The Transfer Service
Exciting times at Cambridge University Library (UL): our Transfer Service is up and running! This service is for transferring digital materials from storage carriers within UL collections.
Within the Digital Preservation Programme, we are focusing on transferring data from digital carriers within Special Collections, specifically archives deposited to the UL on optical media, different types of floppy disks and removable storage media, such as hard drives and USB sticks.
The Transfer Service went live this week and involved transferring data from carriers that came to the UL with the submission of hardcopy theses. This is supplemental material on a range of digital carriers. As these carriers are fragile, the material is being transferred from the carriers and prepared for ingest to a workflow for long-term preservation.
The lab and FRED
The equipment that we are using for the Service can be found in the Digital Preservation Lab at the UL. It is a mix of contemporary hardware and software as well as older hardware in the event it’s needed, including data tape readers and even a BBC Master.
But for the transfer process we mainly use a FRED. The FRED came to the UL as part of an earlier project called The Polonsky Digital Preservation Project. It is a digital forensic workstation that is able to handle a large amount of carriers and will be the base for most of our work. FRED runs on Windows and has a virtual machine installed on it that runs the BitCurator Environment. The main processes that will be done within the Transfer Service are disk imaging and logical file transfers. As a lot of these files will be further accessioned and appraised by Special Collections staff at the UL, and most carriers have only been used as a way to store and transport digital material, there will be a preference for performing a logical file transfer.
Setting up the Transfer Service
The work around the Transfer Service has been happening since summer 2022 and has involved getting the equipment tested and running, as well as doing research into what the workflow would look like for the Service. Luckily a box with test material was given to the lab to try out different software and inform the creation of the workflow.
The resultant workflow would have not come about without the amazing range of resources available within the digital preservation field, including blogs, reports and reference workflows from other institutions. Examples of these are Rachel McGregor’s blog, Yale’s documentation for the Digital Accessioning Support Service and the Wiki entries from the Houghton Library Technical Services. But also not without the help of coworkers in similar roles who were very generous with their time and had a chat with me about certain concerns or other issues.
Alongside the setting up of the equipment and workflow there has also been a lot of work around getting the staff at the UL familiar with the Transfer Service. We have run a number of training sessions and did a number of talks on what we are doing and why. We have also set up a bunch of guidance material which can be found on our new DP webpages. We find it important that we as the Digital Preservation Team are not the only ones with knowledge on our digital materials, and want to share that knowledge and the responsibility of looking after this material with our coworkers.
The workflow and accompanying decision tree are still a work in progress, but we are hoping to share this at a later point.
Future direction of the Transfer Service
Currently the FRED is able to process a number of digital carriers including 3.5-inch floppy disks, 5.25-inch floppy disks, CD/DVDs, portable storage media and hard drives. We are hoping to expand this in the future, but it depends on what is further identified across the UL. For now we are focusing on getting it up and running and getting our first transfers successfully processed.
Also, if you want any other details on our workflows or guidance material, please reach out to me or the team. And if you have any comments or tips, we are also happy to hear those.
