October 6th is Digital Archives Day! Now what is that? The Day of Digital Archives (DoDA)is an initiative to raise awareness of digital archives. On this day, archivists or anyone else creating, using, or managing digital archives are asked to devote some of their social media output to describing their work with digital archives. There is a blog dedicated to this day!
So here goes…what is going on in the Viatorian Community Archives regarding digital archives?
1st: there are digitization projects and
2nd: digital or electronic archives management
Both involve collection access and preservation!
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| First page of the oldest college newspaper in the collection |
Current Digitization Projects:
1) scanning the newspapers of St. Viator College in Bourbonnais, IL (1868-1938) – on-going project for future web access by researchers
2) scanning the sacramental record books from St. Francis Xavier Parish, Corozal Town, Belize – on-going project to help preserve the content of these very fragile books dating back to 1848
3) scanning photographs on an as needed basis for various internal projects
4) scanning CSV publications and historical documents to be shared on the Viatorians Community Access page
Digital Archives Management:
1) utilizing Archon to describe the archival collections – slowly building the system for future web access by researchers
2) initial stages of assessing electronic records management needs to capture born digital records such as e-mail and other documentation created in the course of day to day business activities in the Province Center administrative offices – for easy access, managing disposition and long-term preservation
So that’s what’s going on here – let me know if you have any other ideas or suggestions for future digital projects!!
Thanks,
Joan