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Who Will Use This Collection and How? All About Use Cases

August 15, 2019/in Custom Software, Digital Collections, Preservation, Special Projects /by Anderson Archival

Use cases. It’s simply a term for capturing the functional requirements of a digital library. Each use case is written from the user’s perspective, defining who they are and how they want and expect to use the digital collection.

Understanding use cases is essential for determining how a collection will be best delivered, and what functionality needs to be built in.

Let’s imagine a collector owns a Sears, Roebuck, and Co. personal library of catalogues* that spans nearly 75 years, and they want to digitize it. Right now, they’re the only person using it in their study of American history to provide the cultural context of what people were buying, using, and interested in at particular points in time.

Currently, the magazines in the collection are physically arranged by date—this is how the collector imagines they will organize the collection digitally. They have already done a lot of physical work to categorize the collection, including making notes of what is in which volume.

The collector wants to make their collection of catalogues available to other historians, schools, and individuals, so they decide to employ a technical archival company to help develop the digitized collection and figure out the best way to showcase it.

When the collector talks to an archival company, one of the questions a digital archivist asks is, “What are your use cases?”

In other words, who will use this collection? In this imagined case of a digitized Sears catalogue collection, the collector works with the archival company to make estimations of these categories of users:

Historians and collectors
Students
Librarians and researchers
Historical Fiction Writers

Next, a sample of potential users should be interviewed about how they would like to use this collection. It’s important to talk to users directly because the quality of requirements will be better if they come directly from the users. Assuming how a group would utilize the collection could mean missing something crucial.

Read more about how Anderson Archival builds digital collections!

Discovering the use cases for these specific groups will help determine how the collection will operate, how it will appear, and how it will be accessed.

The first interview is with a researcher of Western Expansion. She wants to do specific research on the homes available for purchase in the catalogue. She plans to compare the results found in this collection to others she has found in scholarly work. She mentions that she would like to use search to narrow results by date, model number or name of the house, and price range. She wants to be able to search for exact phrases found in scholarly work, to verify that it appears in the collection.

The second interview is with a university student. He informs the interviewer that he does much of his electronic research on his phone. He mentions that he usually sends interesting articles or pictures to himself to later reference.

And the interview process continues.

The collection will need to accommodate the needs of all of these interviewees. Some key points of the interview findings might look something like this:

Historians and collectors	Need a way to save pertinent documents or quotes easily. Want the ability to print historically accurate pages.
Students	Want a fast, accurate search of keywords, mobile access, and the ability to share pages electronically.
Librarians and researchers	Know what they are looking for and expect to be able to search dates, volumes, and issues. Want to search exact phrases and verify what they know is in the collection.
Historical fiction writers	Want to page through issues to get a sense of the era and need to search by date, category, or item type.

Once interviews have concluded and use case scenarios have been compiled, a technical archival company can then recommend the best tools, and in some cases, a custom software solution for the collection.

For Anderson Archival, this step is utilized in the development process. Knowing the current and potential users of a collection helps to determine how best the digital library should be delivered. Options can be as simple as using a PDF viewer to access a private library for only a few users, to as complex as custom online software with logins.

Technology is constantly evolving. If the collector wants to invest in digitizing right the first time, the collection should be optimized for cutting-edge technology so it will easily adapt to the new and better software and hardware developed every year.

Of course, each collection will be different and have specific needs for digitization, tagging, and its interface, but the goal for anyone digitizing their collection and defining use cases is to make their collection accessible and functional for as many types of users as possible.

Here are a few more tips for building your use cases:

Consider how your collection is different from others. What features could this collection offer that others do not?
As you think about use cases, focus on users’ functional needs and not software design.
Often, collectors think they know how users will use the collection, but actually interviewing potential users will uncover needs for critical functionality that otherwise is likely to be lost.
Developing detailed use cases, taking the time to learn from users, will make the final product of your digital collection much better!

Whether you’re developing use cases for a private collection or because you want to share your collection with the world, once your collection is digitized, you’ll have peace of mind. Your digital library will be preserved for generations to come and now others will be able to interact with it easily and share it.

