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For many years, the librarians at University of Wyoming’s George William Hopper Law Library fielded questions about the history of the law school and alumni. Unfortunately, no one collection of institutional historical documents was available to search for relevant answers. The result was a decision to collect historic materials in a digital archive to make them available to anyone in the law school who might field such inquiries and to preserve them for future interest. The purpose of this case study is to provide a blueprint for building a digital archives from the ground up.

The digital archive began with print-born historical documents, scanned as preservation copies and entered into a database of images and files to which searchable metadata could be added. In addition to historical materials, it was important to collect the materials that the law school and the law library were producing. Therefore, the project was twofold: collect, preserve and make searchable the printed historic materials in a digital environment and harvest, preserve and make searchable print-born and digital-born materials as part of an ongoing process. To do this, appropriate software had to be identified.

The following steps blueprint the building of an archive on a digital platform: establish the site’s internet address, title and description; select a look and feel template and personalize the archive; create collections; identify Dublin Core preferences; add items and files using controlled vocabulary; experiment with any available plugins; and promote and provide access to the archive.

The digital archives project initiated by the library has led to other initiatives and opportunities for service.

This paper aims to set out a coherent intellectual framework to help to better understand how people create, organise, manage, use and dispose of their personal digital archives. The context for this is the increasing volume and diversity of digital information objects being captured and stored by individuals in their personal capacities and the need to find ways to preserve this material for posterity.

The research presented here is based on literature analysis, the questions having been informed by an earlier series of in‐depth interviews. The approach taken is to synthesise key concepts from the computer science, information management, and archives and records management literatures. Key concepts from the existing literature in computer science, information management, and archives and records management were elicited and synthesised to create a coherent document lifecycle narrative.

Individuals exhibit great diversity in terms of personal information management and digital archiving practice at just about every point in the digital information cycle: much more so than is the case in formal repositories. Practices exhibited are not always conducive to efficient document management. This represents a very keen challenge for professional curatorial practice.

Little is known about how individuals manage digital information resources in their personal capacity, outside of their corporate or institutional employment. Yet both individuals on their own and professional curators on behalf of repositories are increasingly being faced with the challenge of how to deal with digital media. It is hoped that this paper will contribute to a growing debate in this area.

Personal information management from the perspective of personal digital archives is a surprisingly under‐researched area and the proposed model adopts an archival information lifecycle approach. It seeks to apply and promote an archivally‐oriented personal information management.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the archives management practices and needs of corporations that do not employ professional archivists and propose strategies for helping corporations manage and preserve their archives.

An online survey was distributed to non-profit and for-profit corporations located in the XX area, USA.

The majority of surveyed corporations did not have archivists on staff and were not satisfied with their archives management practices. Many of them have unaddressed archives management needs and preferred no-cost or low-cost approaches to address those needs. Most surveyed corporations had digital archives but lacked knowledge about digital archiving. Free archiving resources and services provided by libraries/archives were dramatically less well known than commercial archiving resources and services.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is one of the very few empirical studies on corporate archives not under professional control. Findings from this study inspired thoughts on how archival education programs, professional associations, cultural heritage organizations and other relevant parties could help corporations better manage and preserve their archives.

The digitalization of archival management has rapidly developed with the maturation of digital technology. With data's exponential growth, archival resources have transitioned from single modalities, such as text, images, audio and video, to integrated multimodal forms. This paper identifies key trends, gaps and areas of focus in the field. Furthermore, it proposes a theoretical organizational framework based on deep learning to address the challenges of managing archives in the era of big data.

Via a comprehensive systematic literature review, the authors investigate the field of multimodal archive resource organization and the application of deep learning techniques in archive organization. A systematic search and filtering process is conducted to identify relevant articles, which are then summarized, discussed and analyzed to provide a comprehensive understanding of existing literature.

The authors' findings reveal that most research on multimodal archive resources predominantly focuses on aspects related to storage, management and retrieval. Furthermore, the utilization of deep learning techniques in image archive retrieval is increasing, highlighting their potential for enhancing image archive organization practices; however, practical research and implementation remain scarce. The review also underscores gaps in the literature, emphasizing the need for more practical case studies and the application of theoretical concepts in real-world scenarios. In response to these insights, the authors' study proposes an innovative deep learning-based organizational framework. This proposed framework is designed to navigate the complexities inherent in managing multimodal archive resources, representing a significant stride toward more efficient and effective archival practices.

This study comprehensively reviews the existing literature on multimodal archive resources organization. Additionally, a theoretical organizational framework based on deep learning is proposed, offering a novel perspective and solution for further advancements in the field. These insights contribute theoretically and practically, providing valuable knowledge for researchers, practitioners and archivists involved in organizing multimodal archive resources.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the role of linguistic legacy materials within archives and databases. These data of past documentation projects are currently playing a minor role in the design of modern language archives. This is due to various challenges that legacy materials pose – ethical considerations, difficulties with formats, unclear or deficient metadata. Tackling these challenges can highlight general issues in language documentation and the use of language data. These insights can be used to inform the design of tools and infrastructures for data in this field, both recent and legacy materials.

