Michael Day,

1
Digital preservation, digitisation and disaster
management an overview

• Michael Day,
• UKOLN, University of Bath
• http//www.ukoln.ac.uk/
• Digital disaster are you prepared?, University
  College London, 23 June 2000

UKOLN is funded by Resource The Council for
Museums, Archives Libraries, the Joint
Information Systems Committee of the Higher
Education Funding Councils, as well as by project
funding from the JISCs Electronic Libraries
Programme and the European Union. UKOLN also
receives support from the University of Bath
where it is based.
2
Presentation outline

• The presentation will cover
• Some definitions
• Digital preservation
• Digital reformatting (digitisation)
• Digitisation
• purpose and process
• Digital preservation
• the problem, some projects
• Digital disaster management

3
Definitions (1)

• Digital preservation
• A definition
• ... The planning, resource allocation, and
  application of preservation methods and
  technologies necessary to ensure that digital
  information of continuing value remains
  accessible and usable - Margaret Hedstrom (1997)

4
Definitions (2)

• Digital reformatting (digitisation)
• The creation of digital surrogates of non-digital
  information objects
• Digital imaging technologies
• Structured text (e.g. SGML)
• Data
• Purposes
• Access
• As part of a preservation strategy (preservation
  reformatting) - an addition to the preservation
  tool-kit

5
Digitisation - purpose (1)

• Reasons for digitisation
• For access or preservation?
• The primary use of digital imaging into the near
  future will be to improve access - Anne R.
  Kenney (1998)
• For preservation, use microform
• ... microfilm has continuing priority as a
  recording and storage medium on grounds of
  quality and future proofing - DFG working
  group on digitisation (1997)

6
Digitisation - purpose (2)

• Preservation depends on
• An awareness of the digitisation life cycle
• The use of standards were appropriate
• The creation of good quality master files (with
  associated metadata)
• ... Strive to create access master files in a
  way that makes them worthy of long term retention
  - so that disposition decisions are based on
  continuing value and functionality, not limited
  by technical decisions made at the point of
  conversion or anywhere else along the
  digitisation chain - Anne R. Kenney (1998)

7
Digitisation - selection (1)

• Dependent upon the particular purpose of any
  given preservation programme
• Some published guidance exists, e.g.
• Selecting library and archive collections for
  digital reformatting (RLG, 1996)
• Selecting research collections for digitisation
  (CLIR ECPA, 1998) - includes a decision-making
  matrix
• Guidelines for digital imaging (NPO RLG, 1998)
• Need for best practice (AHDS)

8
Digitisation - selection (2)

• Ask some questions, e.g.
• Who owns the intellectual property rights in the
  resource?
• Are there similar products available?
• Does the intellectual nature of the original
  resource warrant its digitisation?
• What is the physical condition of original
  resource?
• Who are the current and potential users of the
  resource?
• How will they need to use it?
• What are the costs and benefits of digitisation?

9
Digitisation - preparation

• Some considerations
• Preservation
• handling of original material
• design of cradles
• lighting, etc.
• Who does the digitisation?
• In-house
• Contractor
• Preparation of metadata

10
Digitisation - capture

• Technical considerations, e.g for imaging
• Image quality
• File formats
• Compression
• Colour space
• Bit depth
• Tone distribution
• Targets
• Resolution

11
Digitisation - metadata

• Making of America II testbed project
• Descriptive metadata
• for resource discovery, etc.
• Administrative metadata
• information that allows a repository to manage
  its digital collection
• e.g. date of scan, resolution, rights information
• Structural metadata
• metadata relevant to the presentation of a
  digital object to users
• RLG Working Group (1998)

12
Digitisation - conclusions

• Some principles
• No single set of guidelines appropriate for all
  circumstances
• Be aware of the digitisation life cycle
• A need to embed digitisation into the core
  mission of libraries and archives
• Cultural institutions must now appreciate that
  digitization is a normal part of doing business -
  one that is worthy of commanding its share of
  institutional resources - Anne R. Kenney (2000)