If you want help developing a use case for your collection, contact Anderson Archival at 314.259.1900 or email us today!

*This theoretical collection is used purely for example purposes. Sears has a portion of their catalogue available online here.

A Tailored Approach to Confidentiality

May 31, 2018/in General, Preservation, Special Projects /by Anderson Archival

Picture this: you’ve spent a long time saving for an expensive tailored suit. Late nights at the office finally paid off, and now you’re prepared to invest in a sleek bespoke suit customized exactly to your specifications.

When you need that suit to be styled and fitted, would you trust just any tailor listed at the top of your search results? Or would you take time to research who will handle your prized possession with the utmost care and caution?

It’s important to find a vendor who will keep your digitized collection safe from time’s unforgiving decay—one who cares about how your materials are handled during each step of the digitization process and beyond.

Ethical Standards

Materials in your collection are confidential, delicate, and unique. There’s no cookie-cutter approach; every collection is fulfilling a specific community’s needs. Whether that community is the entire world or only for your eyes, ethical values matter. Care and confidentiality should direct every decision in the preservation process.

The Society of American Archivists (SAA) provides resources and guidelines for archivists across the country. This includes a detailed set of core values and a code of ethics that archival experts should use to steer their individual missions.

You need a vendor who incorporates SAA’s ethical standards—professional relationships, judgment, authenticity, security and protection, access and use, privacy, and trust. This not only affects the client-vendor communication, but it dictates how each element of your collection is treated in every phase of the project.

Storage and Destruction

Handing over your unique collection is no easy task. Like in the case of the Harding Affair Letters, you may have struggled to keep certain materials safe from people who wanted to hide or destroy timeless resources. Even if you trust the archivists you’re leaving your collection with, what guarantees they’ll treat the materials in a way that reflects their worth?

Find a team who lets you call the shots on how your materials are handled and stored. You need archival experts who are trained in working with fragile and sensitive documents. Additionally, the restoration techniques and equipment used by your vendor should be focused on maintaining the integrity of each artifact.

The rare client may ask that certain materials be permanently destroyed after preservation. In these cases, ensure your partner has a plan in place! Destruction processes should include responsible, secure methods to dispose of documents and hardware, taking careful consideration to maintain both the client and project’s privacy as well as taking into account environmental standards.

Legal Duty

Privacy and intellectual property are paramount. You should ensure every set of eyes or hands that touch your collection have signed a binding nondisclosure agreement (NDA). This includes archivists, office personnel, and perhaps even janitorial staff who have access to the premises. If there’s any chance someone could stumble across evidence of your collection, a strong confidentiality agreement protects your data at every conceptual step of its digitization.

Along with strict NDAs, make sure your selected vendor sets rigid internal guidelines about handling the intangible aspects of your collection. Staff should be told only the amount of information about a client needed to do their job—that part’s up to you. Your anonymity can be protected just as well as the physical collection.

Documentation

Every project requires unique documentation, but setting general standards for record-keeping is a strong first step. Successful documentation ensures successful accountability, which is one of SAA’s core values.

At the start of every digitization project, make sure the vendor analyzes each item and the collection as a whole to assess what each task will entail. Have your original manuscripts or photos seen better days and need an extra round of cleanup in the digitization process? Are there torn pages, handwritten notes, or other text obstructions? Standardizing processes keeps the team on the same course, achieving uniform quality on each page of your collection.

Equally important to accountability is providing examples while the project is in progress. Need weekly reports on the development of your future online collection? Want a mockup or wireframe of the database or publication? Care to test the search functions or capabilities of your custom software? Make sure you have a partner committed to transparency and open communication.

Balancing Privacy and Access

Drawing again from SAA’s code of ethics, one of archiving’s ultimate goals is providing access and use. More often than not, if you’re investing the time and funds to preserve a collection it’s because you wish to share it with others. That’s why it’s at the top of SAA’s list of core values. Making your collection accessible is hard to do when it’s limited to boxes of papers or file cabinets in one physical location.

