BitCurator

From 2011-2014 a team at the School of Information and Library Science at UNC-Chapel Hill and the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities worked to develop a structure of incorporated digital forensics tools that was accessible to librarians, archivists, and their peers. What they developed was an environment that collected free and open source tools into a suite of resources for anyone working with a digital curation workflow. Known as BitCurator, the environment is available for local download, running in a Linux environment, or can be accessed via a virtual machine. As we look to preserve a progressively digital environment the tools in the BitCurator suite will prove to be increasingly more valuable to ensure the authenticity and preservation of materials in addition to addressing the privacy concerns of the item creators.

The creation of BitCurator was just the beginning and an additional grant has extended the project, now known as BitCurator Access for an additional 2 years. This project seeks to expand upon the foundation set up in the initial project and to develop tools to help in streamlining the process for information professionals.

To support the future of BitCurator, the developers have set up the BitCurator Consortium. The mission of the consortium is to support digital forensics practices in libraries, archives, and museums and to help preserve and provide authentic access to our digital records through the sharing of resources and the improvement of the BitCurator environment.