March 2021 – NDSA Blog

Good Migrations: A Checklist for Migrating Your Digital Preservation Infrastructure

My, how time flies. About half a decade ago, in 2015, I became one of the NDSA Infrastructure Interest Group co-chairs. This was part of the NDSA transition from being hosted by the Library of Congress to a new host, which would eventually be CLIR/DLF. Earlier that year, the Infrastructure Working Group (as it was known back then) drafted a document designed to be a checklist for system migrations. The draft was put out to the community for comments, but then, as the influence of the Library of Congress faded into the background during the move from one host to another, so did the main impetus for publishing the checklist. Ah, the sweet irony of a migration checklist being forgotten during a migration!

However, the checklist was not completely forgotten: it existed as a potential project in my head, one that I was interested in completing once other projects wrapped up. Yet the years passed and there were always other projects. Finally, in the summer of 2020, two events occurred: several significant projects finally did conclude and Nathan Tallman, an NDSA Coordinating Committee member and former co-chair of the Infrastructure Interest Group, reached out to me asking about the status of the Migration Checklist. “It’s time,” I thought. And it was.

With that preface, I now introduce to you, “Good Migrations: A Checklist for Migrating Your Digital Preservation Infrastructure.” This checklist has changed significantly from its 2015 version due to the incredible amount of community feedback received in 2020. The 2020 Good Migrations Working Group; which consisted of myself, Nathan Tallman, Paige Walker, Linda Tadic and Matt Schultz; not only incorporated the community response, but also placed the checklist into a Levels of Preservation framework in order to better highlight how migration steps match preservation areas. Over the past six months, we have worked diligently to clarify scope and provide a comprehensive yet still succinct checklist that will hopefully aid those who are tackling a migration process.

NDSA is interested in feedback from anyone who is using the Good Migrations checklist. Based on the level of community interest, NDSA may consider a followup working group to gather illustrative use cases to accompany the document and document methods for accomplishing checklist items. Please let us know if you use the Checklist and have found it to be of assistance.

~Sibyl Schaefer, Chair of the Good Migrations Working Group

Request for Participation in Fixity and Staffing Survey Working Groups

Proposals have been accepted by the NDSA Coordinating Committee for starting up the Staffing Survey Working Group and the Fixity Survey Working Group. Both surveys were last published in 2017. If you are interested in participating in either of these groups please read the scope of work for each and complete the form below by April 2, 2021.

It is expected that work for both surveys would start Spring 2021 and end about a year/year and a half later, with groups generally meeting on a monthly basis. Work would also be done between meetings to review the survey questions and results, and to write a final report. We especially welcome participation from international NDSA members and members who have not previously participated in NDSA groups.

Fixity Survey Scope of Work: Review of survey, survey deployment, data analysis, writing final report

Staffing Survey Scope of Work: Survey redesign, survey deployment, data analysis, research, writing final report

If you have questions, please contact:

Fixity: Carol Kussmann (kussmann@umn.edu)

Staffing: Lauren Work (lw2cd@virginia.edu) or Elizabeth England (elizabeth.england@nara.gov)

Please complete this form by April 2, 2021.

NDSA Welcomes Two New Members

Today, the NDSA Coordinating Committee unanimously voted to welcome two new members. Each of these members bring a host of skills and experience to our group. Please help us to welcome:

University of Wisconsin – Parkside: UW Parkside’s primary mission is to document the history of the University of Wisconsin – Parkside by collecting both analog and digital materials from across campus, including two predecessor institutions (UW-Kenosha and UW-Racine). Most of their digital content consists of materials which have been digitized, but are receiving more born digital content from the university. They have also begun to work on community-driven digital collections and have worked with the Parkside and local communities to collect materials related to the pandemic, and with professors and students to preserve Community-Based Learning projects.
Town of Concord Archives: The mission of the Town Archives is to collect, catalog, preserve, and provide access to the permanent and historically significant records of the Town of Concord Government. The Town Archives supports the Town and its residents by preserving Town records and making these records known and available to researchers, students, genealogists, scholars, authors, and anyone else who may wish to research the workings and history of New England town government. The Town of Concord Archives has recently begun its journey in digital preservation with digitization projects, born-digital record collecting, and digital preservation systems.

Each organization has participants in one or more of the various NDSA interest and working groups, so keep an eye out for them on your calls and be sure to give them a shout out. Please join me in welcoming our new members. A complete list of NDSA members is on our website.

In future, NDSA is moving to a quarterly process for reviewing membership applications. Announcements for new members will be scheduled accordingly.

~ Nathan Tallman, Vice Chair of the NDSA Coordinating Committee