Flexible processing and diverse collections: a tiered approach to delivering born digital archives

Abstract

In the past year, the Digital Archives unit at Emory University’s Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library has been keen to develop workflows for processing born digital material that can flex in response to a collection’s limitations without obscuring its salient characteristics. In order to achieve this, we have developed two sets of criteria by which to assess unprocessed material. The first determines the level of researcher access (for example, use of emulation, access to migrated files, online access, etc.) best suited to the collection, while a second and directly related set uses a tiered approach to determine the collection’s processing level. The impetus for this work was a need for policies that adapt to born digital collections that vary widely in size, scope and technical requirements, and that deliver accessible born digital collections arranged and described according to their own significant properties. This article focuses on the integration of these policies into our processing workflows and the resulting processed collections.

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