The Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) has published
Born Digital: Guidance for Donors, Dealers, and Archival Repositories
<http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub159>. The report provides
recommendations to help ensure the physical and intellectual well-being
of materials created and managed in digital form ("born digital") that
are transferred from donors to archival repositories.

Ten archivists and curators from institutions in the United States and
United Kingdom collaborated on the report. The lead author, Gabriela
Redwine, is digital archivist at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript
Library at Yale University. Additional authors are Megan Barnard, of the
Harry Ransom Center; Kate Donovan, of the Tamiment Library & Robert F.
Wagner Labor Archives at New York University; Erika Farr, of the
Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library at Emory University; Michael
Forstrom and Nancy Kuhl, of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript
Library at Yale University; Will Hansen, of Duke University’s David M.
Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library; Jeremy Leighton John, of the
Department of Digital Scholarship at the British Library; Seth Shaw, of
Clayton State University, and Susan Thomas, of the Bodleian Library’s
Western Manuscripts Department.

The report is presented in four sections, each of which provides an
overview of a key area of concern: initial collection review, privacy
and intellectual property, key stages in acquiring digital materials,
and post-acquisition review by the repository. Each section concludes
with two lists of recommendations: one for donors and dealers, and a
second for repository staff. Appendixes provide more specific
information about possible staffing activities, as well as a list of
resources and ready-to-use checklists that incorporate recommendations
from throughout the report.

The report is available as a PDF download free of charge at
http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub159.

An earlier draft of the report with capabilities for readers to add
comments, questions, and suggestions remains available at
http://mcpress.media-commons.org/borndigital/ .

Thanks,

Will Hansen

Assistant Curator of Collections

David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library

Duke University

Box 90185

Durham, NC 27708-0185

Phone (919) 660-5958

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