More Podcast, Less Process

Well, this is cool: More Podcast, Less Process is a new podcast that features "archivists, librarians, preservationists, technologists, and information professionals [speaking] about interesting work and projects within and involving archives, special collections, and cultural heritage." The first episode, CSI Special Collections: Digital Forensics and Archives, featured Mark Matienzo of Yale University and Donald Mennerich of the New York Public Library and debuted at the start of this month. The second, How to Preserve Change: Activist Archives and & Video Preservation, was released yesterday. In it, Grace Lile and Yvonne Ng of WITNESS discuss the challenges associated with preserving video created by human rights and other activists, producing activist video in ways that support long-term preservation, and WITNESS's impressive new publication, The Activists’ Guide to Archiving Video.
Hosted by Jefferson Bailey (Metropolitan New York Library Council) and Joshua Ranger (AudioVisual Preservation Solutions), More Podcast, Less Process is part of the Metropolitan New York Library Council's Keeping Collections project. Keeping Collections provides a wide array of "free and affordable services to any not-for-profit organization in the metropolitan New York area that collects, maintains, and provides access to archival materials." This podcast greatly extends the project's reach.

Given the mission and interests of its creators, I suspect that quite a few More Podcast, Less Process episodes will focus on the challenges of preserving and providing access to born-digital or digitized resources. I'm waiting with bated breath.

More Podcast, Less Process is available via iTunes, the Internet Archive, Soundcloud, and direct download. There's also a handy RSS feed, so you'll never have to worry about missing an episode. Consult the More Podcast, Less Process webpage for details.

Full disclosure: Keeping Collections is supported in part by the New York State Documentary Heritage Program (DHP), which is overseen by the New York State Archives (i.e., my employer). However, I'm plugging More Podcast, Less Process not because of its DHP connections but because it's a great resource.

CLIR digital forensics report

Last December, the Council on Library and Information Resources released Digital Forensics and Born-Digital Content in Cultural Heritage Collections. In it, Matthew G. Kirshenbaum (Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities, University of Maryland), Richard Ovenden (Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford), and Gabriela Redwine (Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin) detail how investigative techniques and applications developed by law enforcement personnel can be of use to archivists and librarians working with born-digital manuscripts and other types of electronic cultural heritage materials.

I've been aware of this report for some time, but didn't have the chance to skim it until yesterday afternoon. I came away deeply impressed. It provides a handy introduction to the principles and practices of digital forensics, highlights the ways in which digital forensics tools can help to safeguard the authenticity and trustworthiness of born-digital materials, and explains how these tools can help to recover information that has been deleted or stored in legacy formats. Moreover, it explains, clearly and succinctly, a lot of things that archivists who work with electronic records really should know more about, such as how data is recorded onto magnetic media and the differences between and intricacies of file directory structures. It also discusses the ethical implications of using law enforcement tools and techniques to analyze electronic materials created by people who are not accused of wrongdoing, willingly gave their materials to a repository, and might be stunned to learn that the repository can recover financial data and other files that they thought they had deleted prior to transfer.

This report is essential reading for anyone who does hands-on work with electronic records or other types of born-digital cultural heritage materials.