Sam Meister
Digital Archivist
Consultant
David Kirsch
Associate Professor
University of Maryland
Since 2008, the Sherwood Archive Project has investigated the potential for collecting and preserving the records of failed businesses. This investigation is based on the collaboration with Sherwood Partners, Inc., a consulting firm based in Mountain View, CA, that offers a “private workout” service to failing companies as an alternative to formal public bankruptcy. During this service all assets of a failing company are assigned over to Sherwood, including all paper and digital records.
In the beginning phases of the project, collaborators from the University of Maryland worked with Sherwood to learn about how they were collecting and managing these records, and then, based on those findings, developed new strategies to embed long-term preservation mechanisms into Sherwood’s existing business processes. In the next phases of the project, the goal is to establish a partnership between Sherwood and an external repository that will take ownership of, preserve, and provide access to these records into the future. This project briefing will report on outputs of the project to date and next steps, including the development and implementation of a workflow for the ongoing transfer of paper and digital records between Sherwood and an external repository.
Handout (MS word)
