Digital Archives [HIST-GA 1011]

Spring 2026

New York University, Department of History

Course Details

Meeting time: Wednesdays, 4:55-7:35pm
Room: KJCC 717
Instructor: Mary Kidd (she/her)

Digital Archives explores the major stages of the digital curation life-cycle, and delves into the complexities surrounding the creation, appraisal, acquisition, processing/description, storage, digitization/reformatting, and making accessible, archives of all formats. Readings, lectures, discussions and in-class activities will shed light on the myriad challenges, best practices, risks/threats posed, and standards involved in successful digital preservation.

Through the course, students will develop the ability to design foundational workflows for digitizing and handling both analog and born-digital materials and effectively managing digital objects. Additionally, the course emphasizes the significance of specialized preservation tools and techniques, including understanding essential technical skills.

This course fulfills the “Digital Credit“ requirement.

Learning Objectives

  • Describe the role of archivists across the life cycle of digital archives.
  • Articulate challenges, best practices, and standards associated with the appraisal, acquisition, storage, creation, and provision of access to digital archives.
  • Explore basic workflows for the digitization of analog material to digital and for the accession and ingest of born-digital archives.
  • Identify risks and threats to the digital preservation life-cycle.
  • Enumerate considerations in institutional policies and plans related to collection development, intellectual property rights, digitization, preservation, and program sustainability.
  • Learn and practice technical skills and using common tools and softwares used in the field.
  • Understand the specialized work involved in handling and preservation of special formats such as audio visual and web archives.

Guidelines and Expectations

  • Students are expected to attend each weekly session for the full in-class time. Please email me as soon as you can to let me know you are unable to make a class, need to arrive late/leave early, or need to attend remotely.
  • Please write me as soon as you can if you require an extension or more time to finish an assignment or activity.
  • Class activities will be started on during class time. Any work that is not completed should be worked on and submitted by the end of the week Sunday.
  • Extensions must be approved ahead of time in writing by the instructor.
  • Papers should be in 12-point font, double-spaced, with 1-inch margins. I have no preference for how you cite sources, as long as you are consistent.
  • At a few points over the semester, we will be utilizing specific programs or applications that you will need to download or otherwise access to perform in-class or asynchronous activities. Ahead of those weeks when installing a program is required, I will provide the necessary information for how to obtain them based on your operating system.

Additional Assistance

Academic accommodations are available for students with disabilities. Please contact the Moses Center for Students with Disabilities (212-998-4980 or mosescsd@nyu.edu) for further information. Students who are requesting academic accommodations are advised to reach out to the Moses Center as early as possible in the semester for assistance.

Textbook

Owens, Trevor. The Theory and Craft of Digital Preservation. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018. Accessed June 30, 2023. https://www.trevorowens.org/theory-and-craft-of-digital-preservation/

This book is available through course reserves (electronic version)