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Clifton Suspension Bridge Trust
Clifton Suspension Bridge Trust’s Archivist Hannah Little took part in the peer mentoring programme in 2021.
Background
The Clifton Suspension Bridge Trust is a not-for-profit charity established in 1952 to act as custodians of the Grade-1 listed bridge, ensuring its maintenance and preservation. The Archivist is responsible for managing the collections owned by the Trust and for records management. Recordkeeping at the Trust plays an important role in ensuring the historic bridge continues to be safe and usable.
Hannah recognised that she needed to gain an understanding of the digital records held and created by the Trust and how these can be preserved. However, she needed some support so applied to the peer mentoring scheme. Hannah’s mentor was Jenny Bunn, Head of Cataloguing, Taxonomy and Data at The National Archives.
What they did
Initially Hannah had planned to undertake a project around the Bridge Master’s digital records – particularly their emails. However, Jenny encouraged her to think more holistically about digital records and information governance at the Trust.
To start with, Jenny asked Hannah to think about “what are you most worried about”? As a result, Hannah focused on understanding what the Trust holds, how processes can be put into place as part of the Trust’s overall collections and records management and prioritising content held on CD-ROMS which was high risk.
Hannah was successful in securing some dedicated storage space on the Trust server and began transferring digital records that needed to be preserved in the long-term. Alongside this, she created a Digital Asset Register for each category of digital records – which took into account digitised copies of records, and provenance and IPR (significant digitally-born records, such as AutoCAD, 3D modelling and survey data are created by external contractors and consultants). She started using the software DROID for understanding what they held in more detail and introduced integrity checking. A second version of the data is stored on a hard drive in a fire safe, and SharePoint Cloud Storage was set up to store a third copy offsite.
Impact
The scheme provided Hannah with the confidence to “not give up and ask the right questions.” She now has a greater understanding of what she needs to do not only in terms of overall digital preservation but also on an incremental and practical level within her own working context. She has developed a good relationship with the Trust’s external ICT company and has been able to explain and advocate internally using the NDSA Levels of Digital Preservation. Jenny encouraged Hannah to be practical – “We are not the Library of Congress, we just need something that is practical and workable.” As sole Archivist at the Trust Hannah also feels she benefitted from having a safe space to be open and honest with someone about how to integrate digital preservation actions when carrying out their varied workload. Her mantra became “Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good enough”.
Hannah is currently formulating a Digital Preservation manual and has started the ‘Novice to Know-How’ training in email preservation. The manual includes processes for accessioning external born-digital data and Hannah has developed relationships with the bridge’s engineering consultants to ensure that the right digital information will be archived and available to the Trust in years to come.
University of Southampton Library
Matthew Little, Digital Scholarship Manager at the University of Southampton took part in the peer mentoring programme in 2021.
Background
When the scheme began Matthew was the Digital Systems Development Advisor at the University of Southampton library. He had an interest in digital scholarship and digital analytics. He was using tools to harvest data about library services, including the digitisation of collections.
Matthew was involved in the implementation of a new digital viewer for displaying and sharing digital archives and special collections. As part of this implementation, he needed some help in developing approaches to data analytics and guidance on teasing out the requirements of decision-makers. His line manager suggested applying to the peer mentoring scheme and he was paired with Julie Guthrie, Delivery Manager in Digital Services, at The National Archives.
What they did
Matthew met with Julie fortnightly for about an hour. To start with, the implementation of the digital viewer was delayed slightly and, as lockdown restrictions were relaxed, Matthew’s work focused on using bookings software to help get students and staff back into library buildings. Therefore, Matthew prioritised understanding what data the library managers needed from the software and implemented this. Later, the digital viewer was soft launched and he managed to implement the data analytics he required.
Impact
Julie used strong listening skills to encourage Matthew to develop answers and draw his own conclusions to the challenges he faced. As a result, Matthew started taking a more strategic approach to data analytics – thinking about it beyond the digital viewer and looking to join up approaches across the library in a more consistent way. Matthew has set up an Analytics Taskforce in the library which he Chairs.
Matthew feels that the mentoring scheme gave him the headspace and time to think carefully about challenges and opportunities. He developed a more strategic way of thinking. It also gave him the confidence to successfully apply for a more senior role in the library.
Matthew is currently involved in a number of varied projects, including managing the library’s transition to Google Analytics 4 and archiving past data, setting up a digital scholarship equipment loans service and mentoring a postgraduate student on a professional placement.