Digital Dixie: Processing Born Digital Materials in the Southern Historical Collection

Archives are increasingly accessioning digital materials as part of collections of personal papers. Proper preservation of these digital items requires archivists to add several new steps to their processing workflow. This paper discusses the steps developed to remove digital files from the media on which they are housed in the Southern Historical Collection of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Wilson Library. The paper is divided into three major sections. The first section examines literature related to digital archaeology, computer forensics and digital preservation. The second section describes the Southern Historical Collection, its technological environment and the process of developing a workflow. The paper concludes with a discussion of lessons learned from the project, unresolved issues and potential solutions