Issue no.8

This article introduces Brunnhilde, a command-line and graphical user interface (GUI) tool written in Python that creates reports to aid in appraisal, arrangement, and description of born-digital archives. Developed to fill a perceived gap between robust existing file format identification tools and the practical process of triaging digital files in archival repositories, Brunnhilde is included as a standard utility in the open source digital forensics suite BitCurator as of v1.8.0 and has become part of the triaging and processing workflows in several archival repositories, including the author’s own Canadian Centre for Architecture.

Following an organizational shift that flattened the hierarchy and prioritized security, use, and collection management, research services at UK Libraries SCRC continued to face logistical roadblocks to meeting patron reference and research needs. Specifically, SCRC relied on an often chaotic system of listserv streams monitored by 10-15 team members to manage patron interaction and internal communication. This approach left no easily discernible way for the research services team to assign tasks, facilitate collaboration, monitor progress, or derive statistics. This article will discuss how SCRC successfully implemented a streamlined, task management approach to archives reference using freely available online tools.