Although my last post reported that I’d got through the long slog of the conversion aspects of this preservation project, in fact there was still more slog of other sorts to go. A lot more slog in fact: there was the transfer of the contents of 126 cd/dvd disks to the laptop; and there was the reordering of pages in 881 files to rectify the page order produced by scanning all front sides first and then turning over the stack of pages to scan the reverse sides at a time in the 1990s when I didn’t have a double sided scanner. In fact this exercise involved yet more conversion (from multi-page TIF file to PDF) before the reordering could be done.

This latter task really took a huge amount of time and effort and was yet another reminder of how easy it is to specify tasks in a preservation project without really appreciating how much hard graft they will entail. Having said that, it’s worth noting that my PDF application – eCopy PDF Pro – had two functions which made this task a whole easier: first, the ability to have eCopy convert a file to PDF is available in the menu brought up by right clicking on any file, thereby automatically suggesting a file title (based on the title of the original file) for the new PDF in the Save As dialogue box, and which then automatically displays the newly created file – all of which is relatively quick and easy. Second, eCopy has a function whereby thumbnails of all the pages in a document can be displayed on the screen and each page can be dragged and dropped to a new position. I soon worked out that the front-sides-then-reverse-sides scan produces a standard order in which the last page in the file is actually page 2 of the document; and that if you drag that page to be the second page in the document, then the new last page will actually be page 4 of the document and can be dragged to just before the 4th page in the document. In effect, to reorder simply means progressively dragging the last page to before page 2 and then before page 4 and then before page 6 etc until the end of the file is reached. Both these functions (to be able to click on a file title to get it converted, and to drag and drop pages around a screenfull of thumbnails) are well worth looking for in a PDF application.

Regarding the disks, I was expecting to have trouble with some of the older ones since, during the scoping work, I had encountered a few which the laptop failed to recognise. I did try cleaning such disks with a cloth without much success. However, what did seem to work was to select ‘Computer’ on the left side of the Windows Explorer Window which displays the laptop’s own drive on the right side of the window together with the any external disks that are present. For some reason, disks which kept on whirring without seeming to be recognised, just appeared on this right side of the window. I don’t profess to understand why this was happening – but was just glad that, in the end, there was only one disk that I couldn’t get the machine to display and copy its contents.

I’m now in the much more relaxed final stages of the project, defining backup arrangements and creating the Maintenance Plan and User Guide documents. The construction of the Maintenance Plan has thrown up a couple of interesting points. First, since it requires a summary of what preservation actions have been completed and what preservation issues are to be addressed next time, it would have made life easier to construct the preservation working documents in such a way that the information for the Preservation Maintenance Plan is effectively pre-specified – an obvious point really but easy to overlook – and I did overlook it…. The second point is a more serious issue. The Maintenance Plan is designed to define a schedule of work to be undertaken every few years; its certainly not something I want to be doing very often – I’ve got other things I want to do with my time. However, some of the problem files I have specified in the ‘Possible future preservation issues’ section in the Maintenance Plan could really do with being addressed straight away – or at least sooner than 2021 when I have specified the next Maintenance exercise should be carried out. I guess this is a dilemma which has to be addressed on a case by case basis. In THIS case, I’ve decided to just leave the points as they are in the Maintenance Plan so that they don’t get forgotten; but to possibly take a look at a few of them in the shorter term if I feel motivated enough.