ARCHIVES 2015

Evaluating the related issues of document security and cybersecurity allows us to advance the archival profession’s impact on the lifecycle of digital content and its trustworthy overtime access. My poster will present the current developments in cybersecurity studies, in particular the organizational readiness work being done at MIT Sloan School of Management, and how archivists may leverage that work to extend the TDR model into the creation and post-custodial environments of records creators. As archivists, our responsibilities for maintaining the integrity, authenticity, and appropriate access to records in our care generally begin at the time of acquisition.

With digital records, what are our responsibilities in understanding the organizational security context present during the creation, use, and storage during their active period? Although this is often addressed in the field of records management and left to the records creators, I suggest that understanding the policies under which organizations and their employees create, use, and store records have a direct impact and relationship to an archives, esp. an organizational archives, ability to be a trusted digital repository when copies of digital material may still be used and shared outside of the archival enterprise.

By comparing the TRAC questions to the “House of Security” interview questions I will present ideas and solicit feedback and comment from Forum attendees as to how archivists might intersect with the Cybersecurity community to promote the related work we do as well.

About the Author:

Kari R. Smith joined the staff of the MIT IASC in December 2011 as Digital Archivist where she has established process and procedures for acquiring and managing born-digital content. Shemanages over 2TB of digital records for the Institute Archives and Special Collections department of the MIT Libraries. Prior to MIT, she worked at the University of Michigan, Department of the History of Art as Head of the Visual Resource Collections and at Cornell University Library as a digital project archivist. Since 2008 she has been an instructor for the Digital Preservation Management workshops. She is a member of the ArchivesSpace Technical Advisory Council, was elected to the Executive Council for the BitCurator Community, and is serving on the BitCurator Access Advisory Board. She serves as co-Chair for the SAA MDOR and is the Conference Chair for the 2016 IS&T Archiving conference. She is also a member of the program committee for the SAA Research Forum. She contributes to the digital archives and preservation community through her blog and participation in several community forums.