upgrades for the digital environment.

What Does Obsolescence Mean for Digital Archives?

Digital archivists must remain vigilant in order to stay ahead of the danger of obsolescence and include mitigation in their overall digital preservation strategy. When determining the file format and storage materials used to house a digital collection, archivists and their clients should consider the following:

  • Is the file type proprietary or open source?
  • Is the file type designated for archival storage?
    • Is it an ISO (International Organization for Standardization) standard?
  • Are the programs you’re using outdated or at risk of becoming obsolete?
  • Does the software have backwards compatibility?
  • Does the software/hardware need to be updated routinely?
    • Does this require updating the format each time?
  • Is the medium of storage sustainable?
    • How rapidly does it degrade over time?
    • Are there commonplace ways to access the data on this medium?
    • Does the medium require specialized hardware or software to run?
  • Do you have the correct conditions to safely house the storage hardware?

When choosing a file format that will last, an archival or ISO file format is the safest route. These file formats are designed to remain compatible with new software and retain the document’s integrity regardless of what program or computer opens it. Both the Library of Congress and the National Archives provide recommendations for the preferred file formats for digital preservation.

For collections already digitized in endangered or at-risk formats or hardware, a preservation plan needs to be put in place. This plan should cover conversion to safer formats, where possible, and migration of the data from the old media to a more lasting medium. Most important of all, this plan should require multiple backups of the collection in a variety of places, such as a remote storage device kept in the office and/or a secure, secondary location, and a reliable cloud backup that is kept up to date. This ensures that the loss of any one doesn’t mean the loss of the entire digital collection.

For those who prefer to outsource their digitization efforts, make sure the archival company won’t just scan it and forget it. An expert archival company should help you formulate a plan for technology obsolescence. Digital collections are meant to last long into the future, not vanish along with the technology of the past.

If you want help safely storing and preserving your digital collection for future generations, contact Anderson Archival at 314.259.1900 or at info@andersonarchival.com.

Preservation Hesitation? Just Get Started!

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Do you have a historical collection that deserves digital preservation but keep coming back to the same problems? Maybe your project is so extensive you don’t know where to start, or you simply can’t afford an archival project right now. Even if you’ve owned a collection for decades, you’ve probably noticed more recent emphasis on the importance of digitization. To keep your collection pristine, secure, and free from dangerous overhandling, digitization is paramount.

If you have a historical collection that needs conversion, Anderson Archival’s advice is this: just get started!

Outsourcing Is an Option

Outsourcing the digitization takes a lot of pressure off you. While the archival company you choose needs to have your vision in mind, the day-to-day tasks are off your plate and entrusted to experts. Digitizing a project in-house is often an organization’s first thought, but there are many reasons this isn’t sustainable.

Daily tasks are resource intensive and include dedicated personnel standing at a scanner and turning the pages of a book in an expensive cradle scanner. Each page must be monitored for poor-quality images and followed up with a multitude of post-processing work. This is a full-time task for employees who normally have other responsibilities.  Often, the project gets delayed. Inevitably, immediate tasks need to be fulfilled, and scanning gets pushed lower on the priority list. Outsourcing gets the job done in a timely manner with little or no burden added to your employees’ responsibilities. Before you consider bringing someone new in to do this work, remember taking on a new hire comes with its own long-term overhead costs, and having an intern perform scanning often means inexperienced hands on fragile and irreplaceable materials.

By sending your documents to a trusted archival company, your organization is freed from laboring over a game plan.

Archivists guide you through each step of the project using their expertise and experience. They’re happy to answer any questions, ask you pertinent questions you may not have considered, and get you started on the right foot.

In all likelihood, outsourcing your archival project provides better quality results as well. Archival companies are equipped with enterprise-grade scanners, software, organizational techniques, and the experienced archivists needed to put those tools to good use. Adding features to your project such as searchability through optical character recognition (OCR) and metadata will move your search to the next level in terms of speed and accuracy.

