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As cultural institutions continue to receive collections, and as the collections become more digital in nature, the process of accessioning and delivery of documents, which used to be within the purview of the curator, archivist, and reading room staff, has now become the concern also of library administrators, the IT department, and the finance department.  How should the conversation begin with departments that have never before had to deal with the questions of long-term preservation and storage of archival materials in varieties of formats?  As a related issue: What can be expected of the smaller institutions with smaller staff and budgets, and does collaboration with other institutions include the referral of larger collections to larger, more well-funded institutions that are better equipped to handle the complexities of preserving and providing access to these collections?

Establishing Digital Archives as the Norm

Erin O'Meara, University of North Carolina

This is somewhat complementary to Alison's topic above. I want to talk about how we fully realize born-digital materials as normal components of a special collections and/or archives workflows. Many repositories are hiring specialized staff for born-digital. I want to ask the group and discuss how we move to digital as the norm within our competencies, workflows and policies. Part of my strategy in a large, multi-special collection library has been to empower archivists (curators, technical services and public services staff). We have designed basic procedures and user-friendly tools so they can begin to feel comfortable with handling born-digital materials. I would like to hear what other repositories are doing to engage archivists in this area.