May 6, 2020, by Sarah Colborne

Digital Collecting for the University Archives

Manuscripts and Special Collections may be working from home but we’re still busy developing and implementing our new digital preservation system, Preservica. 

Preservica helps us to manage and preserve our existing born-digital collections as well as collect official university records for the archive in digital formats such as Microsoft Office files (such as meeting minutes), emails, video and photographs.  

The University’s institutional records (minute books, letters, reports and publications) date back to the early beginnings of University College Nottingham in 1877 . The traditional format for minutes in the University Archive will be joined by born digital versions in the future.

For example, we have been working with students and alumni to collect photographs to document student life across all our campuses.  

For the first time, we can also collect web-based content such as web pages (for example the University’s home page) and blogs (such as the Vice-Chancellor’s and the Registrar’s). 

Along with the rest of the archive sector, we’re very aware of the importance of documenting work related to the pandemic for the benefit of future generations. Thanks to the dedicated additional free storage provided by Preservica, we have been able to make a start on capturing key digital content such as blogs and press releases to document the University community’s response to these challenging and difficult times and we’re continuing to seek other relevant digital content. 

Suggestions for online content published by members of the University which ought to be captured for posterity would be very welcome: mss-library@nottingham.ac.uk 

More information about our work is available from our website, newsletter or @mssUniNott.

Preservica capture of the Registrar’s blog post published 15/04/2020

Preservica capture of UoN Covid-19 page on the University’s contributions

Preservica capture of UoN Covid-19 page on media coverage of the University’s efforts

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