How can you get started right now? Evaluate your needs—but keep it simple because the heavy lift is for your archival team. How are your documents stored or organized? What would you like to be able to do with them? Which items are the top priority? Talk with your archival company and just start! They’ll guide you through the process.

Budget Wise? You Bet.

When choosing an archival company to kick off your digitization project, look for one that doesn’t require a massive price tag up front. Experienced archival companies provide the option of a metered approach to balance timely completion of a project with a client’s budget.

In this process, you prioritize what you need archived and divide the project into phases with a focus on what your budget can handle or what a board will approve. For instance, a project can be planned out to take two years to complete with each phase delivering you a portion of the collection. You will pay smaller fees monthly while also enjoying measurable deliverables throughout the process. You’ll be able to start using your archives right away. Don’t let budgetary concerns halt your progress or steer you to a poor-quality solution.

Another option that can help pay for digitization is monetization, but this only works if the documents are of wide public interest. In this case, the documents are displayed in an online collection, and the public (or libraries or schools) pays for subscriptions or printing rights. This allows your organization or company to make money off the project as documents are made available to users online.

There are many ways to get started, so if you have a vision for your project, don’t be too worried about what you should do first. Give your archival company a call, and they’ll guide you and get your project started!

 

Anderson Archival is an archival company that listens to your needs, takes the lead, and offers assistance every step of the way. If you’d like to hear more about what makes Anderson Archival different, give us a call at 314.259.1900 or email us at info@andersonarchival.com today!

Quotables: 9 Ways Going Digital Can Increase Your Business’s Value (Home Business Mag)

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Farica Chang’s post in Home Business Mag outlines the benefits of digitizing a business.

Through proper digital preservation techniques, your scanned documents can contain metadata tagging, optical character recognition (OCR), and other tools to make your data easily searchable by anyone in your company. Quick search and reliable digital provenance are a boon to all aspects of your business. This includes maintaining brand authenticity, and storytelling to product innovation, and to legal and compliance support.

Click here to read the full article!

Do you have a historical document collection that you’d like to make more accessible, relevant, and impactful? Anderson Archival uses proprietary methods to digitize collections so they are easily searchable, ultimately accessible, and even more meaningful to a wide audience. Let us help you preserve your legacy today! Give us a call at 314.259.1900 or email us at info@andersonarchival.com.

What are Quotables? This is a category in our posts to highlight any professional publications that benefit from our expert archivist experience and quote us in articles for their readers. 

A Gift to the Future: 3 Goals of Digital Heritage and the Archives Showcasing Them

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Why are collectors, organizations, and institutions bringing their collections into the digital age? What makes the effort and cost of digital conservation worthwhile?

As users, we can’t know the primary driving force behind the digitization of some of the most impactful collections on the internet, but at Anderson Archival, we’ve seen countless motivations for digitization. One common element is that the stewards of these collections want to bestow a gift on the digital landscape: the gift of preservation, the gift of a better future through learning and inspiration, the gift of accessibility.

New to digital libraries? Read more about digital collections and the Anderson Archival difference.

Here is a sampling of successful digital archives that showcase these three goals for digitization.

  1. Documenting and Preserving a Lost History

For some collections without a digital presence, the cultures, histories, and movements they represent may be lost in the event of a disaster. Those interested in historical preservation know that history is relevant for both today and tomorrow. Digital collections that preserve a little-known or previously lost history fill in gaps left by traditional education, inviting readers and viewers to explore and learn.

  • Early Americas Digital Archive offers rare and out-of-print texts, written in and about the early Americas as full-text documents checked against originals. This text is easy to search, read, and reference.
  • RomArchive is populated with highly curated sub-collections and journeys of thought that explore how the Roma people are represented in European history and culture, where gaps in coverage lie and affect public perception, and offer strategies for combating this skewed absence.
  • Virtual First Ohioans, a sub-collection of Ohio History Connection, invites visitors to take a tour through this native history of Ohio, starting with the archeological process involved in modern re-discovery and preservation, and journeys through time with descriptive visuals. Clicking through the section acts as a virtual museum showcasing these ancient peoples.
  • The Library of Congress’ Mapping the National Parks collection tracks the history of lands that visitors may take for granted.
  • The Digital Library of the Middle East provides a vital resource to a region often divided by conflict, preserving documents digitally because the physical originals are often sold on the black market or destroyed.

