This lab will allow you to explore concepts and tools related to various digital “materialities” and initial tools to create basic file fixity information, another step toward creating preservation metadata. The files you should use for the assignment are from the course file collection you downloaded previously; if you don’t have the files, download an unzip them again from https://github.com/morskyjezek/si667-2026.

Lab Questions: Using the Shell for File Identification and Characterization

Q1.

Use the file command to inspect files and create a MIME Type registry. For this question, use files in the PKG-text-data directory.

You will find the lab description at the lab assignment on Canvas.

Learning Goals

This lab asks you to go beyond “screen essentialism” and experience different ways of looking at and modifying files. You will work on:

• How to view files at the raw bitstream level (focus on the “informational” view of digital information)
• Use tools that help to view digital encodings, through examples of text and images How to alter the raw bitstream and an exploratory approach to what those alterations produce

Useful Tools

• You should have a hex editor extension for VS Code. You can use the Hex EditorLinks to an external site. or Hex Inspector. (To install an extension, you can search in VS Code, then click the green install button.)
• If your VS Code extensions aren’t working well, try an online hex viewer, like https://hexed.it/.
• Find the files in the bit-rot-lab folder of the course shared files, linked here.

What to submit

You should submit one file that answers the lab questions below here on Canvas, and also upload a glitched jpg and a glitched tiff file to the shared folder. (Remember that it may take a few tries to get something that renders a visually noticeable or interesting new file.) Other files will be generated during your activities, but only share two of the most interesting glitched files. We will view the files next week and during next class!