Does your organization have electronic files that need to be preserved? Would copying them all manually be a nightmare? Are you unsure as to what’s actually in each file? We thought so. We have the same problems. That’s why we’re developing a tool, CINCH(Capture, Ingest, & Checksum tool), to help automate the process of file preservation.
How does it work? Well, all you have to do is login into CINCH and upload a list of files for CINCH to process. Then you can just kick back and wait for notification that your files are ready. CINCH will take your file list and perform the following actions:
- Download each file, taking care to not change such information as the file’s last modified date.
- Virus check each file.
- Create a checksum for each file.
- Extract the metadata (title, author, keywords, dates and times) embedded in each file.
- Package everything up in a zip file for you to download. In addition to your files, the file-level metadata, any errors that occurred during processing and a list of the actions run on each file are included.
With repeated use CINCH will also be able to detect whether a file is a duplicate of a file you’ve previously listed for processing.
When CINCH is done processing your file list you’ll receive an email that your files are ready. You just need to log back in and download them. Your files are now ready to be placed into whatever preservation system you wish.
CINCH currently supports the following file types: Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Excel, PDF documents, JPEG, PNG, GIF, text and CSV files.
How do I get started? If your organization is affiliated with NCLIVE you’re in luck. CINCH will be provided to you as a free, hosted service. You merely need to contact us and we can set you up with an account. If you’re not affiliated with NCLIVE don’t worry you can download and run CINCH yourself. You can find the needed source code and documentation here. CINCH is made possible by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. If you want to learn more about CINCH checkout the following links:
http://cinch.nclive.org
http://digitalpreservation.ncdcr.gov/cinch/index.html
[...] about as part of that series are their YouTube tutorial about preserving Facebook data and the CINCH (Capture, Ingest, & Checksum) tool, which will help to automate the process of file [...]