The following preservation strategy is a brief overview of workflows taken to secure the acquisition, transfer, and storage of digital and digitized archival materials.
- Donations are transferred to CSUN Special Collections and Archives using deeds and/or other documentation.
- Archivists create inventories of born-digital and analog formats to be reformatted and/or migrated, which are created from physical carrier metadata to assist digital services personnel with the acquisition of data. Processing of physical collection materials continues to completion. Digitally captured data are delivered to archivists to complete collection processing.
- Analog audiovisual and born digital storage formats are photographed by digital services staff or archivists to preserve original metadata affixed to media covers and carriers.
- Audiovisual formats are migrated in-house for select videotape (VHS, Betacam, Betamax, U-matic), audiotape (audiocassettes and open reels) and vinyl (78, 33 1/3, 45 rpm) formats. Film and other select formats are sent to vendors once funding is secured. Digitally reformatted files are embedded with additional metadata to identify titles, creators, source, dates, copyright, and technical metadata.
- Born-digital data are acquired by methods dictated by the format in order to preserve the data in their original state without alteration as needed, in order to ensure the capture of associated technical metadata and original order of the files. Where applicable, the following are deployed during data acquisition: virus checks, checksums, format validations, and acquisition reports. Personally identifiable information (PII) is monitored during the process, however, means for automating and improving detection are being explored.
- Data and format migrations are transferred between digital servers personnel and archivists using local servers with packaging protocols to verify the integrity of the files using checksums and file format verification.
- Upon delivery, archivists resume accession and processing activities for the acquired data and apply file normalization as needed. Once processing is complete, archivists transfer files to the preservation management system, which provides an additional layer of checking file integrity, format obsolescence, and file corruption.
- Digital records are redundantly stored across multiple locations.
- Digital records are served to in-house researchers using external drives, or when possible, remotely via authenticated access provided by the preservation management system.
