Storage Media Prioritisation with Technical and Archival Appraisal

Abstract

This spreadsheet tool is designed to provide archives and libraries a means of prioritizing the order in which data is migrated from physical media carriers and other sources in their collection in need of preservation. It is an adaptation of work from the Archives and Special Collections at the University of Glasgow, who developed a methodology for prioritizing archival processing of digital collections stored in physical storage media.

The original tool (downloadable here: https://researchdata.gla.ac.uk/1634/ ) permits users to calculate a priority score by weighting the following factors: the DPC BitList Endangered Digital Media score, the age of the media, its storage conditions, and the average lifespan of the relevant media. For the University of Kentucky Special Collections Research Center's large reappraisal and inventory project, we made the following changes:

  1. We evenly weighted the BitList score, age of media, and average lifespan of relevant media.
  2. We chose to omit storage conditions as a factor as our physical media had been stored in relatively uniform conditions since their accession.
  3. We added additional archival appraisal facets that assign scores based on a collection's estimated research value and other logistical elements.
  4. We integrated the resulting scores into our inventory process, so users can compare collections as they work.

This tool adds criteria to determine an object's Estimated Archival Research Value (EARV) to allow for more granular prioritization when collection materials are uniformly endangered.

Document Type

Report

Publication Date

2025

Notes/Citation Information

Presented at iPRES 2025 New Zealand. Adapted from the Digital Media Prioritisation tool by Leo Konstantelos and Emma Yan, https://researchdata.gla.ac.uk/1634/ 

This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. To view a copy of this license, visit: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

This document is currently not available here.

Contact Author

Share

COinS