Born Digital: Guidance for Donors, Dealers, and Archival Repositories Page: 7
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Born Digital: Guidance for Donors, Dealers, and Archival Repositories
and spouses. When possible, donors and dealers should provide
repositories with information about the likely primary creators of
born-digital materials. As with all recorded information, the intel-
lectual property rights of contractors, contributors, or collaborators
must be respected in digital formats, but repository staff may be
unaware or unable to determine that a digital file was created by
a third party unless told. Agreements transferring digital files to a
repository should include provisions governing how the repository
will handle third-party digital materials created and accumulated by
computer users other than the donor.
Repositories continue to work toward providing access to digital
materials while balancing privacy and intellectual property concerns.
Acquisition agreements may include capture and access restrictions
specific to born-digital materials. Even if a copyright holder retains
copyright to all materials in a collection, special considerations such
as licensing terms or online access via a limited number of Internet
protocol (IP) addresses may enable a repository to publish certain
materials online.
3.2 E-mail and Other Digital Correspondence
The sheer volume of sent, received, and saved e-mail messages, as
well as the presence of attachments in many different file formats,
can complicate e-mail acquisition. The ease with which a message in
an e-mail thread can be edited and manipulated without its original
author's knowledge or obvious indications to later researchers also
differentiates e-mail messages from physical correspondence. In ad-
dition, born-digital correspondence may include letters written with
word-processing software and sent either as attachments to e-mail
messages or printed and sent in physical form. These documents
can present complications similar to those encountered in e-mail
archives.
Donors may want to screen e-mail files for sensitive or extrane-
ous messages prior to transfer. Repositories and donors will need to
make clear who will do the screening and what the process will be,
but screening e-mail messages need not be an overly cumbersome
or time-consuming process. The easiest strategies may be for the
donor to search for keywords and sort by correspondents and time
periods that most likely indicate the presence of sensitive messages.
If a donor is unable or unwilling to screen for sensitive messages, the
repository must decide, in accordance with policy, whether to de-
vote staff time to such a search. If a repository decides to undertake
detailed screening for more specific sensitive materials as defined by
a particular acquisition agreement, staff resources may necessarily
limit strategies for screening.
In some situations, access restrictions or an embargo period on
the use of e-mail messages can be implemented as a means of lower-
ing the risk of inappropriately exposing sensitive messages when it
is not feasible for staff to undertake screening. As with paper materi-als, it helps when donors can flag potential areas of concern in digital
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Redwine, Gabriela; Barnard, Megan; Donovan, Kate; Farr, Erika; Forstrom, Michael; Hansen, Will et al. Born Digital: Guidance for Donors, Dealers, and Archival Repositories, book, October 2013; Washington, DC. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc234935/m1/16/: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; .