13
Digital preservation (1)

• Guiding principle
• Digital technology makes it possible to provide
  new and exiting methods of access to information,
  but in the process we cannot abdicate our
  responsibility for preservation ... - Deanna
  Marcum (1997)
• Catalyst
• Report of the Task Force on the Archiving of
  Digital Information (1996)
• Commission on Preservation and Access
• Research Libraries Group

14
Digital preservation (2)

• Technical problems (potential disasters)
• Media longevity
• Magnetic and optical storage media deteriorate
  (and can be re-used)
• Software dependence
• Information is often stored in formats that are
  dependent upon particular software
• Hardware obsolescence
• Machines (computers, disk drives, etc.) rapidly
  become obsolete and non-repairable

15
Digital preservation (3)

• Other problems
• Intellectual property rights
• Does an organisation have the legal right to
  preserve an object? If not, how should this be
  negotiated?
• Authenticity
• Is a digital object what it claims to be?
  (intellectual preservation)
• A need for preservation policies
• RLG Needs and Requirements study (1998)

16
Digital preservation (4)

• Preservation strategies (none perfect)
• Creating hard copy
• Technology preservation
• Museums of obsolete hardware
• Migration
• The periodic transfer of digital materials from
  one generation of technology to a subsequent one
• Emulation
• Programs that mimic the behaviour of the original
  technical environment

17
Some projects (1)

• Electronic records
• North America IMOSA, Pittsburgh Project, UBC
  Project
• Europe DLM-Forum
• UK (PRO) - Electronic Records in Office Systems
  (EROS) project National Digital Archive of
  Datasets (NDAD)
• Austrialia NAA Recordkeeping Metadata for
  Commonwealth Agencies, SPIRT Recordkeeping
  Metadata project
• International InterPARES project

18
Some projects (2)

• Libraries and higher education
• Cedars CURL Exemplars in Digital Archives
• Camileon Creative Archiving at Michigan and
  Leeds Emulating the Old on the New
• NEDLIB Networked European Deposit Library
• National Library of Australia
• PANDORA, Digital Services Project, Preservation
  Metadata Working Group
• British Library
• RLG OCLC - best practice

19
Digital disaster (1)

• Digital materials vulnerable to disaster
• e.g. fire, flood, adverse weather, pollution,
  chemical contamination, war, sabotage, power
  cuts, computer viruses, hacking, accidental data
  loss, obsolescence, etc.
• Need for disaster management planning
• needs to be part of the wider institutions
  disaster management strategy
• risk assessment
• regular routines - backups, migration and
  off-site storage
• regular maintenance of equipment

20
Digital disaster (2)

• Once disaster occurs
• may need to contact data recovery experts -
  either in-house or external
• data can be recovered in some cases, but is
  expensive
• Some examples
• US 1960 Census
• Challenger space shuttle tapes (IBM)
• GDR files (no system documentation)
• Seamus Ross and Ann Gow, Digital archaeology
  Rescuing Neglected and Damaged Data Resources
  (1999)

21
Conclusions (1)

• Some things to consider
• The purpose of digitisation
• The importance of standards, documentation and
  metadata
• Remembering the life-cycle
• ... how data is created and its form will
  impinge directly upon how it can be managed,
  used, retained and preserved at any future date
  - Neil Beagrie and Daniel Greenstein (1998)

22
Conclusions (2)

• The essential fragility of all digital
  information
• Being digital means being ephemeral - Terry
  Kuny (1998)
• ... digital information lasts forever - or
  five years, whichever comes first - Jeff
  Rothenberg (1995)
• Be aware!

23
Web pages

• UKOLN Metadata Web pages
• http//www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/
• Digital preservation bibliography
• http//homes.ukoln.ac.uk/lismd/ preservation.htm
  l