Born-digital AES and CES publications: Archiving and Preserving the New Stuff Linda Eells & Leslie Delserone

The Problem “…digital information isn’t going to be easy to find…at a stable address in a stable form unless it is held by libraries – and yet, libraries do not hold most of the digital information…important to scholarship. It is out there in the wild, on the Web, not collected or preserved.” -Unsworth and Yu 2003 “The average lifespan of a Web page today is 100 days. This is no way to run a culture.” - Brewster Kahle, Director and Co-Founder, Internet Archive

Born-digital Extension Publications: Future?

The Problem: LINK ROT The percentage of inactive Internet references increased from 3.8% at 3 months to 13% at 27 months after publication Inactive Internet references .com addresses - 46% lost after 27 months .edu (30%)  other (20%) .gov (10%) .org (5%) -Dellavalle et.al  46% of all citations to Web-located sources could not be accessed  HTTP 404 (Page not found) message (61.5%) being the greatest cause of missing citations  Collectively, the missing citations accounted for 22.0% of all citations -Sellitto 2005

SILOS Current content

More SILOS Historical (reborn digital) content National Preservation Program for Agricultural Literature A National Endowment for the Humanities supported project of USAIN (United States Agriculture Information Network) Preserve and provide access to agricultural literature published prior to 1950 Twenty-seven states in first five phases MN – 350 titles, ~3,000 volumes NAL/Land-grant Universities Microfilming Project Early 1980s - microfilmed older Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station, Agricultural Extension Service, and some academic department publications, including both monographs and serials Cornell>1,900 books, 6 journals, >850,000 pages

Key Concepts Phased approach Scalable Compliant with national/international standards Persistent long-term access Secure Openly accessible Collaborative content development Sustainable deposition/description

Born-digital Extension Publications Project In partnership and with strong (and critical) support from University [of Minnesota] Cooperative Extension, the Agriculture Experiment Station, and the College of Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resource Sciences- Collaboratively establish workflows, create policies, determine appropriate standards, and develop the technical infrastructure for a repository of born (and eventually reborn) digital agricultural resources that may be readily scaled to involve other national and international partners (e.g. NAL, eXtension, USAIN, FAO, AgNIC).

Research Proposal Context Evidence to support a born-digital pilot project at a national level

Research Proposal Question What are the best practices for conversion of documents that are available in both print and obsolete digital formats?

Research Proposal Approach Sample of extension publications, available both in print and digitally Conversion from born-digital format or print to archival digital format (pdf) File-to-file conversion vs scan+OCR Description and deposit into the University Digital Conservancy (UDC)

Reality check Recession… “unallotments”… Short-term, EFY funds

Current Pilot Project Conversion Sample Minnesota Extension Service publications Bulletins Fact Sheets Miscellaneous Publications Total of 245 documents

Current Pilot Project Methodology File-to-file conversion Obsolete or non-archival quality publishing formats (e.g., InDesign, Quark, PageMaker) to pdf

Current Pilot Project Preliminary Analyses Evaluate file-to-file conversion based on time, expense, error rates, and ease of workflow Assess time costs versus benefits associated with the application of NAL-T terms to this type of content

Current Pilot Project Staff Conversion and proofing work: Library professional, two students with backgrounds in graphic design Description and UDC deposit: Library professional

Results, Current Pilot Project Fully-converted, proofed, described & uploaded to UDC: 136 Converted files awaiting proofing: 6 Files in process: Files with unresolvable issues: 21 Files without print for comparison: 52

Conclusions, Current Pilot Project If print is available, file-to-file conversion not the most efficient choice Minimal metadata application (NAL-T, abstract) was workable

Conclusions, Current Pilot Project If print is available, file-to-file conversion not the most efficient choice Minimal metadata application (NAL-T, abstract) was workable Preliminary estimate, permanently-lost publications Evidence for greater attention to collecting print

Next Steps Scan + OCR HTML capture? Establish workflow from Extension Service to University Libraries to UDC Establish selection criteria in collaboration with Extension Service staff Still a silo…

References Cornell Historical Literature for Agriculture, available at (18 April 2008). Dellavalle, Robert P. et.al., Going, Going, Gone: Lost Internet References, Science 302 (5646): 787. Eells L Born-Digital Agricultural Resources: Archives and Issues. Quarterly Bulletin of IAALD, 52(3/4). Gwinn, Nancy, A National Preservation Program for Agricultural Literature, U.S. Agricultural Information Network. Heatley R Plan to Develop a Digital Information Infrastructure to Manage Land Grant Information. Available at (5 February 2008). Sellitto, Carmine The impact of impermanent Web-located citations: A study of 123 scholarly conference publications, Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 56(7): Unsworth, John and Pauline Yu. 2003, Not-so-Modest Proposals: What do we want our system of scholarly communication to look like in 2010? CIC Summit on Scholarly Communication, Chicago, December 2, Available at (18 April 2008). USAIN Task Force Making the Case for a Next-Generation Digital Information System to Ensure America’s Leadership in Agricultural Sciences in the 21st Century. Available at (1 May 2008). Weiss, Rick Electronic Archivists Are Playing Catch-Up in Trying to Keep Documents From Landing in History's Dustbin, Washington Post, November 24, 2003, A08.