But good access and privacy don’t always play nicely with one another. Finding that middle ground is always possible, but this depends on you and your collection’s individual needs. If you want a database that’s for your organization’s internal use only, your digitization partner should approach your project differently than if you plan to market your collection for public use or charge users for access. Copyright laws, content, and protection of intellectual privacy put additional limits on the scope of access and use of your collection.

Just as you might wear a beautiful custom suit to a large public event or save it for a private party, you should be able to rest assured that your collection is tailored and fitted to perfection, crafted for its specific purpose. You should also feel confident that your measurements won’t be shared with anyone without your permission!

At Anderson Archival, we treat every step of a digitization project as a new challenge, letting your collection’s individual goals guide our path. This includes safeguarding your information and putting the privacy of your collection first. For more information about how we value confidentiality in our archival process, contact us today at info@andersonarchival.com or 314.259.1900.

Is Social Media the Best Way to Share Your Digital Library?

May 24, 2018/in Digital Collections, General, Preservation, Special Projects /by Anderson Archival

Even on the most social, shallow corners of the internet, it is becoming hard to miss the world of museums and archives. For advocates of sharing and learning from history, that’s excellent news.

When building or preserving a collection, a common pressing question is “How do I get this important document in front of those who don’t even know it exists?”

The largely on-demand nature of the internet means that knowledge and familiarity have to, in some way, precede a search. But when your collection lives outside the realm of the typically encountered, searches can be rare.

Social media circumvents this. While gathering content and followers can be a slow process, a digital library shared on Twitter or Instagram can go from obscure to viral in the blink of an eye. Many museums have already captured this momentum. Successful accounts like New York Times Archives and The Met Museum set the bar high, but so-called smaller collections can find a niche audience in this medium as well.

With these successes, it becomes easier to understand why some museums and collection curators build their sharing strategy around social media.

Does this tactic encourage viewers to treat their experience superficially, as Philip Kennicott argues in a review, or does it fill a desire on participants’ parts to be entertained and to interact? If “the only reason people know about it is because of Instagram,” , isn’t that, on the simplest level, more eyes on the art?

Ultimately, there is no denying that social media boosts awareness. Whether it changes the viewing and learning experiences is still to be discovered.

Why would a curator or director refuse to embrace and utilize social media in sharing their collection?

The Topic Is Too Niche

The internet is an ideal environment and means of finding researchers and appreciators of that very niche. Take, for example, this account about the former St. Louis football team, the Cardinals. While the Cardinals are a ubiquitous name for St. Louis baseball, the historical football team is far less known, and yet this Twitter account showcasing historical Cardinals football items has found a large following.

The Topic Isn’t Interesting

Wait. You’ve spent years and money preserving a collection that isn’t interesting? Doubtful! There may be dense text included in a collection, but interest is in the eye of the beholder – and there are ways to showcase even the most seemingly inaccessible collection .

A Social Media Account Is Just More Work. Who Is to Say There Will Even Be a Return on This Effort?

If reaching the technologically savvy and younger generations is a priority for you and your collection, social media isn’t something you can afford to ignore. There are alternative solutions for organizations with tighter budgets or time constraints. The Library of Congress archive blog has a technical how-to for creating a bot that randomly shares images from an archive.

One of the many benefits of technology is the way that it constantly makes itself easier to use, so the possibilities for bots and programs managing social media accounts can only grow. Right now, bots may not generate the same level of excitement as a curated account, but they are better than nothing!

My Collection Isn’t Digitized

It would be difficult to share on a digital medium that which is not digital. A collection kept on paper, in boxes, is not only limited in the means of gaining an audience, being available for research, and enriching the lives of strangers, but it is also at risk of loss. Anderson Archival is ready to build a digital library from your materials and ensure the safety of your collection with secure digital backups.

An audience for your collection is out there, and social media can help you find it. Creating a digital library is half the battle, but don’t let that library go unused!

