LIFE Project: Costing Digital Preservation

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The LIFE Project Costing Digital Preservation
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Richard DaviesLIFE2 Project Manager,The British
Library
Fourth UNICA Scholarly Communication Seminar,
Prague
15-16 May 2008
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Overview

• What is the LIFE Project?
• LIFE1 and LIFE2
• Costing Model
• Case Study Examples
• Benefits

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Lifecycle Information for E-literature

• Project phases
• LIFE1 (12 months)
• LIFE2 (18 months)

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LIFE starts to answer the question

• What is the long term costof preserving digital
  material?

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Why use lifecycle costing?

• Enables evaluation of all the financial
  commitments for an item in a collection
• Important for digital collections, where many
  costs are largely unknown

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Aims

• Better understanding of the digital lifecycle
• Plan and prepare for digital preservation
  activities
• Evaluate and improve efforts
• Compare analogue and digital

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LIFE1 project

• Literature Review
• Economic Lifecycle Model
• Generic Preservation Model
• Case Studies
• International Conference

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LIFE1 Case Studies
e-Journals Web Archiving Voluntary Deposit of
Electronic Publications
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• LIFE1

LIFE2
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Aim of LIFE2

• To evaluate, refine and
• further develop the techniques
• developed in phase one of LIFE

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LIFE2 deliverables

• Economic Evaluation of LIFE1
• Revision of the LIFE Model
• Version 1.1 (October 2007)
• Version 2 (Summer 2008)
• Updated Preservation Model (Summer 2008)
• Final report
• Project conference (23 June 2008)

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The LIFE Model v1.1
Access
Content Preservation
Bit-stream Preservation
Metadata Creation
Ingest
Lifecycle Stage
Access Provision
Preservation Watch
Repository Admin
Re-use Existing Metadata
Quality Assurance
Lifecycle Elements
Access Control
Preservation Planning
Storage Provision
Metadata Creation
Deposit
User Support
Preservation Action
Refreshment
Metadata Extraction
Holdings Update

Re-ingest
Backup
Reference Linking
Inspection
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Levels within the lifecycle
Acquisition
Selection
Selection Policy
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LIFE Model v1.1 Non-lifecycle Elements
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LIFE2 Case Studies
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Institutional Repositories Primary
Data Digitised Newspapers
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Institutional Repositories
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SHERPA-LEAP Case Study
Mostly text-based objects Journal and conference
papers, and book chapters, with only a few A/V
objects currently held. Research output from
the visual and performing arts perspectives. Few
repositories hold this kind of material. A
range of text-based materials Mostly journal and
conference papers.
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Repository Lifecycle Costs
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The Burney Collection

• Purchased by the British Library in 1818 for
  13,500
• 1,100 volumes of the earliest known newspapers
• 1,000,000 pages from 17th, 18th and 19th
  Centuries.
• Re-scanning or re-microfilming is not possible.
• Microfilmed in the 1970s
• Digitisation started in 1995-96 and ran until
  2004.

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http//www.bl.uk/collections/newspapers.html
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Issues that arise from Newspapers Study

• Comparing digital and analogue lifecycles
• What is the lifecycle cost to an institution of
  producing digitised surrogates?
• What are the key preservation issues common
  across digitisation projects of differing scales?

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Case Study Progress

• Develop analogue and digital workflows
• Terminology issues
• How can we get a meaningful comparison?
• Future digitisation costs

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Newspapers Questions 1

• Q. Is the LIFE model terminology inappropriate
  or difficult to use when identifying the costs
  for analogue collections?
• A. No. Interviewees felt that the definitions
  and instructions in the model were able to be
  followed

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Newspapers Questions 2

• Q. Is the stage level definition applicable to
  analogue collections?

• A. Yes.With the name change to the stages
• Bit-stream preservation ? Book storage provision
  
• Content preservation ? Conservation procedures

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Newspapers Questions 3

• Q. Is the element level definition applicable to
  analogue collections?

A. It is certainly workable for Newspapers.
Other collections may need to consider changes to
element definitions. It is recommended that more
types of physical objects are assessed.
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Newspapers Questions 4

• Q. Are the sub-element definitions applicable to
  analogue collections?

A. No.Specific library operational terms would
be used at this level.
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Benefits of LIFE

• Assess the financial commitment for acquiring or
  creating new digital materials
• More effective planning for preservation
  activities
• Comparison of digital lifecycles across
  collections
• Evaluation and optimisation of existing digital
  lifecycles
• Predictive future cost of digital preservation

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LIFE Website Blog

• Websitewww.life.ac.uk
• LIFE Blogwww.life.ac.uk/blog

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LIFE2 Conference

• Free, 1-day conference
• 23rd June 2008
• British Library, London, UK
• Register here
• http//www.life.ac.uk

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Thank you.
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• Acknowledgements
• The LIFE Team
• Paul Ayris
• Rory McLeod
• Rui Miao
• Helen Shenton
• Paul Wheatley

• Useful Websites
• www.life.ac.uk
• www.sherpadp.org.uk
• www.sherpa-leap.ac.uk
• www.bl.uk/dp

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e richard.davies_at_bl.uk t 44 (0) 20 7412 7182