I would also recommend keeping your original copies. Paper is one of the cheapest and most stable materials to curate long-term. Maintaining digital archives long term also requires regular maintenance, a finding aid and/or database system to manage your metadata, and trusted back-ups. Focus on creating digital copies for 1). preservation purposes- paper that is very fragile or handled too much, 2) to improve access for your most used archives. Good luck!! On 2018/01/23 05:03, Laura Rice wrote: > Hi Sarah, > > I would not recommend destroying paper copies. They are your backup. > We had an incident with ransomware that was only solved by using paper > copies to recreate the digital files. Even if we had paid as > requested, there is no guarantee we'd have gotten our files unlocked. > You don't want to be in that position! > > Laura Rice > Chief Curator > The Adirondack Experience > > -----Original Message----- > From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On > Behalf Of Sarah Saxe > Sent: Monday, January 22, 2018 7:16 PM > To: [log in to unmask] > Subject: [MUSEUM-L] Digital registration files > > Hello All, > I'm wondering if other institutions have been challenged to go > completely digital with registration/curatorial files. I have been > charged with investigating the feasibility, pros, and cons of doing > this for my museum. My immediate reaction was panic, but I'm hoping to > get more information from others who have been in a similar situation. > This would be a huge undertaking for us, as we have a half century+ of > past records of all types, and we'd need to work out a new system of > strictly digital record keeping moving forward; but in theory, we > could do it. But do we want to? With new records, currently we are > keeping hard copy originals in fireproof cabinets, we scan and save > pdfs on our server, and we attach files to our collections software, > which is all backed up on the cloud. We are slowly making progress > scanning and attaching old records. Would anyone argue to keep ONLY > digital copies of past and future records? I see many red flags and > obstacles- am I just stuck in the past? Does anyone have positive > experiences and/or comments regarding this? > > Thanks in advance, > Sarah > > Sarah Saxe, Curator of Collections > City of Greeley Museums > 714 8th Street, Greeley, CO 80631 > Office: (970) 350-9219 > Fax: (970) 350-9570 > Website l Facebook > > ========================================================= > Important Subscriber Information: > > The Museum-L FAQ file is located at > http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed > information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail > message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message > should read "help" (without the quotes). > > If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message > to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read > "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes). > > ========================================================= > Important Subscriber Information: > > The Museum-L FAQ file is located at > http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed > information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail > message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message > should read "help" (without the quotes). > > If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message > to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read > "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes). ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).