Archival Advantage

This essay also focuses on ten areas of archival expertise and their relevance to the digital context. These include confirming ownership, appraising the significance of content, documenting the context of creation, negotiating with collection donors and nurturing these relationships over time, recognizing and navigating legal issues, ensuring authenticity of files, and using practical approaches to creating metadata for large collections. Each of these is equally relevant for digital and analog (physical) materials. Archivists' in-depth knowledge of each area helps to ensure that the right questions are addressed.

The intended audiences for this publication include library directors and other managers who set the vision and direction for digital initiatives; technology specialists who manage systems and services in areas such as repository design, hardware and software, digitization, and website development; research data curation experts; digital preservationists; liaison librarians who have close relationships with users, including knowledge of their research methods; and metadata specialists. Archivists may find value in both the explication of the ten areas of archival expertise and the arguments for including them in a wide range of digital initiatives.

This work is part of our Research Collections and Support efforts to inform libraries' current thinking about research collections and the emerging services that they are offering to support contemporary modes of scholarship.