Alice Prael and Shira Peltzman have been working on a project to update the NDSA Levels of Digital Preservation to include a metric for access. The NDSA Levels is a tool to help organizations manage digital preservation risks. The matrix contains a tiered list of technical steps that correspond to levels of complexity and preservation activities: Storage and Geographic Location, File Fixity and Data Integrity, Information Security, Metadata and File Formats. Access is one of the "foundational tenets of digital preservation. It follows that if we are unable to provide access to the materials we’re preserving, then we aren’t really doing such a great job of preserving those materials in the first place."
They have added an Access row to the NDSA Levels designed to help measure and enhance progress in proving access. The updated Levels of Preservation:
| Level One (Protect Your Data) |
Level Two (Know Your data) |
Level Three (Monitor Your Data) |
Level Four (Repair Your Data) |
|
| Storage and Geographic Location | Two complete copies that are not collocated For data on heterogeneous media (optical disks, hard drives, etc.) get the content off the medium and into your storage system | At least three complete copies
At least one copy in a different geographic location/ Document your storage system(s) and storage media and what you need to use them |
At least one copy in a geographic location with a different disaster threat Obsolescence monitoring process for your storage system(s) and media | At least 3 copies in geographic locations with different disaster threats Have a comprehensive plan in place that will keep files and metadata on currently accessible media or systems |
| File Fixity and Data Integrity | Check file fixity on ingest if it has been provided with the content Create fixity info if it wasn’t provided with the content | Check fixity on all ingestsUse write-blockers when working with original media Virus-check high risk content | Check fixity of content at fixed intervals
Maintain logs of fixity info; supply audit on demand Ability to detect corrupt data Virus-check all content |
Check fixity of all content in response to specific events or activities
Ability to replace/repair corrupted data Ensure no one person has write access to all copies |
| Information Security | Identify who has read, write, move, and delete authorization to individual files Restrict who has those authorizations to individual files | Document access restrictions for content | Maintain logs of who performed what actions on files, including deletions and preservation actions | Perform audit of logs |
| Metadata | Inventory of content and its storage location Ensure backup and non-collocation of inventory | Store administrative metadata Store transformative metadata and log events | Store standard technical and descriptive metadata | Store standard preservation metadata |
| File Formats | When you can give input into the creation of digital files encourage use of a limited set of known open file formats and codecs | Inventory of file formats in use | Monitor file format obsolescence issues | Perform format migrations, emulation and similar activities as needed |
| Access | Determine designated community1
Ability to ensure the security of the
material while it is being accessed. This may include physical security
measures (e.g. someone staffing a reading room) and/or electronic
measures (e.g. a locked-down viewing station, restrictions on
downloading material, restricting access by IP address, etc.) Ability to identify and redact personally identifiable information (PII) and other sensitive material |
Have publicly available catalogs, finding aids, inventories, or collection descriptions available to so that researchers can discover material Create Submission Information Packages (SIPs) and Archival Information Packages (AIPs) upon ingest2 | Ability to generate Dissemination Information Packages (DIPs) on ingest3
Store Representation Information and Preservation Description Information4 Have a publicly available access policy |
Ability to provide access to obsolete media via its native environment and/or emulation |
1 Designated Community essentially means “users”; the term that comes from the Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System (OAIS).
2 The Submission Information Package (SIP) is the content and metadata received from an information producer by a preservation repository. An Archival Information Package (AIP) is the set of content and metadata managed by a preservation repository, and organized in a way that allows the repository to perform preservation services.
3 Dissemination Information Package (DIP) is distributed to a consumer by the repository in response to a request, and may contain content spanning multiple AIPs.
4 Representation Information refers to any software, algorithms, standards, or other information that is necessary to properly access an archived digital file. Or, as the Preservation Metadata and the OAIS Information Model put it, “A digital object consists of a stream of bits; Representation Information imparts meaning to these bits.” Preservation Description Information refers to the information necessary for adequate preservation of a digital object. For example, Provenance, Reference, Fixity, Context, and Access Rights Information.
[I've been asked to add the footnotes, which I have done. By way of clarification, my notes are the things that I want to remember from the articles I read. The real source for the concepts is the actual article itself; the link is provided at the top of the notes. - chris]
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