Applying Archival Science to Digital Curation: Advocacy for the Archivist’s Role in Implementing and Managing Trusted Digital Repositories

Archivists have led digital preservation efforts for as long as there have been digital records, as a natural extension of archival responsibilities to collect, preserve, and provide ongoing access to unique information of enduring value. Increasingly, librarians and information professionals are also focusing attention and resources on these initiatives. Examples include data curation, establishment of institutional repositories, and providing virtual work spaces for researchers to collaborate and archive their scholarly output. Information professionals are relying upon standards such as ISO 16363 for certification of trustworthy digital repositories, to facilitate successful digital preservation and access. Unfortunately, archivists are sometimes forgotten in an institution’s digital curation efforts. If archivists allow their exclusion from stewardship of these types of unique digital materials, future archival collections will suffer. Archivists need successful communication strategies to convince stakeholders of the expertise they bring to digital curation. This poster can serve as one piece in the archivist’s overall communication toolkit. It provides a crosswalk from traditional archival practices to criteria in the ISO 16363 Standard for Trusted Digital Repositories. Archivists interested in assuming active roles in digital curation will find this information valuable in justifying their involvement to stakeholders