Sustaining The Value: The British Library Digital Preservation Strategy 2017-2020

Sustaining The Value: The British Library Digital Preservation Strategy 2017-2020. British Library. January 2017.
     The strategy document is intended to guide the Library’s digital preservation activities for the next few years. It identifies strategic priorities as well as the the roles and responsibilities of those who will deliver the strategy.  The digital preservation challenges include technological obsolescence, media integrity, bit rot, digital rights management, metadata and others. Also important are

• Proactive Lifecycle management
• Integrity & validation
• Fragility of storage media

"Digital Preservation is the combination of actions and interventions required throughout the digital content lifecycle to ensure continued and reliable access to authentic digital materials." Digital preservation is not just a technical challenge. "It necessitates an ongoing and typically recursive series of actions and interventions throughout the lifecycle to ensure continued & reliable access to authentic digital objects,for as long as they are deemed to be of value."  

Their vision is to make sure that "end-to-end workflows are in place that deliver and preserve our digital collections in a trusted long term digital repository so that they may be accessed by future users.” Other notes:

• Control and consistency throughout the lifecycle is therefore an essential aspect of large scale, sustainable preservation.   
• Priorities include: 
• Changes to the existing technical repository infrastructure 
• Ingest digital collections with metadata for long term preservation
• Management and reporting will be documented and provide assurance and evidence of preservation 
• Deliver content to users from the long term repository in a timely and reliable manner
• Also important is to embed the skills and resources needed to sustain this approach into the future.

Related posts:

• British Library Digital Preservation Strategy
• Collecting Digital Content at the Library of Congress
• Building a Digital Preservation Strategy
• Establishing Digital Preservation At the University of Melbourne

Digital Preservation Matters.

Collecting Digital Content at the Library of Congress

Collecting Digital Content at the Library of Congress. Joe Puccio, Kate Zwaard. The Signal.
March 21, 2017.
     The Library of Congress has increased its digital collecting capacity in order to acquire as much selected digital content as technically possible, currently 12.5 petabytes, and make that content accessible to users. Expansion of the digital collecting program is "an essential part of the institution’s strategic goal to: Acquire, preserve, and provide access to a universal collection of knowledge and the record of America’s creativity." The newly-adopted strategy is directed at acquisitions and collecting, and is based on a vision in which the "Library’s universal collection will continue to be built by selectively acquiring materials in a wide range of formats" and via collaborative relationships with other entities.

The strategy is based on the assumptions that the amount of available digital content will continue to grow rapidly, that the Library will acquire content selectively, that the same content will be "available both in tangible and digital formats", and that intellectual rights will be respected.  Their plan for digital collecting over the next five years is categorized into six strategic objectives:

1. Maximize collections of selected digital content submitted for copyright purposes
2. Expand digital collecting through purchase, exchange and gifts
3. Focus on purchased and leased electronic resources
4. Expand use of web archiving to acquire digital content
5. Acquire openly available content
6. Collect appropriate datasets and other large units of content

 Digital Preservation Matters.

Creating the disruptive digital archive

Creating the disruptive digital archive. John Sheridan. Digital Preservation Coalition. 1 March 2017.
     The National Archives has been working on a new Digital Strategy. "Digital" is their biggest strategic challenge. Archives worldwide are "grappling with the issues of preserving digital records. We also need to be relevant to our audiences: public, government, academic researchers and the wider archives sector – to provide value to them at a time of change."

Traditional archives are built around the physical nature of the records, but digital records "change all our assumptions around the archive – from selection to preservation and access". Their new Digital Strategy is to move beyond the digital simulation of physical records and to become a ‘disruptive’ digital archive, to be "digital by design".

The National Archives is currently a "fully functioning digital archive with a Digital Records Infrastructure capable of safely, securely and actively preserving very large quantities of data with associated descriptive metadata" which is applying the paper records paradigm of selection, preservation and access to digital records. This is their first generation archive.  The second generation digital archive they are aiming for is to be "digital by instinct and design":

• rich mixed media content (things like websites), datasets, computer programs, even neural networks, as records not just information in document formats
• ability to select and preserve all these types of things 
• digital information has value in aggregate – that it’s not just individually important artefacts that have historical value. 
• a relentless engineering effort to preserve digital objects that measures and manages the preservation risks
• transparent in its practices
• develops approaches for enabling access to the whole collection with regard to legal, ethical and public considerations. 
• regards the archive as conceptually interconnected data.

"These are ambitious aims and there are many challenges we need to tackle along the way." Collaboration between archives and other institutions is essential in moving forward.

