Workshop on "Using FTK Imager and AccessData FTK to Capture and Process Born Digital Materials"

On April 22, I conducted a 2-hour workshop on "Using FTK Imager and AccessData FTK to Capture and Process Born Digital Materials.” The purpose of the workshop was to give staff a hands-on experience in using FTK Imager and AccessData FTK. Eight colleagues from the Stanford University Libraries attended the workshop – primarily from Special Collections and University Archives and the Humanities and Social Sciences Group.

The workshop covered the following:

FTK Imager – how to:
1. Download and install the software (free software - http://accessdata.com/support/adownloads).
2. Create a forensic image of an USB flash drive.
3. Create a logical image of the same flash drive.

AccessData FTK – how to:
1. Load an image – for this workshop we used a sampling from the Stephen Jay Gould papers.
2. View technical metadata generated by the software.
3. Arrange column settings to see specific file attribute (e.g. duplicate files).
4. Search for social security numbers using pattern search.
5. Test the full-text search function.
6. Flag files with sensitive information with "privileged" tag (such as those with social security numbers, etc.)
7. Use the bookmark feature for hierarchical information and apply it to groups of files (e.g. series, subseries, etc.)
8. Label groups of files with user defined labels (controlled vocabulary for computer storage media, document type suggested in the workshop, subject headings or access rights, etc.)
9. View files with specific bookmarks and labels.

Many incoming collections are hybrid collections – containing both analog and digital material. The digital component will become even greater as we move forward. Empowering all archivists to use a tool such as AccessData FTK to process the digital materials would be very useful.