Maintenance 

We use a range of industry-standard tools for A/V archives, to track the integrity of all the files we generate for a project. We can do the same to monitor and address issues with your born-digital collections. 

Digitized Files

For files generated in our digitization process, our core tool is the BWF MetaEdit software created by the Library of Congress to embed detailed technical and core metadata as well as create and verify MD5 checksums for every file. This software is used in tandem with AV Preserves Fixity software to help us ensure that all the ones and zeroes that make up your files stay in place. This means the audio itself will stay free of any digital artifacts and anomalies, such as interstitial errors and drop out, which could show up as clicks or gaps in sound not present on the original source. 

Born-digital Collections

In assessing and processing born-digital collections (such as files from old hard drives or CDs), we rely on another Library of Congress developed software called Bagit to break these collections into discrete and secure packages, complete with checksum verification so that they can pass through their life cycle within your collection safely. 

Storage

Part of the crucial maintenance of such collections is ensuring proper storage, whether that’s on your organization’s private server, cloud-based service, a series of hard drives, or ideally some combination of all the above. We can work with you to stay on top of this ever-changing aspect of collections storage and develop a plan that ensures long-term stability and sustainability.