Digital Preservation Matters.

Establishing Digital Preservation At the University of Melbourne

Establishing Digital Preservation At the University of Melbourne. Jaye Weatherburn. Poster, iPres 2016.  (Proceedings p. 274-5 / PDF p. 138).
     The University of Melbourne’s Digital Preservation Strategy is to make the "University’s digital product of enduring value available into the future, thus enabling designated communities to access digital assets of cultural, scholarly, and corporate significance over time". The long-term, ten-year vision of their strategy looks at four interrelated areas in phases over the next three years:

1. Research Outputs
2. Research Data and Records
3. University Records
4. Cultural Collections

The key principles around which action is required: Culture, Policy, Infrastructure, and Organization. The University’s research strategy recognizes the importance of their digital assets by declaring that "the digital research legacy of the University must be showcased, managed, and preserved into the future". The project team members need to start a comprehensive advocacy campaign to illustrate the importance of preservation. Instead of digital preservation being perceived as a bureaucratic and financial burden it needs to be seen as a useful tool for academic branding and profiling, as well as important for the long-term sustainability of their research.

Digital Preservation Matters.

The Three C’s of Digital Preservation: Contact, Context, Collaboration

The Three C’s of Digital Preservation: Contact, Context, Collaboration. Brittany. DigHist Blog. May 5, 2016.
     The post looks at three themes from learning about digital preservation: "every contact leaves a trace, context is crucial, and collaboration is the key".

Contact: A digital object is more than we see, and we need to take into consideration the hardware, software, code, and everything that runs underneath it. There are "layers and layers of platforms on top of platforms for any given digital object", the software, the browser, the operating system and others. These layers or platforms are constantly obsolescing or changing and "cannot be relied upon to preserve the digital objects.  Especially since most platforms are proprietary and able to disappear in an instant."

Context is Crucial: "There’s no use in saving everything about a digital object if we don’t have any context to go with it." Capture the human experience with the digital objects. 

Collaboration is the Key: "There are a number of roles played by different people in digital preservation, and these roles are conflating and overlapping." As funding becomes tighter and the digital world more complex, "collaboration is going to become essential for a lot of digital preservation projects".   

There are still many unanswered questions that need to be asked and answered.

Digital Preservation Matters.

Digital Preservation - Knowing where to start

Digital Preservation - Knowing where to start. Nik Stanbridge.  Cloud Computing Intelligence.
23 February 2016.
     Memory institutions face increasing demands on their collections, such as the need to manage costs better, provide access, or degradation of objects, which then require digital preservation. Some organizations already have a strategy and are digitally preserving their assets. Many though are only just starting to think about digital preservation and need to know where to start and how to implement digital preservation.

Digital preservation is the process of managing and storing digital files and associated metadata in a way that they will be accessible and usable in the future. The processes apply both objects that were originally created in digital form and to those that have been digitized. If you have a need to maintain digital objects then the first step is to define a strategy; understand what needs to be preserved and how. This includes information about the digital object. "It’s important to remember that digital preservation is as much about preserving the meaning and context of the asset as it is about preserving the asset itself."

• File format preservation is the process of maximising the accessibility of the file through its repeated migration to any number of more stable or current file formats. 
• Data archiving is the process of storing all of the resulting digital assets for the long term, using active archiving principles and processes.  
• A preservation strategy will also need to cover the people and processes you are going to use, the quality of the digital assets to preserve and the IT infrastructure and associated support.

Most strategies will need a phased approach that addresses the digital preservation factors that are important to the institution. Establishing a digital preservation strategy is the very first step. Consider carefully also how the digital objects will be stored long term.

Digital Preservation Matters.

Digital Preservation: A Technologist's Perspective

Digital Preservation: A Technologist's Perspective. Matthew Addis. DPC conference. Arkivum. 22 January 2016.
     A presentation on the application of technology, what it can do, how to use it, and the importance of using technology as a tool to do preservation. It also looks at the question: what I wish I knew before I started digital preservation. One thing is that technology is not the place to start: "digital preservation is primarily about people. It’s about people having the right skills. It’s about people having the right plans. It’s about people working as a team and doing something that’s more than they each could do on their own. Technology helps people do their job and people are the place to start."

