Over the past several weeks, I’ve been working a bit more to evaluate open source packages to implement an open archival information system. The software I’ve looked at is very promising. In particular, RODA will be a very nice package for a lot of archives, assuming you can get local support to install it an manage the installation in a way that file storage and backup is trustworthy. I also like Archivematica a lot. Although the software is not yet ready to implement, the design philosophy and development model make it very easy to adopt, even in repositories without a lot of IT support....

At the same time, most of us need to do something with the electronic records we have in hand now, and might not be ready to work with either of these systems (although they will be more mature soon)....

In any case, I just cobbled together some thoughts regarding the minimum amount of work I think would really be necessary to set up a rudimentary system to accession, process and provide access to electronic records, using whatever existing software, people, and systems an archives might have in place. I placed this under the newly-revised ‘Recommendations‘ section of the blog....