File storage is a lot like a basement closet... Image courtesy of Teemo, Master of Clowning Image courtesy of Life Magazine What happens when it's time to move???

Identification A digital object may belong in MANY potential virtual collections… … but it originated from ONE SINGLE ANALOG collection. Provenance trumps all!  Slavery  African Americans  Sheet Music  Tombigbee River  Southern History  … and more “Gum Tree Canoe,” Published by G.P. Reed (Boston: 1847). Wade Hall collection of Southern History and Culture, Hoole Special Collections, University of Alabama Libraries.

Hierarchical classes approach Holder ID: u0003 Collection ID: Item ID: Sequence ID: 0005 Archival File: u0003_ _ _0005.tif  “Holder” and format type (example: Hoole Special Collections Manuscripts)  Collection within those holdings (example: Gorgas Family Papers)  Numbered item within that collection  Sequence of delivery for pages (and subpages) Concatenated meaningful segments in filename; Same segments mirrored in file structure.

u0003_ _ is the first digitized item in the MSS 1980 collection HOLDER ID COLLECTION ID

Create Clarity: Information at the Applicable Level Holder/Format Collection 1 Collection 2 Collection 3 Documentation Metadata Collection 2 Item 1 Item 2 Item 3 DocumentationMetadata

Dropping the Technical Metadata in… where it belongs Makes METS creation a Piece of Cake! (and redundant!)‏ Is simply: u0003/ / 0001/ The directory for u0003_ _0001.tif

storage area Simple, Clear Hierarchical Organization:  Holder ID  Collection ID  Item ID  Sequence ID

Bringing Content Up to the Level Of the WEB!!! Greater Usability and Access == Longer Life Images … ImageMagick: (it’s free!) Protected archive area u u0003_ _ _0005.tif Thumb, mid-, and large-size derivatives Web accessible area Audio … LAME: OCR … TESSERACT:

ACCESS! Via Acumen (also free!)  XML schema agnostic  No ingest  No metadata modifications  All content easily accessible  Open to search engines