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Learning to Say ‘No’:
Strategic Considerations for
Archives in the Digital World
Dr Jennifer Edmond
Trinity College Dublin and Project CENDARI APEX Conference, June 2013
CENDARI is funded by the European Union under the 7th
Strategy is not an aspiration (“our strategy is to
be number one”)
Strategy is not an action (“our strategy is to
seek funding”)
Strategy is not the aspects of operations that
are important (proliferation of strategies)
Strategy is not what you have done in the past
Michael Porter, presentation to HBS
Not ‘to win’
Not ‘to capture pieces’
No ‘knight strategy’
Not ‘to be good’
The continuous and collective exercise of
foresight in the integrated process of taking
informed decisions affecting the future
(Lockwood and Davies, 1985)
Strategy is an integrated set of choices: what is
our winning aspiration; where will we play; how
will we win; what capabilities need to be in
place; what management systems need to be
instituted?
Roger Martin
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Do I have a strategy?
Can you map your unique assets
to the opportunities in your
environment?
(but also…)
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Do I have a strategy?
What is the reason you didn’t
do what you didn’t do?
Strategy One: NARA will gather and make available on the web archival materials that we have already digitized in the course of performing our agency functions, but for one reason or another are not available online.
Strategy Two; NARA will establish partnerships with organizations from a variety of sectors (private, public, non-profit, educational, Government) to digitize and make available holdings.
Strategy Three: NARA will conduct digitizing projects on its own with materials that are not appropriate for partnerships.
Strategy Four: NARA will pursue digitization of archival materials as part of its preservation reformatting approach.
Strategy Five: We will continue to make our online catalog (currently the Archival Research Catalog, ARC) a hub for discovering NARA's digital images
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NARA Digitising Objectives
Provide online access to an increased number of our holdings.
Enhance preservation of records by reducing wear and tear on the originals for reference and reproduction. While digitizing for access has some preservation benefits, it is not the same as preservation digitizing. We will not destroy or de-accession any originals that are digitized for access.
Provide access to those materials that can no longer be accessed in their
original format.
Enhance users' understanding of records authenticity and archival context
(e.g., who created the records; why were they created; how were they used).
Use resources effectively. For example, original records that have been digitized may be relocated to less expensive archival storage locations.
Partnerships, where the partner provides resources for digitizing, would expand the scale of digitizing beyond what NARA itself can do.
Improve our service to customers consistent with their evolving expectations and with consideration of NARA's available resources and customers'
willingness to pay for value-added or convenience services.
•
Goal 1: digital assets
Provide unparalleled access to Smithsonian collections,
research, and programs by creating, managing, and
promoting the Institution’s digital assets.
•
Goal 2: digitization program
To pursue its mission in the 21st century, integrate
digitization into the core functions of the Smithsonian.
•
Goal 3: organizational capacity
Through novel, innovative approaches, secure sufficient
resources and build capacity to create and sustain a
digital Smithsonian.
Smithsonian Institution Digitization
Strategic Plan
• Content priorities We will work in partnership with academic staff to ensure our priorities for digitising content are aligned to the research and teaching objectives of the University.
• Communication and awareness: We will communicate the
digitisation strategy to stakeholders using a variety of methods, and develop a marketing strategy for our digitised collections.
• Funding and resources: We will develop an infrastructure and governance to support digitisation workflows.
• Access: We will move towards a more seamless interface for discovering and accessing digitised content and make digitised content visible and easy to navigate via the website.
• Sustainability: We will aim to improve the skills gaps of
academic staff/students through improved training and online resources
University of Manchester Library
“Strategic Principles” for Digitisation
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WHY IS STRATEGY SO
HARD?
You can have it GOOD!
You can have it CHEAP!
You can have it FAST!
(pick two)
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CENDARI’s “Strategy”
Pilot
a digital research infrastructure for
historians** that is easy
to use and
essential
to their research goals,
leveraging
extant analogue networks to
enhance
usability of digital resources
** Two Pilot Areas
• World War I
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CENDARI’s “Strategy”
Pilot
a digital research infrastructure for
historians** that is
easy
to use and
essential
to their research goals,
leveraging
extant analogue networks to
enhance
usability of digital resources
(but not
create
new resource content
unless maybe it’s a critical finding aid!)
Why?
Why?
What?
What?
Who?
Who?
How?
How?
Where?
Where?
When?
When?
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Define Audiences
WHY?
WHY?
Imagine four possibilities
- Preservation only
- To serve a particular set of users
- To please funders
- Because you think you should
What leads/follows? What is the
incremental cost benefit of additional
foci?
STEEP
Sociological Factors (immigration, ageing)
Technological Factors (collaboration,
development)
Environmental Factors (legislation, pressure)
Economic Factors (‘markets’ for research)
Political Factors (funding, EU expansion,
government policies)
Assessing Impact
(Audiences of the future?)
WHY?
WHY?
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Inform the Decision
WHAT?
WHAT?
- What is available? (eg. what are
the opportunities located in that
‘top-down’ sphere?)
- Technologies
- Standards
- File Formats
- Beware of “Success” stories
- Be aware of the commitment
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Digital objects ‘aren’t just for Christmas’
Content selection
Content preparation (eg preservation, location, pulling,
refiling)
Basic descriptive and technical metadata collection
Creation of digital surrogate
Quality control of digital copies and metadata
Making publicly accessible (internally, online or wider?)
Maintenance of digital copies and metadata
Migration of digital objects into new formats and systems
Integration of digital objects with emergent aggregators/
portals
etc etc…
- Can meet their own goals
outreach? efficiency?
- Exercise in Focus
- Selection process:
time? place? event? user?
opportunity?
- How far to go? What is the end
goal?
- Images? Metadata? Transcription?
Start Small: Pilot Projects
What do your people cost?
How specialised are they?
How big is the project?
What might be the long term
benefits (if any) and short
term costs?
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WHO?
A core element of many digitisation
strategies (funding/audiences)
Double edged
- knowledge partners (APEX)
- technology partners (EF - EDM)
- audience partners (CENDARI)
- content partners
- corporate partners
- funding partners (eg cross
border)
WHO?
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HOW?
Giving Access Means…
- Free versus paid use?
- Licensing?
- All or some?
- Content or metadata?
- Exclusivity (critical in some
partnerships)
