Born-Digital Archives Tool Kit

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Phase 1: Pre-Donation Discussion Points

Determine if the institution is the right fit for the collection.

What is the primary content of the donation?

Determine how the files are stored and the types of files being donated.

What is the estimated total volume of the donation?

What are the expectations for how the files will be presented or made available for research after donation?

If reformatting is important to the project, are there time expectations for how quickly a project should be completed? Rapid reformatting or outsourcing may require additional financial support.

Confirm files will not be returned to the donor.

Discuss any possible plans for financial support.

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Phase 2: Access and Deed of Gift Discussion Points

Review deed of gift and the born-digital addendum.

Reinforce whether the donor expects their device to be returned by completing appropriate area of the deed of gift.

Answer questions regarding copyright and alignment between donor expectations and any limitations by the host institution.

If needed, would the donor be interested in contributing to or enhancing collection metadata?

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Phase 3: Post-Donation Follow-Up

Inform donor when reformatting or transfer of their collection is complete.

Ensure physical property is returned to the donor, if applicable.

Share completed collection information with the donor.

Determine whether or how additional accessions are expected in the future.

Phase 1: Pre-Donation Discussion Points

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Public-Facing Checklist

Departmental Outcomes

Determine if the institution is the right fit for the collection.

Ensure the content of the donation supports the institution’s strategic collecting areas and that the institution has the appropriate budget, storage, and staffing to process the collection to the satisfaction of the donor.

What is the primary content of the donation?

This point allows the archivist to discuss and consider copyright with the donor. Ensure that the donor is the copyright holder, or that the institution has a vested interest in obtaining permissions to share the files in an open access repository. This is a good time to also verify that the content of the files has been reviewed and fit the same collection standards used by the physical archives.

Determine how the files are stored and the types of files being donated.

Ensure the institution can read and copy the files, if the file types are current, or if the media types need reformatting. Consider the age of the files and devices to determine if forward migration or emulation may be needed to recover the content. Is the institution committed to outsourcing materials for physical media that cannot be reformatted in house? At this stage, it is also valuable to learn if the donor has used any file management techniques, or if the files have not been organized. Encrypted or password protected files will not be copied and should be unencrypted by the donor prior to donation.

What is the estimated total volume of the donation?

Work with the donor to determine the size of the donation in terabytes. If the donor is unable to assess this, the archivist could ask about the number of disks, drives, CDs, or other devices to judge the scope of the donation. Weigh those amounts in time considerations for processing, local storage for managing files, the ability of the repository to host those files, and the costs for long-term preservation storage.

What are the expectations for how the files will be presented or made available for research after donation?

What are the donor’s expectations for how the files will be stored, reformatted, and used? Only in extremely rare cases are files maintained at a 1:1 basis or emulated in their original format. Rather, files will need to be curated and weeded. If the donor expects the maintenance of some form of original order, determine if the institution be able to accommodate those requests. This is also an appropriate time to discuss plans for any digital exhibits or anticipated classroom use of the collection. The digital collections team should be made aware of any deadlines related to exhibiting or instruction.

If reformatting is important to the project, are there time expectations for how quickly a project should be completed? Rapid reformatting or outsourcing may require additional financial support.

Discuss costs of reformatting and/or outsourcing with the donor. The archivist should be aware in advance if their department has available funding and capacity to take on new projects. If not, it is recommended that the archivist consider working with their local Foundation office, or similar.

Confirm files will not be returned to the donor.

Discuss with the donor files that are likely to be preserved in the archives or posted online. If files are not a good fit for the collections, such as the donation of personal papers like tax records, the institution will not return digital files to the donor and destroy them in line with their best practices. Hard drives may be returned at the request of the donor, if selected in the deed of gift. This is outlined in the deed of gift language. Institutions may need to redact files to protect privacy or for other reasons in line with best practices and policies. The donor should keep their own copy of the materials if they will need them in the future.

Discuss any possible plans for financial support.

Once the timeline and expectations for the collection are determined, discuss with the donor if they’d like or need to provide a financial contribution to support their collection. Depending on the capacity of the institution, this may or may not be necessary to meet the needs of the donor.

Phase 2: Access and Deed of Gift Discussion Points

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Public-Facing Checklist

Departmental Outcomes

Review deed of gift and the born-digital addendum.

Go over all sections of the deed of gift with the donor. An MOU is not a substitute for a deed of gift as it is not a binding agreement over the ownership of the files. An MOU may be used to lay out expectations for workflows. An MOU is also an option when policy prohibits the signing of a deed of gift, such as an internal records transfer between departments.

Reinforce whether the donor expects their device to be returned by completing appropriate area of the deed of gift.

Be sure that the donor has signed the appropriate box and that both the archivist and the digital collections team knows what to do with any physical storage used to migrate the donation.

Answer questions regarding copyright and alignment between donor expectations and any limitations by the host institution.

While navigating the copyright sections of the deed of gift, ensure that the donor understands differences between their intellectual property and that of other potential copyright holders within their donated materials. Explain that additional permissions may need to be pursued for online dissemination and that if permissions are not possible, certain items may not be accepted into the repository if those fall outside of the public domain or are otherwise protected. Work with the donor to determine if they’d like to establish a Creative Commons license on materials for which they are the rights holder.

If needed, would the donor be interested in contributing to or enhancing collection metadata?

Collections may benefit from additional metadata provided by the donor. Some donors may wish to develop a relationship with the archivist or digital collections unit to provide enriched details to make their collection more discoverable. Inform the donor if the institution plans to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) enhanced tools to support metadata generation.

Phase 3: Post-Donation Follow-Up

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Public-Facing Checklist

Departmental Outcomes

Inform donor when reformatting or transfer of their collection is complete.

Communicate with the donor when their materials have been migrated into the secure digital archive. Inform the donor if there are any issues or files that cannot be transferred and collaborate on any plans. If the donor wishes to access the digital files before publication, make an arrangement that suits the capacity of the institution to do so.

Ensure physical property is returned to the donor, if applicable.

If donor requested the return of physical media or storage devices, such as a hard drive, ensure that material is returned according to an agreed upon timetable. If an archival collection is associated with born digital material, ensure that the custodial history is recorded on the finding aid. If the donor does not request return of their device, dispose of the hard drive in accordance with your institution’s technology disposal practices.

Share completed collection information with the donor.

Once a collection is uploaded to the institutional repository, communicate this information with the donor, including the sharing of hyperlinks, and answer follow-up questions regarding access. If any materials are not posted online but available for local access, provide guidance to the donor on how to access the materials. If a donor has negotiated information regarding what is weeded from their collection, provide those details at this time.

Determine whether or how additional accessions are expected in the future.

If a collection is accepted on a rolling basis, establish a timeline for the next donation or web scraping. If the donor decides to make additional or recurring deposits to their collection following the initial donation, a new agreement may be needed. The archivist should establish a protocol for moving a new donation forward and whether additional considerations will need to be applied that fall outside the guidelines of the current agreement. Establish a workflow and ensure that transfer protocols and naming conventions are established to mitigate future loss of institutional knowledge.