Digital Preservation at CSUN University Library

Scope

The policies outlined here describe the responsibilities and commitments of the Digital Services unit at the CSUN University Library regarding the handling, processing, and care of digitized and born-digital records. It applies to materials held by Special Collections and Archives, as well as selected materials from external partners, as part of both funded and non-funded projects. These efforts support the long-term preservation and enhanced access to historical and culturally significant materials.

Objectives

• Support the University Library in its mission to provide academic resources for student success, research, scholarship, and innovation.
• Preserve and provide enhanced access to local, regional, and national historical records by implementing best practices from national and international organizations committed to audiovisual and digital preservation management protocols that ensure the long-term preservation, maintenance, integrity, and authenticity of digital records.
• Coordinate with and contribute to the development of digital preservation guidelines and workflows across the CSU system. 
• Fulfill requirements set by grant funding agencies.
• Provide transparency to the CSU and campus library personnel regarding management protocols that help ensure the long-term preservation, maintenance, and integrity of digital records.

Best Practices

Digital Services deploys digital preservation software and workflows that incorporate best practices from, but not limited to:

• Federal Agencies Digital Guidelines Initiative (Still Image and Audio-Visual Working Groups)
• Library of Congress (Digital Preservation and Metadata Standards)
• National Digital Stewardship Alliance (NDSA)
• International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives (IASA)
• Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA Open Source)

Documentation highlighting details of digitization specifications or preservation workflows are made available to staff and other library personnel via department servers.

Service Assessment

Assessments occur annually and as needed in order to provide necessary updates to services, workflows, and overall digital preservation strategies and policies.

Related Policies

• Copyright and Intellectual Property (Library website and CSU)
• CSUN Universal Design Center (Accessibility processing)

• Archivists process collections and work with Digital Services personnel to support digital reformatting and data migration efforts.
• Digital services librarian consults with Special Collections and Archives personnel and the metadata librarian as needed; oversees the purchasing, implementation, and repairs of equipment in the Digital Services Lab; and develops workflows and policies relating to the migration, preservation and publication of digital and digitized records; prepares files for ingest and provides content and accessibility updates to published collections as needed.
• Metadata librarian - oversees the application and maintenance of metadata for published archival surrogates within the digital asset management system under Digital Collections; performs metadata updates and collection ingests as needed.
• Digital collections specialist executes digital reformatting requests; monitors and identifies needs within the lab; maintains equipment; assists in the development and refinement of workflows; creates tutorials; trains and supervises student staff; and assists the Metadata Librarian with metadata projects.
• Library Systems Group works with library personnel, CSUN IT, and vendors regarding data storage, database maintenance, server maintenance, and manages computer systems used in the lab including access to the library’s data storage infrastructure.
• Third party service providers enable access to digital collections online. A preservation management system and dedicated digital asset management system facilitate the transfer, storage, documentation, integrity, security, and access of digital records. 
• Vendors assist with the repairs of playback equipment and migration of audiovisual media formats that we are unable to digitize in-house.