Digital Preservation LTR report slideshow

1. The Preservation of Digital Materials29 October 2009Information Technology

2. A set of activities aimed towards ensuring access to digital materials over time “Digitization for preservation” vs. “digital preservation” Digitization for preservation results in digital materials Digital preservation is taking digital materials and ensuring their long-term safety and access What is Digital Preservation?

3. Authenticity Renderability Viability Fixity Understandability Identity Availability Preservation Goals

4. The library doing the preserving must have some control over the item being preserved Ways to get copies of published material Deposit agreements Licenses to the archival copy Contracts with publishers Availability

5. Digital objects should carry descriptive metadata within them Understandability Preserved material must be independently understandable to its user community Fixity Digital objects must be protected from unauthorized changes Identity

6. “the quality that an object is what it purports to be” The source and content of an article should be verified There should be policies and procedures to ensure data integrity The chain of custody and all authorized changes should be documented Digital provenance: the event history pertaining to a digital object Authenticity

7. Viability is the quality of being readable from media Threats to viability are media damage and deterioration Another threat to viability is media becoming obsolete Files should be copied periodically Viability

8. Renderability is ensuring that a digital file is usable Renderability

9. Technology Preservation Computer museum approach If a format depends on a particular software and/or hardware, then keep a few working examples of that software and/or hardware Emulation the use of hardware and/or software that allow computer instructions written for one platform to be run on another platform Preservation Practices and Strategies

10. Providing an intermediate layer between the emulator and the current platform, isolating the emulator from these technology changes Universal Virtual Computer Files of a given format are translated to a simpler Logical Data View by a “decoder” program written to run on the Universal Virtual Computer Universal Virtual Machine

11. Can open a file written by an earlier version of the program and save it in the current format Format Normalization some formats are more “preservable than others, so some preservation systems “normalize” all incoming documents Format Migration

12. Technology preservation Emulation Format migration Format normalization Preservation strategies for potentially obsolete file types

14. How well documented is the format?

15. Does it allow imbedded metadata?

18. Obsolescence of certain media

19. Integrity and authenticity

20. Archival roles

22. Information package-Preservation description information

23. “Digital formats are at the heart of digital preservation activities” Knowledge of formats is necessary to ensure long term access to digital records Support for Digital Formats http://neatorama.cachefly.net/images/2008-06/ibm-pc.jpg

24. “Properties of objects that must be preserved over time through preservation treatments such as migrations or emulations in order to ensure the continued usability and meaning of the objects.” What are the essential characteristics of the record? What must be saved so we can still make sense of it? Categorized as: Content: What the document contains Context: metadata for the record Appearance: layout of the record Structure: metadata linking the record to a larger whole Behavior: Other connections Significant Properties

25. Representation Information: more complex than appearance suggests. We are concerned not only with file format (.pdf, .docx, etc ) but with compression, profile, and bitstream encoding Environment Information: the context in which the record is embedded. Some Important Registries: PRONOM (UK) Format Descriptions Database (Library of Congress) The Representation Information Registry Repository (Digital Curation Centre) *GDFR: The Global Digital Format Registry seeks to unify all three* Formats and Issues

26. DROID (Digital Record Object Identification) JHOVE (JSTOR/Harvard Object Validation Environment) Metadata Extraction Tool Xena (XML Electronic Normalising (SP?) for Activities) Open-Source Software

27. International Digital Preservation Efforts NDIIPP DPC Nestor E-Depot NLA Develop standards and strategies Present awards to competitive grant programs Ensure availability of scholarly and education resources Create Repository Software Applications Raise awareness Forums Studies Workshops & Conferences Technology Watches

28. Obstacles to Preservation Issues to consider… Blog Updates New Media Art Websites requiring ID access How deeply to preserve links Preserving the original look and feel of the material

29. Positives Material for historians and biographers Preserved by culture heritage institutions Raise awareness of preservation initiatives Preservation made personal Negatives Rate of accumulation Scattered forms of media Benign neglect Lack of system understanding Desktop metaphor not suited for long-term access Also… Privacy issues? Preserving…You!