Are you ready to start a social media account for your digital collection?

Three Ways to Make the Most of Your Digital Collection’s Social Media Account

Tie history to today. Use hashtags like #OnThisDay to showcase artifacts published “on this day in history,” or take a page from the marketer’s playbook and tie posts to trending topics. These may not be successful individual posts, but inclusion in hashtags may gain followers who were previously unaware of your collection.Is a piece of your collection relevant to breaking news? Share it, but be sure to make the context clear.
Utilize trending topics within the archival community like #ArchivesHashtagParty, usually hosted by the twitter account. Members of the archival community and interested bystanders watch these topics. There are few other ways to put your collection in view of so many eyes!In addition to using hashtags, use social media to foster relationships within the archival community. Interactions between museums and collections can go viral, but even more beneficially, can mean shared audiences and resources.
Create something worth sharing. Rather than pinpointing what this means for your particular collection, it is easier to identify a social media post that isn’t worth sharing. Search “history twitter” or “museum instagram” and examine the results. Does the account post interesting information and not just a link? Are the images compelling? Many accounts make the mistake of linking to the museum or collection website without giving a reason they wanted to share the post.There is something that just works about the digital library social media accounts for the Missouri History Museum and the St. Louis Art Museum.

What you do with your collection and how you share it is up to you. Anderson Archival is here to show you the possibilities and help make them happen. Is it important that your collection is preserved as a digital library, kept safe from loss, and available for future generations? Anderson Archival specializes in digital preservation and secure backup. Contact us today at info@andersonarchival.com to talk about your collection or sharing it with social media.

Create a Quality Paperless Office for Your Business with Digitizing Services

January 9, 2018/in Backup and Storage, Document Scanning, General, Paperless Office /by Anderson Archival

As technology integrates into our daily lives, many small businesses are moving from file cabinets to searchable file databases. Does your small business’ data still exist on paper, or has it been digitized poorly? Document scanning services are the solution.

Anderson Archival’s team of document conversion services specialists are experts in making your business more efficient and in keeping your data safe from loss, natural disaster, and outdated technology. Your small business deserves the attention to detail and care that Anderson Archival brings to document preservation.

What are document scanning services?

At Anderson Archival, every preservation project is unique.

First, we audit your current data situation. Records come in many shapes and sizes, all of which Anderson Archival is prepared to preserve for you. Whatever state these pages are in, physical or digital, handwritten, damaged by time and nature, our digitizing services will bring your business into the future.

How can document conversion services help my business?

In cases of natural disaster, scanned copies may be the only records that survive. Boxes or file systems of important client data, historical records, and original publications can be easily lost in a hurricane, tornado, fire or flood. In the event of a disaster, proactive preservation of these documents can save your business.

Document conversion begin with the careful scanning of your papers, records, and publications. Then, our team removes any visual flaws from the scanned pages. Tears, stains, or excessive handwriting can obscure historical text. Additional processes like handwriting transcription and image enhancement are also available.

Our expert archival team will put your documents through optical character recognition (OCR) software, proofread the text, and create searchable PDFs – preserved and digitally accessible. These new digital databases are more efficient for you and your team and mean a quick keystroke can bring relevant documents to your screen instead of hours wasted looking through boxes for a key phrase or relevant document.

Another benefit of these databases is accessibility. Depending on your needs, Anderson Archival offers several options: a local database for a single computer, a database accessible from any computer on a network, a cloud-hosted database, or even a full index on a publicly searchable website.

Digital databases remove the worry that comes from operating with modern technology. Malware, ransomware, or data loss from natural disaster or human error, are circumvented by digital copies and guaranteed backups. Anderson Archival is a division of Anderson Technologies, so in addition to the highly personalized preservation process, our managed IT services team can help protect your technological systems and new digital collections from cyber vulnerabilities or attacks.

Anderson Archival, a division of Anderson Technologies, is a highly-skilled team of experts. For more information on our digitizing services, email info@andersonarchival.com or call 314.259.1900 today.

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