stats for born-digital ingest/processing

[Sarah Newhouse]

Hi all,

I'm being asked to contribute a single number to a monthly report that goes to my institution's administration and board of directors. This is being added to a report that already includes numbers of archival collections processed, acquired, and digitized items added to our digital repository. Currently I'm reporting the number of files processed, which works for now (working with a small number of media/items each month) but might not scale really well as our born digital collections workflows get up and running. 

What stats do you report upward and outward and do you find that they're meaningful to the people who receive the reports? In a perfect world, I'd love to find a stat to report that a) is immediately understandable by a non-techy audience ("300 files processed" vs "3 GB") and b) in some way hints at the amount of labor that goes into ingesting and processing born digital collections.

Thoughts? 

Sarah

[Elizabeth-Anne Johnson]

Hi Sarah,

I think if you’re limited to a single number, I would focus on number of files processed. It’s more “impressive” number, more understandable to a lay audience/easier to translate to an analog example of folders processed (and maybe a reasonable comparison to the number of digitized items that’s also being reported on?), and gives a better sense of the amount of labour that goes into the work. It’s not ideal, but I think it’s better than just saying 3 GB.

E-A

 

Elizabeth-Anne Johnson (she/her/hers) | Electronic Records Archivist 

Archives and Special Collections | University of Calgary  

TFDL 510D | 403.220.3024 | elizabetha...@ucalgary.ca

 

 

From: digital-...@googlegroups.com <digital-...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Sarah Newhouse
Sent: May 18, 2022 9:36 AM
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Subject: [digital-curation] stats for born-digital ingest/processing

 

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[Underdown, David]

It’s something we’ve wrestled with for a while (without really finding a satisfactory answer). Number of files has some advantages, but if you have a small number of eg AV files doesn’t entirely reflect the amount of work that may be required and there volume in GB can be more helpful.

 

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David Underdown | Senior Digital Archivist T:  020 3908 9228 | W: nationalarchives.gov.uk Twitter: @DavidUnderdown9 |Pronouns: He/Him The National Archives, Kew, Richmond, TW9 4DU

 

 

From: digital-...@googlegroups.com <digital-...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Elizabeth-Anne Johnson
Sent: 18 May 2022 18:03
To: digital-...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: [digital-curation] stats for born-digital ingest/processing

 

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