gengenbach-forensic-workflows-2012

Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library
The Yale University Library, Manuscripts and Archives developed from
collections assembled by Yale faculty over the 1950s and 1960s, becoming a fully
established unit of the Library in the late 1960s. 107 Like many other institutions,
Manuscripts and Archives has encountered incoming born-digital content primarily in the
form of “disks in boxes.” 108 To better manage this content, collections within the
umbrella of Yale University Libraries have begun to collaborate on the development of
processes for managing born-digital content in their respective collections. As a result of
this collaboration, the Manuscripts and Archives workflow bears similarities to the
Beinecke Rare Book and Special Collections Library. Differences in the ingest and
provision of access will be highlighted through this description, and in the resulting
workflows, generated as a product of my interview with Digital Archivist Mark
Matienzo.
The majority of the content with which Manuscripts and Archives has been
working comes into the collection in the form of removable media such as floppy and
optical disks, and there is a fairly straightforward workflow developed around acquiring
digital content from these media. Accessioned digital media carriers, when identified by
processing archivists, are individually labeled and associated with the accessioned
collection. Logical and physical metadata about the physical carrier are then collected
prior to the capture of digital objects. This metadata is kept in a separate database called
the Media Log, while the physical carrier is connected to a processing station, using a
write-blocker to prevent any unintentional alteration of the media carrier's content.
107 “About Manuscripts and Archives: Introduction,” Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library
http://www.library.yale.edu/mssa/about_intro.html (accessed July 2012).
108 Interview with Mark Matienzo, conducted on May 10, 2012.
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