This paper is conceptual and theorises digital language archives through their oldest deposits. It is informed by the author’s experiences in working with linguistic legacy materials of the South Estonian Kraasna dialect. The discussion makes references to relevant discourses in linguistics, archiving and computer science, encouraging transdisciplinary efforts in the design of language archives.

A digital archive created around linguistic legacy materials has the potential to respond to challenges posed by current data.

This paper discusses digital language archives from the perspective of documentary linguistics. It introduces the challenges and necessary steps in curating legacy materials. Several suggestions for the design of digital archives arise from this discussion. These ideas can inspire creators of digital language archives and provide a view from researchers using legacy materials.

This paper aims to focus on a highly significant yet under-recognised concern: the huge growth in the volume of digital archival information and the implications of this shift for information professionals.

Though data loss and format obsolescence are often considered to be the major threats to digital records, the problem of scale remains under-acknowledged. This paper discusses this issue, and the challenges it brings using a case study of a set of Second World War service records.

TNA’s research has shown that it is possible to digitise large volumes of records to replace paper originals using rigorous procedures. Consequent benefits included being able to link across large data sets so that further records could be released.

The authors will discuss whether the technical capability, plus space and cost savings will result in increased pressure to retain, and what this means in creating a feedback-loop of volume.

The work also has implications in terms of new definitions of the “original” archival record. There has been much debate on challenges to the definition of the archival record in the shift from paper to born-digital. The authors will discuss where this leaves the digitised “original” record.

Large volumes of digitised and born-digital records are starting to arrive in records and archive stores, and the implications for retention are far wider than simply digital preservation. By sharing novel research into the practical implications of large-scale data retention, this paper showcases potential issues and some approaches to their management.

Building a digital language archive requires a number of steps to ensure collecting, describing, preserving and providing access to language data in effective and efficient ways. The purpose of this paper is to describe how the Computational Resource for South Asian Languages (CoRSAL) group has partnered with the University of North Texas (UNT) Digital Library to build a series of interconnected digital collections that leverage existing UNT technical and metadata infrastructure to provide access to data from and for various language communities.

This paper introduces the reader to the background of this project and discusses some of the areas important for representing language materials where both University of North Texas Libraries (UNTL) metadata and CoRSAL metadata practices were adapted to better fit the needs of intended audiences.

We discuss a workflow for standardized language representation (the Language field), defining roles for persons related to the item (Creator and Contributor fields) and including subject representation for language materials (Subjects and Keywords fields).

Although further work is needed to improve language data representation in the CoRSAL digital language archive, the model adopted by the team and lessons learned could benefit others in the language archiving community.

This paper is a significantly extended version of the presentation made at the 1st International Workshop on Digital Language Archives in 2021.

Digital records appraisal and aspects of archival values in theory, regularization and practice are explored. This paper aims to reflect upon the appraisal process, responsibility and norms for value creation in a digitalized environment. The research question was how do appraisal theory, normative rules and appraisal practice meet the aims of values in digital archives?

The study triangulated appraisal theory, normative values and participants’ views about archival values in appraisal practice in a Swedish setting. Content analysis were used to explore normative documents and interviews. Appraisal theories of the Swedish Nils Nilsson and the Canadian Terry Cook were interpreted. The result was related to theories on public values, the nature of responsibility and relations between the state and citizens.

The results show influences between theory, norms and practice. Changes in norms and practice do not follow the development of digitalization. Responsibility is focused on tasks, which exposes risks of accountability control and knowledge of appraisal grounds. The paper concludes that access requirements and user needs may prompt change in appraisal processes. In the light of digitalization, “primary and secondary value” are merely a matter of use and usability in a time and space (continuum) perspective.

This study is based in Sweden where extensive right of access to public records and default preservation are norm.

The result shows how allocated responsibilities impinge on a re-active digital appraisal process.

This paper scrutinizes the scholarship on community archives' information work. Community archives and archiving projects represent unprecedentedly democratic venues for information work centering on essential documentary concepts such as custody, collection development and appraisal, processing, arrangement and description, organization, representation and naming, collaboration, resource generation and allocation, activism and social justice, preservation, reuse, and sustainability.

Unearthed through databases searches, citation chaining, and browsing, sources examined include peer-reviewed journal articles, books, and book chapters published in the English language between 1985 and 2018.

The literature on community archives’ information work shows considerable geographical (six continents), topical, and (inter)disciplinary variety. This paper first explores scholars' efforts to define both community and community archives. Second, it unpacks the ways in which community archives include new stakeholders and new record types and formats even as they leverage alternative archival principles and practices. Third, it discusses community archives as political venues for empowerment, activism, and social justice work. Fourth, this paper delves into the benefits and challenges of partnerships and collaborations with mainstream institutions. Fifth, it documents the obstacles community archives face: not only tensions within and among communities, but also sustainability concerns. Finally, it sets forth six directions for future research.

This paper is the first systematic review of the community archives literature.