These collections and archives could have remained behind closed doors, in drawers, in museums, or even destroyed, but curators identified a need to not only preserve but to share their contents with the world.

  1. Sharing History to Change the Future for the Better

Many collection owners believe that the material in their possession has the power to educate, enlighten, and change the world for the better. In some cases, documents present underheard worldviews or religious beliefs, while others highlight periods of historical upheaval, from which many lessons may be learned. For these curators and collectors, making the words, photos, or other historical materials available to the general public is deeply important.

  • The Pearl Digital Collections of the Presbyterian Historical Society comprise the oldest denominational archives in the United States. Primary source documentation of Japanese-American internment during World War II, tied to the denomination through mission work in the camps, is just one example of a piece of history that still resonates today.
  • Another highly-curated digital museum is the digital offerings of United States Holocaust Museum. The site covers brutal historical events with honesty, providing photographic and written record for a thoughtful tour or in-depth research.
  • The Peace Database collections of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum serve a similar purpose. Though the digital archive hasn’t been updated since 2016, the site stands as memorial and marker of a horrific event.

These collections have the potential to make a profound change in the thinking of modern readers, and digitization has made them available to anyone.

  1. Giving the Gift of Accessibility

Digitization offers incredible freedom: researchers and other users no longer must travel to a single location and request limited time in a temperature-controlled room with just a copier to aid their memory. Research (and search in general) is far easier when done digitally, where a single keyword puts the user just a click away from the title, page, and paragraph they want to find.

  • The Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation brings historical artifacts to users who can’t make the trip to Michigan. Their digital collections mimic walking through a museum by browsing through Expert Sets or the back room of a research library through their advanced search.
  • The New York Public Library’s Digital Collections are stunning in scope and content. Containing material that users might not have even known existed, NYPL makes these collections easy to browse and search, like this collection of The Black Experience in Children’s Books. While not every item in these collections is fully text searchable, NYPL makes discovery easy.
  • The Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan continues to grow its collection, moving forward with the belief that the content it provides is valuable and that digitization offers unparalleled search for its users.
  • The Internet Archive is possibly the longest-running and most comprehensive archive currently online. Founded on the ideal of “Universal Access to All Knowledge,” the Internet Archive has been in the news recently for linking Wikipedia-cited passages to digitized materials, stressing the importance of using digitization as a tool for verification.

Being able to access materials like these from anywhere in the world is a gift to this century. This massive amount of data is now accessible and at the fingertips of anyone in the world.

 

When all is said and done, the deciding factor to digitize may come down to the simple fact that the world is going digital. Don’t let your collection be left behind or forgotten.

Contact Anderson Archival by phone (314.259.1900), email, or our contact form today for a free consultation regarding the digitization of your collection, regardless of your goal for going digital.

Quotables: 5 Steps for Organizing Your Paperless Office (Young Upstarts)

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Principal Farica Chang’s guest blog for Young Upstarts stresses the importance of planning and security when moving to a paperless office—or starting an archival project.

Some questions to help direct your planning stage are the following:

What exactly do you want to digitize? Which physical copies will be shredded and what will be preserved? What do you want the digital folder hierarchy to look like? Are you going to scan in-house or outsource the job?

Click here to read the full article!

Do you have a historical document collection that you’d like to make more accessible, relevant, and impactful? Anderson Archival uses proprietary methods to digitize collections so they are easily searchable, ultimately accessible, and even more meaningful to a wide audience. Let us help you preserve your legacy today! Give us a call at 314.259.1900 or email us at info@andersonarchival.com.

