Naming and Organizing Digital Surrogate Files

Prior to starting any digitization project you should decide on a structure and scheme for organizing and naming the files you produce.

Using RefIDs for File Names

For material that is represented in ArchivesSpace by a corresponding archival object record, the refid of the record should be used the basis of the file name and organization.

Start by creating a directory (folder) with the refid as the name. Any files that you produce should use the refid as the basis of the file name.

Example: two 2-sided cassettes represented by a single archival object

root_folder/
├── ref9916/
  ├── ref9916_001_a.wav
  ├── ref9916_001_b.wav
  ├── ref9916_002_a.wav
  ├── ref9916_002_b.wav
  └── derivatives/
      ├── ref9916_001_a.mp3
      ├── ref9916_001_a_caption_eng.vtt
      ├── ref9916_001_b.mp3
      ├── ref9916_001_b_caption_eng.vtt
      ├── ref9916_002_a.mp3
      ├── ref9916_002_a_caption_eng.vtt
      ├── ref9916_002_b.mp3
      └── ref9916_002_b_caption_eng.vtt
      

Example: text-based document

root_folder/
├── e203d9a24f90f062871a72fe359c7900/
  ├── e203d9a24f90f062871a72fe359c7900_001.tif
  ├── e203d9a24f90f062871a72fe359c7900_002.tif
  ├── e203d9a24f90f062871a72fe359c7900_003.tif
  ├── e203d9a24f90f062871a72fe359c7900_004.tif
  ├── e203d9a24f90f062871a72fe359c7900_005.tif
  ├── ...
  └── derivatives/
      └── e203d9a24f90f062871a72fe359c7900.pdf

Born Digital Material

While this section is specifically for conventions used for digital surrogates, it should be mentioned that it is often inappropriate to change file names of born-digital records. The original file names, as given by the record creator/s, should be respected when possible. Normalization of born-digital file names can be done (removing bad characters, spaces, ect), but it is not recommended to try to make them fit any of the above schemes.