Planets Introduction

Adam Farquhar London, 13-June-2006 1

Digital Information at Risk

 European National Libraries and Archives  Have the legal responsibility and the legislative framework to safeguard digital information and provide sustained access to digital cultural and scientific knowledge  Have limited ability to ensure that today’s digital information will be accessible for future generations  Our society risks a gaping hole in the cultural and scientific record unless we act now  Meeting the challenge of preserving access goes beyond the capabilities of any single institution

Stakeholders Working Together

   The Planets Project brings together stakeholders across Europe  National Archives of Great Britain, The Netherlands, Switzerland  National Libraries of Austria, Denmark, Great Britain, The Netherlands  These stakeholders have advanced practices and strong motivation to find practical deployable solutions ... leading research universities  University of Cologne, University of Freiberg, University of Glasgow, Technical University of Vienna … leading technology suppliers   Austrian Research Center, Tessella IBM  Microsoft 3

Key Outcomes

 Increase Europe’s ability to ensure long-term access to its cultural and scientific heritage  improve decision-making about long term preservation  ensure long-term access to valued digital content  control the costs of preservation actions through increased automation, scaleable infrastructure  ensure wide adoption across the user community and establish market place for preservation services and tools 4

Decompose the Problem

 PLANETS will develop:  Planning services that empower organisations to define, evaluate, and execute preservation plans  Methodologies, tools and services for Characterisation of digital objects  Innovative solutions for Preservation Actions  An Interoperability Framework to seamlessly integrate tools and services in a distributed service network  A Testbed to provide a consistent and coherent evidence-base for the objective evaluation of different protocols, tools, services and complete preservation plans.

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Project Architecture Reflects Problem Structure

Preservation Planning Services Test Bed: evaluation and validation services Preservation Action Services Characterisation Services Interoperability Framework User Community Dissemination Take-up & Training Supplier Community 6

Preservation Planning

 Policy Profile Planets will build on Rauber’s preservation planning work  Input: • Preservation policy • Collection and community profile  Feedback • Plans can be executed on sample content and evaluated  Execution • Plans can impact a repository, ingest workflow, delivery workflow  Validation • Services will be evaluated in real organisational contexts Planner Plan Executor Sample Evaluator Content Repository Delivery 7

Content Characterisation

 Planets focuses on characterising content in order to support preservation planning and preservation actions • Move away from high up-front costs to establish metadata  HULs migration project provides an illustrative example • Images were segmented into 20+ groups based on parameters of the transformation tools  Work will build on TNAs PRONOM service for file-format identification • Define a characterisation language • Define an extraction language • Define an pluggable interpreter  Leverage understanding to recommend improvements in file format design  Establish methods for evaluating loss due to preservation actions 8

Preservation Actions

 Transform content  Provide pluggable infrastructure to wrap third party transformation tools  Fill gaps with purpose-build transformation tools  Address need to preserve relational databases • Build on Swiss Archive work  Address need to preserve Microsoft Office content • Build on MS Office12 migration tools  Transform environments  Modular emulation of the full hardware/software environment • Provides full look-and feel • Superb for highly dynamic content  Layered durable approach to emulation • Builds on IBM Universal Virtual Computer (UVC) • Provides robust migration on demand using today’s knowledge • Establish abstract device drivers 9

Interoperability Framework and Testbed

 Planets provides an interoperability framework including  Interoperable distributed services  Service registries and shared data stores  Encapsulate tools as services  Orchestration capability to combine services  Planets testbed  Provides a foundation for objective evaluation of preservation actions, characterisation services, and preservation plans  Provides a controlled research infrastructure  Enable partners to conduct experiments, load content objects, execute tests, evaluate the results, and compare the outcome to similar tests  Supports use of the Interoperability Framework  Provides a shared infrastructure for the preservation community  Enables external organisations to validate their preservation plans  Establishes content collections and preservation scenarios for benchmarking  Establishes certification criteria and procedures to evaluate third party tools and services 10

Conclusion

 Planets  Brings together National Archives, and Libraries with University researchers and technology vendors to meet the challenges of ensuring long-term access to digital material   Builds on strong digital archiving and preservation programmes Addresses core digital preservation challenges with a focus on the needs of Libraries and Archives • Potential to address wider communities  Will provide an interoperable framework that will • Enable third-parties to provide tools and services • Enable vendors to integrate preservation services • Enable content owners to ensure long-term access to their digital content  Will use an empirical approach to gather evidence on what works and why • And use the evidence to guide project activities 11