Guidelines for transferring digital materials to Special Collections and Archives

These guidelines are intended to help donors prepare their digital files for transfer to Concordia University Library’s Special Collections and Archives.

Digital materials can only be transferred once a donation has been accepted by the Library. For more information about proposing a donation, see the How-to Guide for Making a Gift to Special Collections and Archives.

For questions and additional guidance, please contact Special Collections and Archives.

To learn more about how digital materials are processed for preservation, see: https://library.concordia.ca/research/digital-preservation/.

Selecting materials for transfer

Review what you have

Before transferring digital materials to the Library, you must review the material first. If the materials are stored on an external carrier such as a hard drive or USB flash drive, for example, you must connect the drive to your computer and view the contents before it can be transferred. If the external carrier cannot be read, please contact Special Collections and Archives for further instructions.

Please assign each external carrier a consecutive number and add it to the physical item using masking tape.

Why do we ask this?

Unlike analogue material, digital materials are processed at the folder level rather than file by file. We do not review all files that are part of a digital donation. A single transfer of digital material can contain tens or even hundreds of thousands of individual files, and it is not feasible for the processing archivist to open each file. This means that any sensitive or confidential information in the archive may inadvertently be made available to researchers. Carefully reviewing the contents before transferring them to the Library helps avoid situations where materials that you did not intend to make public accidentally end up as part of your archive.

Digital materials that are confidential should not be transferred to the Library and must be removed by the donor. See how to review your files for more details.

How to review your files

When reviewing the contents of your digital files, ask yourself: do you want this document to be a part of your archive? If you have decided that you do not want a document in your archive, do not send the file. This might mean not uploading it to the Library’s secure network file transfer service as part of your donation or deleting it from the external carrier before giving the item to the Library.

If you find sensitive or confidential information when reviewing your files, you can either delete the file (if you do not wish to include it in your archive) or make a note of the file name and location, so that the processing archivist can flag it. If you do not remove or flag confidential or sensitive digital documents, they may inadvertently be added to your archive and become accessible to researchers.

Examples of materials that should not be included as part of your digital transfer:

• Documents containing Social Insurance Numbers and other ID numbers (if something is exceptionally relevant, i.e. grant proposals, include these documents and flag them using the template provided).
• Personal medical information.
• Banking information.
• Student records.
• Human Resource documents, including personal files, salary formation, tax slips, pay slips, and payroll documents.
• e-books.
• Pirated materials (films, music, books, software, etc.).

Share important information with Special Collections and Archives

Once you have reviewed the digital materials you wish to transfer, provide the following information to Special Collections and Archives:

• Estimated total size of files to be transferred in MB, GB, or TB.
• Where the files are currently stored (on a hard drive, on your computer, on a USB flash drive, in the cloud, etc.).
• If the files are stored on external carriers, provide a count of the number of external carriers.
• Name and location of any files containing sensitive or confidential information using this template.

Organizing and packaging files

This section outlines guidance on naming, organizing, and packaging your digital files to ensure a smooth transfer.

Filenames and folder names

Keep file names and folder names as short as possible. Long and descriptive names for files and folders create very long file paths, which can lead to problems reading and copying files on Windows filesystems.

Nested folders

When organizing your files, limit the level of folders to three or four deep. Having many nested folders creates very long file paths, which can lead to problems reading and copying files on Windows filesystems.

Zipping files

If you are transferring your materials using the Library’s network transfer service, we recommend packaging them by creating a .zip file. This ensures that all your files are safely transferred. Creating a .zip file can be done using a zip utility (e.g. 7Zip) or by following the instructions below:

• On a Windows computer, select all the files and folders you would like to transfer and right-click and scroll to Send to > Compressed (zipped) folder.
• On a Mac, select all the files and folders you’d like to transfer, control-click, then choose Compress from the menu.

Transferring files

The preferred method of transfer is a file network transfer. A file network transfer involves copying files directly from your computer, hard drive, USB, or cloud storage to a Concordia server. File network transfers are currently the most reliable and secure method of transferring digital archival materials to Special Collections and Archives. Once a transfer is scheduled, staff will send you login credentials and detailed instructions for uploading your files.

In some cases, transferring external carriers may be possible. However, you must review the content before transferring. Refer to the section on selecting materials for transfer for instructions.

Selecting preservation-friendly file formats

When possible, prioritize preservation-friendly file formats. Preservation-friendly file formats tend to be widely used, well-documented, open-source or non-proprietary, and uncompressed or losslessly compressed. If your files are not saved in the recommended formats, do not convert them yourself.

For a list of recommended file formats, consult the Special Collections and Archives Format Policy Registry.