Archiving Toolkit | Digital Records
LGBTQ religious activism brought historic changes to our society: The records of that legacy are on our own computers, websites, and social media platforms. Unfortunately, these digital files degrade.
Digital archives use expert technology to prevent data loss and provide access to your documents into the future
This page presents guidelines for managing digital files while they are in-house and prior to donating them to an appropriate archives for long term preservation.
See the Webinar: Off the Screen and into the Archives.
How to Preserve Computer Files |
Save the same types of records in digital formats that were saved in paper files. See What to Save Be inspired! Dignity NY administrator describes rescuing valuable TV footage on obsolete tapes before donating them to the LGBT Community Center National History Archive. Printing digital records is no longer best practice for saving digital records.
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- Locate the digital files that document your mission, activities, and organization on:
- current computers, networked and/or personal drives;
- old computers, obsolete or superseded;
- CDs, CD-ROMs, floppy discs, zip drives, thumbdrives;
- in the cloud;
- phone cameras.
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- Gather computer files into one folder
- Backup everything first
- Keep existing folder structures.
- Transfer all the computer files you plan to sort through for archiving purposes into one large folder. Do this for each computer.
- Include all formats, text, audio, video, spreadsheet, databases
- Download any special platforms needed to open documents
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- Delete non-historical files and folders
- Those with personal or sensitive information
- Delete bookkeeping records, personnel records, travel/event arrangement files
- Save only final versions of documents
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- Photographs, Audio, Video
- Select key media and organize them in folders.
- Include quality photos with high value for organizational memory, anniversaries and exhibits
- Reformat media into preferred archival formats
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- Relabel files and folders for clarity when necessary
- Follow a consistent labeling system
- Keep file names short (under 25 characters)
- Avoid special characters
- Use underscore for spaces in file names
- Save final versions; include dates for revised versions
- Add source name to externally created research papers, reports, slideshows, etc.
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- Save website files (See Library of Congress instructions)
- Save .html files as .WARC files
- If saving entire pages or sites, check into automatically exporting them as a series of linked files
- Save metadata for your Web content information, such as site name or date created
- Save the curated folder to external drive for donation to an archives
- consistently save your files on two back-up devices (the cloud is considered one back-up)
- Use the Internet Archives Wayback Machine to save your websites. Kristen Whitson explains how:
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Ongoing Records Management
Organize and maintain the digital files of historical value as they are created
- Transfer records to be archived to a dedicated storage device on a schedule
- Download social media
- Reformat files to preferred archival format
- Relabel using a consistent labeling system
Donating Your Records to an Archives
