Extents - smith-special-collections/sc-documentation GitHub Wiki

Collection and accession extents of less than 1 box

Use the following process when creating an extent sub-record for an accession or collection of less than one box (in all other cases, use the extent calculator or follow instructions for special formats):

• Give a nominal extent of 0.01 linear feet for each file folder and record the number of folders in the container summary
• As an example, an accession of three folders would have an extent of 0.03 linear feet and container summary of (3 folders)

Series level extents

Series level extents can be added at the discretion of the archivist. They can be useful when each series is entirely (or almost entirely) physically separate from the other series. They are counterproductive when used for series that are physically intermingled, since they will give misleading extents.

File level extents

Extent sub-records should only be added at the file level for special formats (A/V, born digital, computer media, and websites).

Recording digital extents

The extent field must include unit of measure for data when known. This should always include both the size of the digital material in Gigabytes as well as the total number of files that have been preserved. Use "Gigabytes" instead of "GB" "Gbs", or any other variations thereof. Consult a digital data storage conversion tool if necessary.

When calculating size, round to three decimal points only when content is less than 1 Gigabytes. If content is smaller than 1 MB, default to ".001 Gigabytes". Otherwise, round to two decimal points (e.x. 9.25 Gigabytes).

In addition to recording size and quantity of files, include other units of measure in the container summary field that may help a researcher better gauge or contextualize the amount of digital material present in the collection. This could include, for instance, total runtime or duration (for audiovisual files), total number of disk images or total number of emails.

Examples

985 Gigabytes (58,439 digital files)

18 Gigabytes (17 digital files, including 258,678 email messages and attachments)

3750 Gigabytes (58,439 digital files, including 20,879 WAV files that total approximately 75 hours in duration)