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Collaboration in isolation: Migrating legacy finding aids during a pandemic
Journal of Digital Media Management,
11
(2),
121-130
(2023)
Abstract
This paper describes a project conducted at Franklin & Marshall College Archives and Special Collections (A&SC) to migrate legacy archival finding aids to ArchivesSpace. This project, completed remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic, required project team members to address not only user needs for the online discovery of collections, but also the gaps between legacy finding aids and modern archival standards. This paper discusses how these concerns manifested in specific data clean-up issues and the strategies — and compromises — developed to address them. The paper also describes how workflows were developed, implemented and revised in the pandemic context. In particular, it details how the work of both A&SC staff and staff from other library units was leveraged to complete the project successfully. The case study provides insights on successes and lessons learned related to communication in a remote work project. Finally, the paper discusses the impact of the project on work in A&SC today.
Keywords: data migration; archival description; remote work; COVID-19 pandemic; ArchivesSpace
The full article is available to subscribers to the journal.
Author's Biography
Brianna Gormly is the Assistant Director for Preservation Reformatting and Metadata in the Preservation Division at Columbia University Libraries, where she works with special collections digitization projects as well as operational reformatting workflows. In her previous position as Digital Initiatives Librarian at Franklin and Marshall College Archives and Special Collections, she led projects migrating legacy archival description and digital collections to new systems. She holds a Master of Library and Information Studies and a Master of Archival Studies from the University of British Columbia.
Louise Lobello is the Digital & Special Collections Librarian at Franklin & Marshall College, where she works in the Archives and Special Collections department of the College Library. Louise supports access to the college’s archives and special collections material, and manages the development and upkeep of its digital collections. She has a master’s degree in information from Rutgers University.
