Born Digital Materials

On this page

1. Born Digital Materials
   1. Introduction
   2. Characteristics of Born Digital Materials
   3. Working with Donors to Acquire Materials
   4. Preferred File Formats

Introduction

According to the Society of American Archivists Dictionary of Archives Terminology, born digital materials can be described as materials that “originat[ed] in a computer environment.” Born digital materials can be on many formats, including: CDs, DVDs, hard drives, flash drives, memory cards, and Zip disks, among others.

As noted on the born digital definition page, it is important to note that “Born digital information is distinguished from digitized, the latter describing a document created on paper that has been scanned (and possibly transformed into character data using OCR). A document created using a word processor may be described as born digital.” Digitized materials also include analog audio and video formats that have been converted into a digital format.

This manual concerns both types of materials, and understanding the distinction is critical to effective resource allocation in a resource restricted environment. This section exclusively concerns born digital rather than digitized materials, however, this section should be used for digital files created during digitization of items for loan or items damaged so severely that they cannot be re-digitized.

A Born Digital Processing Checklist is used to guide the overall actions taken when processing born digital collections.

Characteristics of Born Digital Materials

Born digital materials, due to their inherent complexity, technical dependencies, volume, and variety, require different treatment than traditional physical archival materials. In the context of the WVRHC, these materials may include digital photographs, digital documents, audio and video files, mobile communications, e-mail, harvested web and social media content, data sets, and more.

Unlike many analog materials which may be fine after more than a decade of storage in good environmental conditions, digital materials require early intervention to minimize loss of information and context. It is critical that the individuals who care for these collections work to ensure the authenticity, preservation, and availability of the born digital materials in the long term by preventing damage and deterioration; reversing damage where possible; and mitigating the risks of media, hardware, and software obsolescence.

Working with Donors to Acquire Materials

Whenever possible, the individual coordinating a donation should discuss born digital materials with the prospective donor and conduct a survey to learn about the computing environment and coordinate a method of transfer of born digital materials to the repository.

Questions to aid in this discussion may be found in the Digital Materials Donor Survey, which contains forms related to digital archives work. This should be saved to the Z: drive folder for the collection or accession within the Administration folder. The questions are based on the AIMS Donor Survey in Appendix F of “Born Digital Collections: An Inter-Institutional Model for Stewardship” white paper and the “AIMS Digital Material Survey – Personal Digital Archives” poster presented at the Society of American Archivists research forum.

Please note that this form is intended primarily for significant born digital material donations in which the donor works extensively to create content in a digital environment. If a donor is intending to donate a few CDs, DVDs, memory cards, floppy disks, or similar material, this form may not be needed.

Guidance for small transfers of born digital materials via email or OneDrive (or similar service) can be found in the Donor Guidance section of the Imaging and Born Digital Content Acquisition Procedures.

Preferred File Formats

Donors may request information about preferred file formats for materials they are considering donating to the WVRHC. The following file format guidance outlines the preferred and acceptable formats for donors, though materials will be accepted in any format and converted upon receipt to the relevant preferred format if necessary, as in the case of proprietary file formats. Some materials in non-preferred formats may have information lost in the conversion process to a preferred format. All efforts to identify file format normalization paths that minimize information loss will be taken.

Table of contents

• Accessioning
• Appraisal
• Processing
• Description
• Access
• Management and Preservation
• Imaging and Born Digital Content Acquisition