gengenbach-forensic-workflows-2012

keeping. 58
Digital Forensics in Born-Digital Collecting Institutions
The use of digital forensics tools in digital preservation processes developed
through archivists' recognition that digital objects are complex entities with multiple
inheritance; that digital content is both ephemeral and fragile, as well as persistent and
enduring; and that archivists must be able to verify the authenticity of records whether
they are analog or digital. Previous work has focused on identifying potential uses for
digital forensics tools in cultural heritage settings, and created opportunities for further
study in this area.
The Personal ARchives Accessible In Digital Media (Paradigm) project, a
collaboration between the Universities of Oxford and Manchester from 2005-2007,
developed and documented a workbook containing methods for collecting institutions to
acquire, preserve, and provide access to born-digital and hybrid personal collections. 59
Informed by the experiences of project participants at the Bodleian Library at Oxford and
the John Rylands University Library at Manchester, the workbook is divided into sections
focusing on archival functions, as well as special topics of consideration to those working
58 Luciana Duranti, “From Digital Diplomatics to Digital Records Forensics.” Archivaria 68 (2009), 39-66,
http://journals.sfu.ca/archivar/index.php/archivaria/article/viewArticle/13229 (accessed July 2012).
Other notable contributions include Charles T. Cullen, Peter B. Hirtle, David Levy, Clifford A. Lynch,
and Jeff Rothenberg, Authenticity in a Digital Environment (Washington, D.C.: Council on Library and
Information Resources, 2000), http://www.clir.org/pubs/abstract//reports/pub92 (accessed August 2012);
and Michael Forstrom, “Managing Electronic Records in Manuscript Collections: A Case Study from
the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library,” American Archivist 72 (Fall/Winter 2009), 460-477,
http://archivists.metapress.com/content/b82533tvr7713471/fulltext.pdf (accessed July 2012).
59 Susan Thomas and Janette Martin, “Using the papers of contemporary British politicians as a testbed for
the preservation of digital personal archives,” Journal of the Society of Archivists 27, no. 1 (April 2006),
29, http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/7893/ (accessed July 2012).
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