It doesn't always help to look at what the large institutions are doing; they have more people and money to build complex digital preservation programs. Sometimes this turns into "preservation paralysis". Some quotes:

• If you think that you’re not able to do enough or ‘do it properly’, then this can result in doing nothing because this feels like the next best thing. 
• But doing nothing is the worst thing you can do. Delays cause digital data to become derelict. Neglect has serious consequences in the digital world – it’s not benign. A decision to do nothing or to delay action can be the equivalent of a digital death sentence. Or, if nothing else, it just increases the cost.
• In the end, it’s people that are the biggest risk to digital content surviving into the future. People thinking that preservation is too hard, too expensive or tomorrow’s problem and not today’s.
• "Digital preservation is an opportunity." It allows the content to be used by others and to become an asset. 

A frugal and minimal strategy to start with could be:

1. Start with knowing in detail what digital content you have. 
2. Decide what is important and store it in a safe place. The article uses the 3-2-1 rule: at least three copies in three separate locations with two online and one offline.
3. Build a business case to get funding for preservation. If you don't have a budget, you can't take care of the content.  
4. From there you can decide what else to do.

There are lots of tools, technology and guidance available. The best thing is to get started and not wait. Realize that digital preservation is an ongoing activity and doesn’t stop.

Digital Preservation Matters.

Building a Digital Preservation Strategy

Building a Digital Preservation Strategy. Edward Pinsent. DART Blog, University of London Computer Centre. 23 November 2015.
     A presentation on how to develop a digital preservation strategy. The blog and the slides included the following points:

• Start small, and grow the service. Do it in stages
• You already have knowledge of your collections and users – so build on that
• Ask why you are doing digital preservation, who will benefit, and what are you preserving
• Build use cases
• Determine your own organisational capacity for the task
• Reasons why metadata matters (intellectual control, manage and document
• Determine your digital preservation strategies before talking to IT or vendors

The presentations also includes several scenarios that would address digital preservation needs incrementally and meet requirements for different audiences, such as archivists, records managers, and users:

• Bit-level preservation (access deferred)
• Emphasis on access and users
• Emphasis on archival care of digital objects
• Emphasis on legal compliance
• Emphasis on income generation

Digital Preservation Matters.

Information Governance Offers a Strategic Approach for Healthcare

Information Governance Offers a Strategic Approach for Healthcare. Lesley Kadlec, et al. Journal of AHIMA. October 2014.
     Information governance is emerging as a strategy that helps organizations achieve their goals. Successful organizations realize that information is a valuable asset and must be carefully managed throughout the information life cycle. The purpose of information governance is two-fold:

1. Stewardship of information 
2. Using information to achieve organization goals

The American Health Information Management Association defines information governance as: "The enterprise-wide framework for managing information throughout its lifecycle and supporting the organization’s strategy, operations, regulatory, legal, risk and environmental requirements." Information governance is an enterprise-wide program that requires leadership and support from the organization’s executive leaders. This is vital in order to focus on assessing risks, evaluating needs, and putting together policies, procedures, and tools. Since retention and information storage is very costly to manage, it is important to manage the information effectively to eliminate redundancy and information that is no longer needed.Sustainability is the key to long term success. Good planning and vision are needed to start a program. Stakeholders need to be involved, as well as ongoing communication, training, auditing, and reporting.

Related posts:

• Information Governance: Why Digital Preservation Should Be a Part of Your IG Strategy
• Managing Chaos Through Digital Governance
• AHRQ Public Access to Federally Funded Research

Digital Preservation Matters.

Managing Chaos Through Digital Governance

Managing Chaos Through Digital Governance. Patrick K. Burke, Lisa Welchman. CIO Insight. March 23, 2015.
     An interview that discusses digital governance and change. Organizations should have a digital leadership who, with the executive level, should initiate a digital strategy. If the digital strategy does not tie in to the organizational goals then problems result. Digital strategies that start at the bottom of an organization and are built only on a foundation of digital best practices may be helpful but may not accomplish what the organization needs.  Organizations need to make sure that digital area experts make decisions about digital standards after getting input from key stakeholders. It is the stakeholders that know what is supposed to be happening.

• Chaos has a way of slipping into an organization and creating problems that grow exponentially over time. 
• With so much innovation, collaboration and bottom-line focused initiatives involving digital assets, there is a very real need to provide a framework to manage this change. Digital governance helps with this process.  
• The opposite of digital governance is making it up and funding it as you go along, maintaining a project instead of operational view when it comes to digital. 
• The golden rule is if you know what you are making, how you are making it and who is supposed to be making it, then you ought to be governing firmly, particularly if you are trying to bring something to scale. 
• If you are just exploring, then some chaos can be good. That’s why I often recommend that digital teams maintain a research and development component that gets to explore the chaos.

Digital Preservation Matters.