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.

For reference, see the shell slide deck and this reference document in the course GitHub repo.

Questions to Answer

Q1. Imagine that you have opened a window that gives access to the command line. What command would you use to determine your current location (current path)?

Q2. What command would you use to move to another directory or folder?

Q3. What command would you use to list the contents of the directory or folder?

This guide is generally adapted to working in a UNIX environment using the bash shell, but there are various nods to Mac and Windows, which have some differences. Demonstrations during class assume use of Mac OS/Unix style terminal commands. However, commands for both unix and windows environments are offered below. See the linked resources at the bottom for greater detail.

Description

This activity aims to present basic skills for using the “command line,” a text-based system for working with the operating system and files on most laptop and dekstop computers (including MacOS, Windows, and Linux operating systems). A digital curator should have a basic level of comfort and competence with this interface for a few reasons: most importantly, the command line is an efficient and powerful environment that allows for basic creation of batch operations and simple scripts; in addition, some tools require operation from the command line. While not immediately intuitive, the command line and shell programs offer many quick and efficient ways to perform some actions, such as generating basic information about files and systems.