What are Quotables? This is a category in our posts to highlight any professional publications that benefit from our expert archivist experience and quote us in articles for their readers. 

generate revenue with monetization

Generate Revenue from Your Online Collection

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Is the perceived cost of digitally archiving your collection making you hesitant to move forward with an important project? Monetizing archival collections may be the answer!

Monetizing an archival collection involves electronically transforming the collection in a way that allows people to access it online for a fee. You use the digital collection to provide revenue to your organization, so the project helps pay for itself while allowing users to access what they need from the archives. TIME, Harper’s Weekly, Vanity Fair, and other magazines are transforming their historical collections in this way.

To monetize, your digitized collection needs to be available online. This has many benefits, including a variety of options for display and customization. With an online interface, the documents are beautifully preserved, interactive, and searchable.

Optical character recognition (OCR) creates document searchability, which is a prime benefit of digitization. Being able to search the full text—especially when there are thousands of documents in a database—can be life-changing for researchers. OCR takes digitizing to a new level, but it does require more time and resources for the digitization process. However, doing the project right the first time with quality and precision means your collection will be preserved long term and it could fund itself.

Anyone thinking about archiving their collection usually has a vision of what they want it to look like on-screen, but a limited budget could cripple the effort to make a well-preserved collection shareable with the world.

What Does Monetizing Look Like?

Say your organization has a website with a newsletter that averages one million subscribers. If 1% of those subscribers were willing to pay for enhanced archival access at $1/month, your collection would generate $120,000 annually. Engaging 4% of your subscribers would result in almost half a million dollars in revenue. If just a fraction of your current constituency engages with your digitized collection, the results could be substantial.

The key is strategically marketing subscriptions to users and organizations that will directly benefit from your collection. Think of the potential users. Do you have subscribers already, users accessing or already paying for access to a printed or digital newsletter? Current print and email subscribers might be attracted to the ability to access a digital collection for more robust study of their interest. Libraries, schools, archives, research centers, museums, and organizations specializing in the field of your collection would also be promising candidates.

It is important to consider where the paywall is placed. What materials, if any, are accessible for free, and what materials or functions are available only for a fee? Do you want all users to have to pay for the services (hard paywall), or do you want to grant users limited access to the documents and pay a subscription for full access or for specific functions (metered paywall)? Maybe you’d prefer to make the collection only available to members. The paywall’s location and function are dynamic, as customizable as the way your collection will be displayed, and can be adjusted based on specific users or specific materials.

Read more about custom software development – built for your collection!

Working Within Your Budget

Archival companies work with organizations that have a broad range of budgetary needs and considerations, including nonprofits, so the one you choose should understand the monetary considerations of archiving a large collection. Strong communication throughout the bid process is essential to make sure your exact budget needs are met. For example, the collection could be divided into sections so completed sections of the collection can be made available to users while another section is being digitized. In this example, project managers would work with you to determine an annual budget, prioritize your documents, and begin the digitization process for the first set. Once those are online and users are subscribing, you’ll have more resources for the next set of documents.

When digitizing your collection, remember that the cost is an investment in doing the project right the first time. Your archival company should balance budget requirements with providing a quality end product and thoroughly explore revenue-generating potential. Don’t sacrifice quality or your dream of a digital collection because of your budget.

Is monetizing your collection something you’d like learn more about? Contact us today at 314.259.1900 or info@andersonarchival.com.

5 Factors That Can Affect the Timeframe of Your Archival Project

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Is it finally time to kick off that digitization project you’ve been delaying for so long?

Many collectors don’t realize how much time and planning go into digitizing a box of old photo albums, let alone a collection that fills an entire room or basement. If you’re applying for funding to help your or your organization’s rainy day dream become reality, you’ll need to have some idea of the amount of time it will take to do it right.

How much time should you plan to spend digitizing before you see the end result? Or, more likely, how long should you expect your archival team to keep and analyze your collection until you have the final digitized project in your hand?

A quality archival company is well-versed in the variables that affect the time it takes to see your project through to the end. Doing it right the first time is going to take more time than a lower-quality job that will need to be re-done in a few years. Every collection has its own needs, quirks, and significance. Here are four of the most common factors that determine how long it will take to complete your digitization project.

