Poster

From DOS Til Dawn: Preserving Digital Content on a Removable Media with Limited Resources

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Abstract

The University of Missouri–Kansas City (UMKC) Special Collections and Archives (SCA) holds a variety of born-digital content, including content on removable media in a wide array of formats from 5.25-inch floppy disks, to Zip disks, to DVD-Rs. Preserving this content presents a unique set of challenges, particularly as hardware and software become outdated seemingly as soon as they are introduced, and limited funding and resources only compound these issues.

In October 2018, SCA created a grant-funded Digital Curation Fellowship position to address the challenges of providing long-term, sustainable access to born-digital content on legacy media. With guidance from the Head of Digital Archives & Stewardship, I have developed policies and procedures for imaging, extracting metadata, and providing meaningful and sustainable access to these materials. Working through our massive backlog, I have taken a patchwork approach—experimenting with various free and inexpensive tools to fulfill different functions—as many other institutions with limited staffing and resources must do.

How to Cite:

Henry, D., (2021) “From DOS Til Dawn: Preserving Digital Content on a Removable Media with Limited Resources”, MAC Annual Meeting Presentations 2021(1).