Electronic Media Collections Care for Small Museums and Archives

STEP 4 — Documentation

Documentation necessary

Establish good documentation practices. Good documentation makes it much easier to find relevant audio or video records, and to learn about the history of the information.

Documentation (also known as metadata) for each electronic media item should include all of the following:

• when and how was it recorded
• type of information contained
• what happened to the original record
• how the material has been used (especially its playing history)
• all data migrations or reformatting procedures (accompanied by technical details) that have taken place 

Create manuals

The technical and all other procedural details used in reformatting should be put into manuals that explain each item step-by-step. These manuals will have to be updated each time a new procedure is carried out. The manuals will not only help in the development of standard practices, but can also be used to instruct staff on the appropriate procedures to follow for digital collections.