  1. Handling and Scanning Materials

The time it takes to physically process the individual materials in your collection is an important factor to consider. The size and composition of the collection determine how the materials should be handled at every point in the process. Unless you work in-house, your collection will need to be transported to the scanning facilities (and eventually back to you).

Historical paper documents, especially those severely damaged or suffering from acid deterioration, require the gentlest touch at every step of the project.

Once in-house, a trained team carefully categorizes each document and prepares it for scanning, which may include a page-by-page examination to note any handwriting marks, rips, or smudges. This process can take hours or weeks to complete, depending on the breadth of your collection.

Scanning the materials is also a much more delicate task than one might think. Unlike an amateur photo album scanning job, professional archival scanning goes beyond slapping a document into a home/office scanner bed and calling it a day. An archivist must observe each page that feeds through the enterprise-grade scanner, taking care to prevent any wrinkles or jams before they occur and damage the original. Bound collections require specialized scanning cradles that photograph pages while preserving the binding and delicate materials that would otherwise be destroyed in a traditional scanner.

  1. Image Cleanup

Once your collection is scanned, the real digital work begins! Historical documents almost always have some sort of blemish; changes in paper quality and printing standards are to thank for that. While copies of the original image can be kept, it is useful to have working copies that can be adjusted for maximum use by the end user. In order to get the cleanest possible result—and fewer headaches during the proofing process—the newly-digitized images are combed over and cleaned in a graphic editing program.

Depending of the needs of the project, archivists can simply erase speckles or splotches that would interrupt the proofing process or perform character or full-text replacements for missing or damaged sections of text. Document age, page size, image resolution, scan quality, and level of adherence to the original material need to be considered to accurately calculate the length of time needed for this step. Not all collections need or want this step, but it’s often necessary for the longevity and use of the final product.

  1. OCR and Proofing

Optical character recognition (OCR) is an essential part of most digitization projects and  cannot be rushed. Being patient during the image cleanup steps pays off by providing cleaner images to process during OCR. Proofing relies on both human and digital eyes, a partnership that can sometimes prove time-consuming.

Older texts often use outdated language and fonts, which can confuse modern text recognition programs.

The human archivists on the other side of the screen inspect any flagged letters or symbols and compare to the original text to confirm accuracy.

With trickier collections, or those needing a character-for-character replication of the original, additional human-eye passes may be needed for precision of detail. Rare cases could require spoken or audio passes, which can add a significant chunk of time to the project duration, but also greatly enhance the quality of the end product.

  1. Tagging and Organization

Building search features into a collection is a lengthy process, but necessary for any collection that may one day be used for study or research. This is accomplished by tagging a document’s metadata during the digitization process. By marking authors, dates, and section types, users can not only search a text for exact keywords but also for these specific features.

Formatting your collection is more than the “finishing touches” it implies. You as the collector will need to reflect on what you want your end product to look like. How will you use it? How will your target audience?

Even collectors who just want digital image replications of their collection cannot ignore this step. The Library of Congress outlines the sustainability of digital formats, so you can ensure the time you’ve invested in this project won’t have to repeated in the future.

  1. Context of Collection

Okay, okay—so this isn’t really a timeframe factor as much as it is one of the proprietary values Anderson Archival infuses into every digitization project that comes through our doors.

But it is an absolutely crucial one when it comes to doing it right the first time. We’ve written before about how much time gets wasted by improper digitization strategies. Understanding the full cultural, historical, and personal context of your collection guarantees success in every step of the process.

It takes knowing everything possible about the collection to catch pages missed during the scanning or find a misprint of an author’s name during proofing. Realizing a step too late that an entire chapter of a document is missing from your copy and a replacement needs to be found could set the project back. The extra time it takes to understand your collection pay big dividends in the end.

 

Anderson Archival is dedicated to turning your collection into a usable digitized archive—no matter how much detail is involved. To discuss the timeframe of your next digitization project, contact us today!