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Community Archives Projects

Community Archives workflows support item-level digitization, description, preservation packaging, and access work for partner collections and local history projects.

Use this section as the staff-facing home for Community Archives work. The full pipeline starts with scanning and file organization, then moves through VText upload, ArchivesSpace description, and final digital preservation processing.

Available Tutorials

Tutorial Use This When
Scanning Choosing between Bookeye scanning for textual documents and flatbed scanning for photographs, slides, and negatives.
Bookeye Scanner Scanning textual documents such as books, newspapers, scrapbooks, and fragile documents.
Flatbed Scanning Scanning photographs, slides, and negatives.
File Organization Naming, arranging, and checking item files before repository upload and preservation processing.
ABBYY FineReader Processing OCR and PDF processing after scanning and file organization are complete.
Add to VText Creating the VText/DSpace item, adding the cover page, uploading OCR, and recording repository identifiers.
Add to ArchivesSpace Creating the archival object and linked digital object after the VText item is available.
Digital Preservation Processing Processing a Community Archives item folder into a verified BagIt ZIP for long-term storage.

Standard Project Sequence

  1. Scan the item using the correct equipment for the format.
  2. Organize files, filenames, item IDs, and handoff notes.
  3. Process OCR and PDFs in ABBYY FineReader.
  4. Upload the access copy to VText and record the handle and UUID.
  5. Add the item to ArchivesSpace as both an archival object and digital object.
  6. Run digital preservation processing and create the verified BagIt ZIP.

Different workers may complete different sections, but every handoff should preserve the item ID, VText URL, ArchivesSpace URL, file status, and open issues.

General Expectations

  • Work from the approved local processing copy for the project.
  • Keep filenames, item IDs, collection IDs, and UUIDs consistent across every output.
  • Record processing decisions in project metadata or finding aid files as work is completed.
  • Verify copies, logs, manifests, and final package structure before deleting local files.

Common Outputs

Community Archives processing may produce:

  • access PDFs for VText or reference use
  • JP2 preservation master files
  • item-level finding aid files
  • VText cover pages and downloaded metadata XML
  • ArchivesSpace digital object links
  • BagIt preservation packages
  • checksum and manifest files