Jump In: electronic records

Do you lack hands-on electronic records experience? Are you growing more and more concerned about the floppy disks, CD's, and other portable media lurking in your paper records?  Do you work best when you have a firm deadline? Do you like winning prizes?

If you answered "yes" to most or all of the above questions, you need to know that  the Manuscript Repositories Section of the Society of American Archivists (SAA) is sponsoring its third Jump In initiative, which supports archivists taking those essential first steps with electronic records. Using OCLC Research's excellent You’ve Got to Walk Before You Can Run: First Steps for Managing Born-Digital Content Received on Physical Media as a guide, Jump In participants will inventory some or all of their physical media holdings and write a brief report outlining their findings and, possibly, next steps.

Jump In participants will be granted access to a dedicated listserv, and every participant will be entered into a raffle to win a free seat ($185 value) in any one-day Digital Archives Specialist workshop offered by SAA. In addition, select participants will be invited to present their findings at the Section's 2015 annual meeting in Cleveland.

The deadline for committing to Jump In is 16 January 2015, and the deadline for submitting reports is 1 May. For more information about the survey process, possible report topics, and rules of participation, consult the Jump In 3: Third Time's a Charm announcement.

This is a great way to start taking some electronic records baby steps; even if you're a lone arranger, you should be able to craft a survey project that can easily be completed by 1 May. Kudos to the Manuscripts Repositories Section for creating and sustaining this initiative.