Stewarding our resources: Building a sustainable IPUMS archival document access system

Abstract

IPUMS at the University of Minnesota has created the world’s largest accessible database of census and survey microdata. The IPUMS suite of products contains nine harmonized data products. The largest of these projects, IPUMS International (IPUMS-I) has supported the curation and preservation of ancillary materials received during data acquisition efforts. Archival staff have preserved thousands of unique pieces of census and survey documentation, creating bibliographic records using an extended Dublin Core profile that supports the use of controlled vocabularies to enhance findability for the project staff and outside users. The goal of this curation work was to create a findable, searchable, and downloadable document access system for our internal use and to support IPUMS researchers. This paper describes our experience constructing a tool that supports exploration and dissemination of these archived materials. During this development, we gained valuable insight about stewarding our resources that are applicable to research organizations responsible for curating, preserving, and disseminating archival materials.