Notes

Outline

** Return to Informedia DL Colloq Site ____________ Preserving Digital Information for Reuse Margaret Hedstrom School of Information University of Michigan

Digital Preservation: Concepts & Definitions Digital Preservation: the full range of policies, resource allocation, facilities and infrastructure, preparation for disasters and recovery, and processes necessary to ensure continuing access to digital information Archiving: retaining information for continuing use or for reuse in the future

Digital Preservation: Concepts & Definitions - 2 Repository (OAIS): An organization of people and systems that has accepted responsibility to preserve information for a designated community Long-term:  “a period of time which is long enough to be concerned about the impacts of changing technology . . . on the information held in a repository.”

Why is digital preservation a hard problem? Technology dependencies Contextual dependencies Semantic dependencies Use by new/different communities Use for a different purpose

Technological Dependency

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Contextual Dependencies Circumstances of data collection/creation Data quality Data provenance Relationships among items in a collection and between collections Assumptions about the original user community and audience Legal and policy environment of creation and use

Semantic Dependencies Meaning and interpretation are embedded in the knowledgebase of a “designated community” Semantic decay results from: Inability to capture/represent tacit knowledge Changes in the explicit or tacit knowledgebase of a designated community

Research Issues “It’s About Time”  -- NSF and Library of Congress www.si.umich.edu/digarch “Invest to Save” -- NSF-DELOS Working Group http://delos-noe.iei.pi.cnr.it/activities/internationalforum/Joint-WGs/joint-wgs.html

Repositories Elaboration of current repository models New types of repositories Format repositories Software repositories Peripheral device repositories  New functionality Content types Representation

Collections and Curatorial Processes Collections of complex objects Multi-format and multi-media Dynamic Linked Models of curatorial processes Decision models

Preservation Tools and Technologies Automated ingest Metadata extraction and creation Tools for managing dependencies (technological, contextual, semantic) Scalability (up and down)

Economic and Policy Issues Metrics Benefits Cost effectiveness How do we make long-term preservation affordable? What are the economic incentives? Who should/will fund this activity?