Today is Digital Archives Awareness Day!  This is the inaugural year (day), which aims to raise awareness of digital archives among users and practitioners, so that everyone can join in the conversation and contribute their own thoughts and ideas on how best to approach digital archives.

 

What many people don’t realize is that an archive now means much more than that, since the stuff being saved has gone beyond paper. Digital archives are all around us: from the photos we take with our digital cameras or phone, from the documents we create in Word, to email we send, and even our Facebook and Twitter post.  Then are records that digitize for preservation purposes, the historical maps, documents and photos.  

 

I am very lucky to work in the archives field and even luckier to work in the area of digital preservation.   From the newsroom to the corporate boardroom to city hall, I have seen impact digital archives has made on people from all walks of life.   It is gratifying when you can sit down and show a person that they can access historic records at their finger tips.   It is also equally gratifying when you can pull memories from past and share them at your finger tips.

 

Exploring the City of San Antonio, Office of the City Clerk’s Digital Collection (http://www.sanantonio.gov/clerk/archives/index.aspx) you can view the Alamo Property Plat and Field Notes, the first City Plat Books, a letter from Santa Anna, the Spanish Minutes Books (which are older than the US Constitution) and various historical and significant maps in regards development of San Antonio.   Each day I add something new the collection and each day I learn something new about San Antonio in process.    

 

Preserving digital archives does not stop when I leave the office, for me the job is 24 / 7.  I between writing, photography, and social media I produce my share of digital files daily.  Making sure my files are preserved is huge for me.   There are several easy steps you can do home to preserve your digital archives:

 

1. Take an honest look at what would miss if your computer, iPad or cell phone stopped working right this minute … make plans to safeguard that content.
2. Clean out your My Documents folder (back them up);  improve your file names by making sure they are descriptive
3. Have some floppies, CDs, or Zip Disk hanging around, and want to make sure that content stays with you? If you still can, take time to transfer those files to an external hard drive and/or storage service online.
4. Back up your most important files to location(s) other than the device or website they’re currently on.

 

Digital archives are all around us.  You don’t have a digital archivist to safe guard your digital assets you just have to aware of what you have.  If you have question on creating a personal digital archives or digitizing “old” documents, leave a comment – I will gladly give help!