In 1990, Edinburgh University Computing Service (EUCS) launched the Bulletin of IT Services – or BITs for short. Produced by the staff in the EUCS team, BITs reported on the latest developments in communications and information technology at the University until Information Services was formed in the early 2000s.
The newsletter charts the growth of technology in higher education, including staff email, the move to W3, virtual learning platforms, and new opportunities for distance and flexible learning. It provides insights into how the wider staff and student community responded to new technology services and the transformations enabled by growing infrastructure.
For decades, the legacy issues of BITs remained on obsolete CDs and DVDs in an office cupboard. Realising the importance of the IT Bulletin and the need to recover these valuable born digital records, the Graphic Design team and Heritage Collections joined forces to digitally preserve BITs. Across two summer projects, Digital Preservation Intern Jasmine Patel undertook an ‘on-the-fly’ digital forensics workflow to create disc images and extract files from 120 CDs and DVDs. With input from Graphic Design, she appraised the content and created a catalogue to make BITs discoverable and accessible for users.
Digital Preservation Intern Jasmine Patel creating disc images
To share this work and make the BITs Archive more visible, Jasmine produced an online exhibition to tell the story of the people behind the machines and to raise awareness about digital preservation today. We invite you to explore BITs and the history of technological innovation at the University of Edinburgh through Preserving BITs.
‘Preserving BITs’ Online Exhibition: https://exhibitions.ed.ac.uk/exhibitions/preserving-bits/
BITs Archive: https://archives.collections.ed.ac.uk/repositories/2/archival_objects/227603
Sara Day Thomson is the Digital Archivist in Heritage Collections at the University of Edinburgh. Her background includes research and development in digital preservation and web and social media archiving.