Transcending format: Workflows and description for physical–digital hybrid collection processing
Abstract
This paper presents a case study of the University of Kentucky Libraries’ Special Collections Research Center (SCRC) and its workflows for processing hybrid archival collections containing both physical and born-digital materials. As digital media have become increasingly intermingled with physical formats, the SCRC has developed a tiered migration strategy — ranging from full forensic imaging to minimal logical transfers — guided by a locally developed born-digital migration decision tree. The paper details the hardware and software assembled to address legacy media formats, including open source and proprietary tools for data extraction, virus checking and file format analysis. It further explores decision trees for descriptive granularity, balancing item-level detail with pragmatic resource constraints, and discusses strategies for integrating or separating physical and digital descriptions within finding aids. The SCRC’s approach emphasises extensible processing, allowing for future refinement, and considers researcher access, collection value and institutional capacity in its descriptive policies. This article is also included in The Business & Management Collection which can be accessed at http:// hstalks/business/.
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Author's Biography
Andrew McDonnell is the Digital Archivist for the Special Collections Research Center at the University of Kentucky Libraries. He develops processes and policies for archivists and works to preserve born-digital materials in manuscript, university archives and news media collections. He has previously worked in the archives of the University of Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theatre Research, Pixar Living Archives and Wayland Academy. He holds a BA in English from the University of Notre Dame, an MA in English from the University of Maine and an MA-LIS from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
