Transcript OCLC Online Computer Library Center The ‘Hows’ and ‘Whys’ of Preserving Digital Materials Brian Lavoie Research Scientist OCLC CARL program: “Here Today, Gone Tomorrow” June 2, 2004

OCLC Online Computer Library Center
The ‘Hows’ and ‘Whys’ of
Preserving Digital Materials
Brian Lavoie
Research Scientist
OCLC
CARL program: “Here Today, Gone Tomorrow”
June 2, 2004
Roadmap
Digital preservation
Why is it important?
How do we do it?
Current initiatives
Rising digital tide
Equivalent of 5 exabytes of new information
created in 2002; 92 percent stored on
magnetic or optical media
Rush to digitize:
– Cultural artifacts (images, audio, video, text)
– Electronic publishing (books, journals, newspapers,
databases)
– Scholarly and “non-scholarly” communication
(listservs, e-prints, blogs, Web sites, chat rooms)
Growing proportion of scholarly and cultural
record manifested in digital form
Opportunities and challenges
Digital technologies offer new opportunities to
create, share, re-purpose, and link information …
… but introduce new challenges in managing
information
Critical element in managing digital materials is
securing their long-term persistence …
… but digital materials have relatively brief
“shelf-life”
Bit rot, obsolescence, and other
digital diseases …
Fragile digital storage media:
– Computer hard drives, floppy disks, tapes, CD-ROMs,
DVDs, etc.
– Subject to rapid media degradation and “bit rot”
– Prone to damage from careless handling
Technological obsolescence:
– Technological environment between content and user
– Technology rapidly changing and evolving
– Obsolete technology impairs access to dependent
digital materials
Digital preservation
Preserving digital materials means ensuring they
endure into the future
But also: Ensuring they endure in a form
compatible with contemporary technology
“Traditional preservation” (books, art, buildings)
– Preserve object
Digital preservation
– Preserve object AND the means to access and use it
Challenges: technical, legal, economic
Technical challenges
How do we preserve digital materials?
Menu of digital preservation techniques:
– Media refreshment
– Migration
– Emulation
Digital preservation in action: Camileon Project
–
–
–
–
Univ. of Michigan and Univ. of Leeds
Practical implementation of emulation
Rescue of British Domesday materials
http://www.si.umich.edu/CAMILEON/
Other technical issues
Blueprint for a digital archiving system:
– Open Archival Information System (OAIS) reference model
– Articulates functional components of complete digital
archiving system
– Many current digital archives based on OAIS
– http://ssdoo.gsfc.nasa.gov/nost/wwwclassic/documents/pdf/
CCSDS-650.0-B-1.pdf
Preservation metadata:
– Information “bundled” with archived digital materials;
supports digital preservation process
– PREMIS (Preservation Metadata: Implementation Strategies)
– http://www.oclc.org/research/projects/pmwg/
Legal challenges
Digital preservation and the right to preserve
Issues:
– Digital preservation often occurs while materials still
under copyright
– Many digital materials outside custody of institutions
with mandate to preserve
Preserving digital materials under copyright:
– Preservation may require reproducing materials
– Migration may alter appearance, functionality, etc.
Legal challenges (continued)
“Custody” and the right to preserve:
– Digital materials obtained through license, subscription
– Web sites
NESLI (National E-Journals Initiative)
– Coordinates e-journal licensing for UK higher education
– Model License: requires publishers to preserve content
– http://www.nesli2.ac.uk/
Internet Archive
– Harvest and stores Web sites for future access
– “Cease and desist” policy
– http://www.archive.org/
Economic challenges
Economic sustainability: ability to marshal, on an
ongoing basis, sufficient resources to meet
preservation objectives
Obstacles:
– Preservation typically under-funded
– Reliance on one-off, short-term funding sources
Economic infrastructure for digital preservation:
– Appropriate allocation of preservation responsibilities
– Sufficient incentives to carry out these responsibilities
– Efficient organization of scarce preservation resources
Economic infrastructure …
Responsibilities:
– Recognize “diffused” preservation responsibilities, including
publishers, Webmasters, software developers, etc.
Incentives:
– Address potential gaps between preservation objectives
and incentives
Organization:
– Leverage infrastructure, exploit economies of scale,
eliminate redundancies
More information:
– http://www.oclc.org/research/projects/digipres/incentivesdp.pdf
– http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub126/pub126.pdf
Towards a secure digital future …
Digital technologies facilitate creating and sharing
information
Long-term future of digital information threatened:
– Fragile digital storage media
– Technological obsolescence
– Must take steps to preserve digital materials
Challenges:
– Effective preservation strategies
– Sorting out right to preserve
– Allocating resources to digital preservation, and using
them effectively
More information …
PADI (Preserving Access to Digital Information):
http://www.nla.gov.au/padi/
Digital Preservation Coalition:
http://www.dpconline.org/graphics/index.html
Canadian Initiative on Digital Libraries:
http://www.collectionscanada.ca/cidl/pres-preserv-e.html
[email protected]