Born Digital Material

Born Digital Material

Born-digital material should be described in ArchivesSpace at the collection level, series level, and file level, as appropriate. The existence, quantity, and content of born-digital material in the collection; technical specifications and requirements for accessing the material; and conservation activities that occurred during imaging and ingesting of the material should all be noted at the appropriate levels in the finding aid. 

 

Category 

Description 

Databases

Database files such as those from MS Access, Lotus Notes NSF, Filemaker Pro, and other database programs. 

Documents

Includes recognized word processing, HTML, WML, XML, TXT, or other document-type files. 

Email 

Includes email messages in MBOX, EML, MAILDIR, or other formats.

Graphics 

Lists files having the standard recognized graphic formats such as TIF, GIF, JPEG, and BMP.

Recordings

Lists AIF, WAV, ASF, and other audio and video files.

Presentations 

Lists multimedia file types such as MS PowerPoint or Corel Presentation files. 

Spreadsheets 

Lists spreadsheets from Lotus, Microsoft Excel, Quattro Pro, and others.

Web Archives

Warc files containing archived websites.

 

Required Elements:

 

Name

DACS Rule

EAD Tag

Level of description

Abstract

 

<abstract>

Collection

Conditions Governing Access Note

4.1

<accessrestrict>

Collection

Dates sub-record

2.4

<unitdate>

Collection, Series, and File

Extents sub-record

2.5

<physdesc> <extent>

Collection and Series

Preferred Citation Note

7.1.5

<prefercite>

Collection

Processing Information Note

7.1.8

<processinfo>

Collection

Scope and Content Note

3.1

<scopecontent>

Collection, series, and file