Let’s Get Ethical: Considerations around Digital Forensics and Early Digital Acquisitions
Thursday October 14, 2021
From 2:30pm to 3:00pm
Digital forensics and digital preservation strategies are relatively new practices within the archival profession. For many institutions, these practices were developed many years after digital records were first acquired. Consequently, open and transparent conversations about digital preservation practices with donors of early digital acquisitions often did not take place.
Digital forensics and digital preservation strategies are relatively new practices within the archival profession. For many institutions, these practices were developed many years after digital records were first acquired. Consequently, open and transparent conversations about digital preservation practices with donors of early digital acquisitions often did not take place. With many of these records still existing in our backlog, this presentation poses the questions: Can we remain accountable to our donors if we process early acquisitions in our backlog using current practices and processes that were not used or formalized at the time of acquisition? Were early digital donors able to provide informed consent at the point of transfer under these circumstances? Should we process early digital acquisitions differently from digital records acquired after the development of a formal digital preservation program? Partly informed by a survey on early digital acquisitions, this presentation argues that current practices may be considered intrusive in cases where open and transparent conversations with donors were limited by a lack of fully formed institutional policies and practices on digital preservation. In response, we propose to restore accountability and transparency in this process by developing a new workflow for early digital acquisitions. This new workflow reconsiders the use of physical disk images, and sets boundaries in the appraisal and selection process to counterbalance gaps in donor transparency. In proposing this new workflow, the aim is to keep a donor’s digital literacy and awareness at the time of transfer front of mind in archival processing in order to become more transparent stewards of these records.
