Save unique, at-risk digital content

The UCLA Library, an active member of the OCLC Research Library Partnership, is often on the cusp of innovation, and providing access to born-digital manuscripts is just the latest example. "This is one of our top strategic goals, and the significance of author Susan Sontag's email collection gave our efforts a big boost," explains Tom Hyry, UCLA Director of Library Special Collections. Curators now consider the issues associated with born-digital content as they negotiate new acquisitions.

The lifecycle of managing born-digital materials is a familiar one—acquisition, ingest, processing, metadata, preservation, delivery—yet the specialized technical skills, hardware, software and preservation needs are new and daunting.

The OCLC Research report You've Got to Walk Before You Can Run: First Steps for Managing Born-Digital Content Received on Physical Media inspired the "Jump In" initiative of the Society of American Archivists, in which dozens of archives followed the report's guidance for inventorying physical computer media. The UCLA Library participated in order to understand its backlogs while continuing to focus primary attention on new acquisitions.

Archivist Gloria Gonzalez (pictured at right) located a wide variety of at-risk media in 42 collections, including punched cards, magnetic tape, floppy disks, CDs, DVDs, Zip drives and hard drives. She then undertook the complex task of setting up a digital forensics workstation, which enabled her to process the Sontag email. Researchers can now study it in the special collections reading room—and the authorized Sontag biographer was the first one eager to do so.