Grant Update: Extension through Oct. 2016

Greetings, all; while things have been a little quiet on our blog as of late, we've been as busy as ever on our Mellon-funded ArchivesSpace-Archivematica-DSpace Workflow Integration project.

Amidst the general hustle and bustle here in Ann Arbor, we neglected to mention that the Mellon Foundation approved an extension of our project through October 31, 2016.  While things were on course to be completed by the original deadline of April 30, we decided that an extension was necessary so that our consultants at Artefactual Systems could further refine the interface of Archivematica's new Appraisal Tab and thoroughly identify and fix bugs without rushing.  The extended period of time will also give archivists at the Bentley an opportunity to gain expertise with the new functionality and thereby document workflows that may be shared with the archives and digital preservation communities.

Current and upcoming work on the project includes:

• Refactoring the Archivematica workflow to support the new packaging functionality (in both the Archivematica ‘Ingest’ pipeline as well as the platform’s ‘Storage Service,’ which is used to track and recompile completed AIPs).
• Verifying that packaging steps are recorded accurately in Storage Service pointer files.
• Evaluating PREMIS 2 vs. PREMIS 3 to decide how to best implement the preservation metadata for packing (and implementing PREMIS 3 support, as needed).
• Implementing user interface changes to support the new workflow (and also allow users to adhere to existing Archivematica workflows and AIP packaging procedures).
• Establishing (and then verifying) a workflow and protocols to automate the transfer data and metadata from Archivematica to DSpace.
• User interface changes in the Storage Service.

We'll look to provide highlights of these processes in the coming months...so stay tuned!