USAF-Versar

SCOPE OF WORK DIGITAL CURATION OF CULTURAL RESOURCES DATA 1.0 SCOPE In order to meet the requirements of federal historic preservation and archaeological protection laws and regulations, as well as Department of Defense (DoD) policies, United States Air Force (USAF) base commanders and staff need information about the known and potential archaeological resources on the base. The information needs to be readily accessible, preserved, and organized in a way that will be accessible in the future. The Digital Archaeological Record (tDAR), as a secure digital archive maintained by the Center for Digital Antiquity, provides for the appropriate general access and preservation and ensures that future investigations have easy and secure access to available documentation and comprehensive context information. This provides future investigations and management reviews an easily obtained and more informed understanding of the cultural resources at USAF bases with minimal effort. This project will create digital archaeological archives at several USAF bases. These record collections are essential to maintaining a link between the project efforts, physical artifact collections, and efforts documentation. Currently the records, documentation, and data are held in different locations and in differing formats. In addition to this, much of the documentation is still curated as hard paper copies, physical media, or in a non-preservation standard hardware/software. The Center of Digital Antiquity, working cooperatively with the cultural resources staff from at least four Air Force installations, their relevant State Historic Preservation Offices (SHPOs), and an appropriately qualified archaeological information curation repository (e.g., tDAR), ensure that base and range archaeological and other cultural resources information from these base programs is properly digitized, curated, and available for authorized uses in accordance with 36 CFR 79 and the National Historic Preservation Act. The plan for the information archiving at each base is as follows: Identify the archaeological information related to the base. This may involve checking the library and files at the base, viewing files and collections related to the base at the state archaeological repository, checking site files and reports archived by the SHPO, and other activities. Inspect existing digital files and determine that they are accurate and appropriately formatted for ingest into the digital repository. Make corrections or obtain corrected files if necessary. Creating digital files from paper or image copies if no digital files already exist. Determine the appropriate filenames to use and the most appropriate organization for the files in the digital archive. Meet with base staff to develop plans for the archives: o Identify desired uses of the data by installation staff. o Identify the number and kinds of projects, reports, and other files for metadata and ingest them into the data repository. o Identify the specific administrative metadata that installation and other AF staff want to use. o Other topics, as appropriate for the specific project under discussion. Create the appropriate descriptive metadata for each digital file ingested. As part of this step, contractor activities will include inspecting the PDF files and through consultation with installation and other AF staff experts, resolve any possible problems with them. Contractor digital curators will prepare the required metadata, consulting with base and other AF staff as appropriate. Once uploaded to the repository, the documents will be stored, cared for, and made accessible for the long-term. The Contractor digital curator will upload the digital files and check that they have been correctly deposited in the repository. They will maintain the repository so that uploaded files are preserved and made available to users as appropriate. The contractor digital curator will periodically check the files, or a sample of the files in the repository, to ensure that no deterioration has occurred. The digital files will be periodically migrated and/or refreshed to provide for their long-term accessibility and preservation. Installation and other AF staff working cooperatively with the Contractor shall: Participate with Contractor staff in planning the digital archive and review metadata and other material prepared by Contractor staff for the digital files Periodically check the metadata created for base projects and files in the repository and the uploaded files.