No Time to Waste: Moving the Pawlenty Digital Records from Appraisal to MPLP Online Access

Session 205: Share a Byte! A Practical, Collaborative Approach to Electronic Records in Modern Political Collections

August 9, 2012

Background•A retention schedule was established during the Ventura administration

•The Pawlenty administration was aware of the types of materials they needed to keep for the Minnesota Historical Society

•Pawlenty would not be seeking a third term as Governor of Minnesota and was instead thinking of a 2012 Presidential run

Working quickly• The Governor’s office

contacted MHS close to the end of Pawlenty’s second term and an in-person meeting followed shortly

• MHS received the records at the end of 2010

• MHS compared electronic records with what was promised and got another set of records that had been missing

Timeline• Late November/early December: The Governor’s

office contacted MHS• Early December: In-person meeting• Late December: Records, both paper and electronic

delivered• January-February: Back-up copies of born-digital files

created• February: Born-digital files given to Collections

Cataloger• Late February: Photographs collection completely

cataloged• Early March: Sound Recordings collection

completely cataloged• May: Pawlenty announces presidential bid

Image files

•Photographs transferred on two DVD-R discs, one for Governor Pawlenty and the other for First Lady Mary Pawlenty

•1,740 files, mostly JPEG, but also TIFF, PDF, and BMP

•Each disc contained 9 folders•The image filenames ranged from

descriptive to vague, and they did not follow any standard convention

Differences in file naming

Governor Pawlenty files

First Lady Mary Pawlenty files

The sound and video files• Files transferred on DVDs and

CDs as well as harvested from the Governor’s website

• 410 files, mostly MP3 and WAV, but also CDA and a single MP4 file

• Some discs contained numerous files, some contained a single file

• Files names were inconsistently applied, but most contained some level of description

Backing up the born-digital files

•Born-digital files were copied from discs to secure server

•A second set was copied from the first set and sent to Collections Cataloger for processing, cataloging, and for web use

•A third set of thumbnails were created from the second set for the image files only

Managing the born-digital files

•Master files stored on a SAN unit managed by the Enterprise Technology department

•Enterprise Technology manages backups

•Intellectual control of the born-digital files is managed by the Digital Archivist

•Preservation framework is continuing to

be developed

How to process the files• The original folder structures, file

types, and filenames were kept completely intact for the digital images and mostly intact for the sound files

• The series within the finding aids mirrored the arrangement of the files as we received them

• The sound files for the Conference Calls had to be renamed “CallMMDDYYYY” because many were saved with the same name

View of series and subseries

Views of folder structures

First level of folders

Second level of folders

File level

Minimal processing• Did not alter titles unless absolutely necessary

• Didn’t create a set of preservation masters

• No extra metadata was added to the files

• No additional research was conducted for files with non-descriptive or undated filenames

• Created the finding aid using a simple template and extracting filenames from folders into a .csv file

• Item-level description in the finding aid was easy

How to make them accessible• Initial debate regarding how

best to make them available

• Due to potential national exposure, wanted them made available from anywhere with an internet connection

• Didn’t want them hiding in a database

• Decision was made to simply make use a finding aid with item-level description

Description of the sound recordings finding aid

•Contains a mix of born-digital files with physical cassettes and cds

•Display is simple and uncluttered

•Each born-digital file is linked in a <physloc> field in the EAD-encoded finding aid so users can easily download the file

•File sizes are included so users can gauge download time

Finding aid screenshot

Description of photographs finding aid

•Simple display that includes a thumbnail illustration for each photograph

•Amount of description varies depending on information provided with each file

• Images are coded in <dao> (digital archival object) fields in the EAD-encoded finding aid

•File sizes included

Finding aid screenshot

Part I conclusion•Collaboration was key throughout the process,

both the external/internal collaboration, as well as interdepartmental collaboration▫Communicate which born-digital materials you’re

expecting and preferred formats▫Ask for inventories from the donating institution

to compare with the actual files▫Emphasize how you want the files delivered▫Know how files will be managed and who is

responsible for which tasks•Use already-existing platforms for public access•No correct way to process a born-digital

collection

Part II – Revisiting born-digital records

•Easy to overlook born-digital records before procedures established

•Collection was revisited to extract and describe files that had previously been on four discs

•Collaboration was key throughout the process as members from various departments established a plan

Treatment of the files•Pawlenty files were used as a model and

contents were copied from the discs onto a secure server

•Physical discs were removed permanently from this collection

•Born-digital files moved to server space

•Dilemma with whether or not to create .csv copies for long term preservation

Processing the files• Finding aid was similar to the Pawlenty finding aid

• Nature of the file types and sheer number of files (.shp, .shx, .cdf etc) caused us to rethink linking to individual files

• Despite specific file types, we left it to the user to be responsible for having the proper software

• Decision was to convert the files to .zip files for each of the 7 directories to make it easier for users to download

• Adherence to MPLP principles during processing

Finding aid screenshot

Finding aids•Governor Tim Pawlenty. Sound and video

recordings: http://www.mnhs.org/library/findaids/gr00226.xml

•Governor Tim Pawlenty. Governor's Office photographs: http://www.mnhs.org/library/findaids/gr00213.xml

•Governor's Citizen Advisory Commission on Redistricting. Records: http://www.mnhs.org/library/findaids/gr00558.xml