This is the first article in a three-part series on creating and maintaining digital archives for artists and arts organizations. It offers practical, actionable guidance on the simple steps that anyone can take to start caring for their digital materials.
- Part 1: (You are here!) The Cloud Ate My Homework: Why Artists and Arts Orgs Need a Digital Archive
- Part 2: Archive Smarter: A Step-by-Step Guide to Digital Preservation
- Part 3: Future You Says Thanks: Making Digital Archiving Part of Your Workflow
This first part will focus on the “What” and “Why” of archives, presenting a broad concept of archives and the value and benefits that can come with building a digital archive for your organization or creative practice.
First: What is an Archive?
An archive is a collection of materials that have value. A collection is a group of items that are related in some way. Materials include both physical things and digital things. And if something has value, then it is worth keeping and caring for.
What Lives in an Archive?
Archives are often associated with things that are from the past, but we are all creating the archives of the future on a daily basis.
- If you are part of an arts organization, your regular activities might include planning for exhibitions, hosting educational programming, or providing grant-writing support to artists.
- If you are an artist, you are likely writing grant applications, doing research, corresponding with curators and collaborators, making artworks, and documenting your work and exhibitions.
All of these activities result in outputs that potentially have long-term value and could be included in your organizational or studio archive.
While some of these outputs may be physical, like printed materials or objects, our current moment means that we are all producing lots of digital materials all the time.
Remember: Digital Information is Ephemeral
It can seem as if digital content will be around forever, but anyone who has lost data because their computer crashed, or their account in a web-based service was discontinued (anyone remember Hotmail?) knows that digital information is fragile and ephemeral. It’s here today, but it can easily be gone tomorrow.
To ensure continued access to valuable information in our digital assets, we need to be able to keep the digital bits and some metadata about those assets available. But, there are a range of risks and challenges that can make it difficult to do this.
Technology like hard drives, flash drives, computers, and smartphones get old and are replaced with newer versions, which can make it hard to get data off these older devices.
Hard drives usually only work reliably for about 5 years, then they are likely to crash or become corrupted, risking loss of any data stored on them.
If you are saving files in proprietary formats dependent on specific software, it may be difficult to access those files in the future.
Any data stored in networked or online accounts is at risk of being captured or held ransom by malicious actors.
Sometimes we just accidentally delete files.
Pipes burst, fires start in attics, or large scale disasters like floods, hurricanes, and wildfires can destroy the infrastructure where our data is stored.
A Digital Archive Can Secure and Strengthen Your Work
Compared to your regular activities of making, exhibiting, and selling your artwork or planning and carrying out your organization’s programs, it may seem that dedicating time and effort to building an archive is a low priority.
But the benefits of archiving work can directly and positively impact your day to day work.
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1
Be more efficient
Digital assets that are systematically organized and described are easier to search, find, and use, increasing your ability to be efficient in your work.
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2
Reduce costs
Making deliberate decisions about what to keep (and what can be deleted) decreases the amount you need to pay for digital storage.
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3
Document growth and change
Keeping records of programming and services allows you to analyze and demonstrate how your organization has changed over time and plan for future growth.
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4
Maintain institutional memory
When key people move on, an archive captures the knowledge needed to educate and train new leadership and staff.
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5
Support operational continuity
When disruptions occur, an archive of vital records and data will ensure you can get back up to speed faster.
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6
Easily share and promote your work
Quick access to documentation of your work will make it easier to share with curators, galleries, and collectors.
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7
Define and preserve your legacy
With a comprehensive archive you can actively shape the narrative of your creative practice.
First Steps to Creating a Digital Archive
Most of us are doing work in our organizations or creative practices that is focused on short-term objectives, such as creating artwork for an exhibition or organizing a fundraising event. We are in “production mode” and produce what is needed, then move on to the next project and/or program.
Building and maintaining an archive will necessitate a shift in your thinking and actions. To build a sustainable archive, you will need to embrace an “archival mode,” which we’ll talk more about in the next article in this series.
To embrace this shift in mindset and practice, it can be helpful to imagine what your archive could become, and think about what kinds of materials you have on hand.
1) Set an Archival Vision
As with any new project, it’s very useful to start by imagining and documenting a vision for the future you are trying to achieve with your archive.
Describing and defining a vision of the future when the archive is operational will help to clarify the specific local context and motivations for creating the archive and provide the grounding for the regular tasks that will be needed to maintain the archive over time.
Consider this question as a starting point: What does it look and feel like when your archive is up and running smoothly?
Want an Example?
This may not be so easy to answer right away, and if you’re not sure just yet, that’s okay!
To get a sense of what an archive in practice might look and feel like, check out part three of this series, which runs through a scenario of how one artist might use an archive over the course of a major project.
2) Complete a Digital Asset Inventory
A good next step is to better understand the current status of the digital materials you already have.
A simple way to do this is to document some basic information about your digital assets in an inventory, including details like data size, content types (e.g. video, audio, text), file formats (e.g. PDF, WAV, MOV), and storage locations (e.g. external hard drive, Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud).
The goal here is not to document all the details about each individual file, but rather to create some high-level categories and summary information for your digital assets.
Gathering this information may take some time, so it’s helpful to structure the inventory as a project that you dedicate specific time to. You might want to allocate 2-3 hours per week over the course of a month to completing the inventory.
Don’t be afraid to make the process work with your tools and systems! The inventory template we’ve provided is a Word Doc, but you might want to consider using software like Microsoft Excel or AirTable for their easier searchability and filtering tools.
Once completed, the inventory will provide a foundation that you can use to start making decisions about your digital assets, including what specific groups of assets should be included in your archive.
Download a Digital Asset Inventory Template
Use this template as a starting point, and customize it to fit your context and needs.
Download Word DocUp Next: Designing a Digital Archive Strategy: A Step-by-Step Guide
Click to read the next article in the series, which will discuss how to go about defining the structure and details of your archive in the form of an archive strategy document.