Friday, April 22, 2016

Providing Access to Disk Image Content: A Preliminary Approach and Workflow

Providing Access to Disk Image Content:  A Preliminary Approach and Workflow. Walker Sampson, Alexandra Chassanoff. iPres 2015. November 2015.   Abstract    Poster
     The paper describes a proposed workflow that can be used by collecting institutions acquiring disk images to support the capture, analysis, and final access to disk image content of born-digital collections. The materials present certain challenges. Some use open-source digital forensics software environments like BitCurator, for the capture and analysis of these born-digital materials.

The workflow is for the research archives at the University of Colorado Boulder; they do not have a digital repository or collection management software deployed. However it "addresses the immediate needs of the material, such as bit-level capture and triage, while remaining flexible enough to have the outputs integrate with a future digital repository and collection management software." It allows researchers to access a bit-level copy of a floppy disk found in an archival collection. Access is typically regarded as the last milestone of processing work.

The workflow for processing born-digital materials starts with obtaining the physical disk; it is photographed then a disk image is created. The BitCurator Reporting Tool generates analytic reports and other programs can be carried out here as well. The total output from BitCurator is placed into a single BagIt package and uploaded to a managed storage space with redundant copies. That will be the AIP in a future repository. The disk image can provide access to the public.

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