RECORDS MANAGEMENT AND THE WEB Presented by Jennifer Wright, Archives and Information Management Team and Lynda Schmitz Fuhrig, Electronic Records Division Smithsonian Institution Archives August 6, 2009
RECORDS MANAGEMENTAND THE WEB
Presented by
Jennifer Wright, Archives and Information Management Team
and
Lynda Schmitz Fuhrig, Electronic Records Division
Smithsonian Institution Archives
August 6, 2009
Goals of the presentation
Introduce the role of Smithsonian Institution Archives (SIA) as well as its Records Management Services
Describe the Processes and Plans for Website and Web 2.0 Acquisitions and Preservation
Discuss Plans for Communicating About Websites and Web 2.0 with SIA
Answer Questions
SIA’s mission
Appraise, acquire and preserve records documenting the history and activities of the Institution
Offer a range of reference, research, and records services
Create products and services which promote understanding of the Smithsonian and its history
SIA’s authority – SD 501
“All documents created or received by employees of SI in the course of official business are records of the Institution, and none may be disposed of except in accord [with guidelines] established by the Smithsonian Archives.”
Records management services
Help identify what to keep and what to discard Create records disposition schedules Maintain, preserve, and provide access to records Destroy records according to established schedules
Archives and Information Management (AIM) Team specializes in assessing the long-term value of records. Electronic Records Division (ERD) specializes in transferring electronic records and their long-term preservation and accessibility.
What is a record?
Any official recorded information, regardless of medium or characteristics, created, received, and maintained by a Smithsonian museum, office, or employee
Records may be in paper, electronic, photographic, or audiovisual formats and include: Websites Web 2.0 tools and applications (Facebook, Twitter,
YouTube, SharePoint, etc.) Documentation of websites and their development Web traffic statistics (OCIO is responsible for
permanent record)
Appraising website records
Most SI websites will be appraised as permanent records: Full baseline Notify SIA of significant changes or additions
Some web 2.0 applications will be appraised as permanent records and others will be appraised as temporary: Full baseline of most to document that they existed Content will be appraised for unique research value Determine frequency of captures
Past web archiving procedures• Files transferred from OCIO• HTTrack web crawler• Scripts used to create XHTML
preservation files but very manual and time-consuming
Heritrix
• Archival web crawler• Open source• Java• Developed by Internet Archive, National
Library of Norway and National and University Library of Iceland
WARC
WARC – Web ARChive file format Now international standard – ISO
28500:2009 Extension of the ARC format in use
since 1996 Container format
Next steps
Contact SIA when launching a new or significantly revised website, portion of a website, or web 2.0 Due to the fragility of digital records, it is better
to capture websites when they are created, not when they are retired
Contact SIA when retiring a website in case it has not been previously captured
AIM Team will contact each webmaster during the next year to discuss existing websites and web 2.0
AIM and ERD teams work together Ultimate goal is long-term preservation
of and access to official records whether in non-digital or digital formats
Records are appraised based on their content, not the media
Contacts and resources
Jennifer Wright, Archives and Information Management Team, 202-633-5924, [email protected]
Lynda Schmitz Fuhrig, Electronic Records Division, 202-633-5917, [email protected]
Smithsonian Institution Archives website: http://www.siarchives.si.edu