2016 Alliance Summer Meeting Alliance Professional Development Award: Building Capacity for Addressing Electronic Records Through Training and Networking 2016 Alliance Summer Meeting Elizabeth Nielsen, Oregon State University

What Are Electronic Records and Why Should We Care?

What are Electronic Records? For the purposes of this discussion, they are NOT: E-journals E-books Other “mass produced” or “published” materials What they are: Unique materials created in electronic format that are analogous to the paper records that are a part of archival and manuscript collections. May be textual documents, images, audiovisual materials, databases, or geographic information systems.

Why Should We Care? While great strides have been made … many repositories still lack expertise, technical infrastructure, and well-developed policies and procedures [to address electronic records]– but that must not present archives from acquiring digital surrogates or born digital materials. There will be trial and error. There will be loss, some of it perhaps irrecoverable. Ultimately, however, archives will build capacity to selectively preserve and steward digital materials, because they must. Otherwise, humankind will completely lose the decades of history during which its cultural heritage was created in a digital environment. -- Shein and Lapworth (2016)

The Award Process Application submitted in Fall 2015 for $2000. $1000 was awarded to support 10 $100 registration subsidies for staff of Alliance member libraries. Applications were solicited in December and reviewed by project leader (me), CCD Program Manager, and CCD Team Chair. Eight individuals from 6 Alliance member libraries were selected to receive subsidies.

Who Received Subsidies? Steven Bingo -- Washington State University Erin Clark -- Oregon State University Nathan Georgitis -- University of Oregon (for 2 workshops) Blake Galbreath -- Eastern Oregon University Ann Lally -- University of Washington Jennifer O’Neal – University of Oregon Rachel Thomas – George Fox University (for 2 workshops)

Other Alliance member libraries participated! Oregon Health and Science University Portland State University Reed College Southern Oregon University Western Oregon University Willamette University PLUS … 3 Archives and Manuscripts Program members Montana Historical Society Montana State University City of Seattle

Workshops were Full! Appraisal of Electronic Records – January 15 ** 26 attendees ** Accessioning and Ingest of Electronic Records – March 31 ** 28 attendees ** Providing Access to Digital Archives – April 1 ** 31 attendees **

We Achieved Our Goals Provide rigorous and in-depth training on electronic records Build capacity within the Alliance (and the region) to address electronic records Encourage networking and collaboration among staff of Alliance libraries and with others in the region

Primary Themes (for me) Same archival principles apply. Policies and procedures are essential. Talk with donors and transferring units early and often. No single solution. Just do something!

Reflections from Workshop Participants The … Award helped me make the jump into electronic records management. I … am now approaching this area of practice with much greater confidence and understanding. For a small institution such as mine, hiring a digital archivist or a digital archives consultant to get our digital archival program started is not possible.  This award enabled me to gain the skills I needed to start the program myself, preserving a valuable history that may otherwise have been lost. The workshops I attended were so helpful to me.  I was able to go back to my institution and begin wrangling a workflow for our incoming born digital items.

Thank you! … to the Alliance for supporting this professional development … to the recipients of the registration subsidies … to all participants in the workshops.

Elizabeth Nielsen Special Collections and Archives Research Center Oregon State University Libraries and Press elizabeth.nielsen@oregonstate.edu