[Pasig-discuss] Release of BitCurator 1.0: Free and Open-Source Software for Libraries, Archives and Museums

[Porter Wayne Olsen]

Release of BitCurator 1.0: Free and Open-Source Software for Libraries,
Archives and Museums

Release date: September 25, 2014

CHAPEL HILL – The BitCurator project today announced the release of
BitCurator 1.0, a free and open-source digital forensics software
environment for libraries, archives, and museums (LAMs) to acquire and
process born-digital materials.  The BitCurator environment can be
installed as a Linux environment; run as a virtual machine on top of
other operating systems (Windows, Mac, Unix/Linux); or run as individual
software tools, packages, support scripts and documentation.  The
software release is the culmination of a three-year (2011-2014),
collaborative effort between the School of Information and Library
Science (SILS) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and
the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH) at the
University of Maryland. The project was made possible through two phases
of funds from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

"This is an exciting milestone," says Christopher (Cal) Lee, principal
investigator for the BitCurator project and associate professor at SILS.
   "Although there are already numerous collecting institutions across
the globe that are using the BitCurator environment, release of version
1.0 is a further sign of the software’s maturity."

Matthew Kirschenbaum, co-principle investigator for the project and
associate director at MITH, concurs. "There is now widespread
recognition that digital forensics methods and tools have a significant
role in the cultural heritage sector. With the release of BitCurator
1.0, collecting professionals now have convenient access to a range of
open source digital forensics tools to assist in the processing of
born-digital and hybrid collections."

Among its many functionalities, the BitCurator environment allows
individuals to create forensic disk images, perform data triage tasks,
analyze and report on file systems, identify personal and sensitive
information (such as social security numbers or credit card
information), and enables the capture and export of technical metadata.
With the completion of the BitCurator project, support for the
BitCurator environment and associated user community is shifting to the
BitCurator Consortium (BCC)
[http://www.bitcurator.net/bitcurator-consortium/] an independent,
community-led membership association that will serve as the host and
center of administrative, user and community support for the software.

More information about the project is available at
http://bitcurator.net. All of the BitCurator software, documentation and
instructional materials can be freely downloaded from
http://wiki.bitcurator.net.  Interested individuals can join the
BitCurator users list and follow @bitcurator on Twitter.
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