Costs of Digital Preservation

There are concerns on over the cost of digital preservation. Some issues associated with digital preservation are that it is an ongoing committment and has continuous resources. There is also the need for immediate "creation to preservation" in digital objects. Therefore, the costs of digital materials start at creation of the resource. Digitization projects require that digital files must be budgeted for and considered from their creation. With costs always rising, an institutions preservation strategy should be appropriate to the percieved value of the digital object.
Two good articles on the Costs of preserving digital items are Chapman, S. (n.d.) Costs of Digital Preservation and Russell, K., & Weinberger, E. (2000). Cost Elements of Digital Preservation.

http://journals.tdl.org/jodi/article/viewFile/jodi-113/99

http://www.leeds.ac.uk/cedars/documents/clW01r.html

Digital Preservation Options

Preservation Options

Bitstream Copying- backing up your data. Will be beneficial in the case of hardware or media failure, but is not a long term maintenance technique.

Refreshing- "to copy digital information from long-term storage medium to another of the same type" without changing the digital object itself.

Persistent Media- this method helps diminish losses from media deterioration. It does not help in the case of "catastrophic physical loss," or media obsolescence.

Digital Archaeology- explicitly an emergency recovery strategy

Analog Backups- converts digital objects into analog form with the use of analog media. Can preserve content and protect from obsolescence, but sacrifices digital qualities such as share ability.

Migration- "to copy data or convert data from one technology to another, preserving the essential characteristics of the data." Critics say that migration does not ensure the authenticity nor the integrity of the digital document.

Replication- "to copy in order to enhance the longevity of digital documents while maintaining their authenticity and integrity through copying and the use of multiple storage location."

Standards- adhering to well-recognized standards will aid in problems of compatibility.

Normalization- "is a formalized implementation of reliance on standards."

Canonicalization- can determine if the essential characteristics of a document have remained intact through conversion from one format to another-this method has yet to be implemented.

Emulation- "Combines software and hardware to reproduce the performance of another computer of a different design." This allows programs to operate in a different environment than what it was created for. This has been successful in computer games, but widespread use as a long-term digital preservation strategy, it has not been tested.

Encapsulation- a technique of grouping together a digital object and the meta data necessary to provide access to that object

Hendley, T. (1998). Comparison of Methods & Costs of Digital Preservation. British Library Research & Innovation Centre
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/services/elib/papers/tavistock/hendley/hendley.html

British Library iPres 2008
http://www.bl.uk/ipres2008/

Digital Preservation Management
http://www.icpst.umich.edu/dpm/

Preservation Planning

Digital Preservation encompasses activites that will extend the "usable life" of machine-readable information. This means long-term maintenence and accessability to ever-outdated forms of technology. Many digital preservation strategies exist, but no one strategy is appropriate for all data types, situations and institutions.

Useful websites on digital preservation

The Division of Preservation & Access
http://www.neh.gov/news/report98/preserve.htm

Image Permanence Institute
http://www.imagepermanenceinstitute.org/

Library of Congress-Digital Preservation
http://www.digitalpreservation.gov

Australian Library and Information Association
http://alia.org.au/policies/preservation

Digital Curation Centre
http://www.dcc.ac.uk/

OCLC Preservation Services

"With years of experience in digitization services, microfilm production and preservation project planning, we assist clients worldwide in creating solutions that expand access to collections while preserving the integrity of the original materials.
We stay on top of technological developments in the digitization and preservation of library and archive materials, and continually strive to find flexible and cost-effective reformatting options. We also provide metadata services and content management tools to increase visibility of your unique collections."

OCLC Preservation Services offer secure managed storage of digital content, as well as microfilm. Once an item is made into a digital archive, the OCLC systems perform quality checks and records the results in a "health record" for each file. Quality checks are done periodically by the OCLC automated system.

http://www.oclc.org/preservation/default.htm
http://www.oclc.org/digitalarchive/default.hmt

Rand Corporation Project REsource

This is a memo from the Rand Corporation dealing with the topic of digital preservation. The author states in the abstract that, "Digital objects are becoming a critical component of scholarly research, but stakeholders show an alarming lack of concern about preserving digital data accurately and sustainably; those charged with archiving information have not yet developed strategies that will enable future generations to build their knowledge on what has gone before."
Read the entire document at:

http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/2008/RAND_RB9331.pdf

Since I began collectiing information on digital preservation three things have become very clear: 1. Digital preservation is a new phenomenon
2. There are currently no comprehensive methods in which to preserve digital information
3. Many are interested in setting standards and doing research to find practical methods of digital preservation.

What are we waiting for! It seems like in everything that I read we are in the early stages of figuring out what to do, while every second more and more digital documents are created.

"The Perils of Digital Preservation"

This article focuses on information that is "born digital" and the issues associated with digital preservation today. Many of these topics have been covered extensively before and beg for a solution. This article does provide some strategies to begin a set of standards, again, to decide what to preserve, how to access it, and how to store it.

"Born digital information has no physical original to refer back to."

"Digital preservation is increasingly driven by the need to give wider
access to information, and often by the commercial imperative to turn that access into a revenue stream.
Preservation strategies must include a comprehensive audit trail and will almost certainly bring the IT and archivist's functions closer together.
Strategies should include the establishment of selection criteria, and investment in standards-based technologies compliant, for example, with the Public Records Office standards for records management."

Ford, P. (2003). "The perils of digital preservation." Information World Review.
http://www.vnunet.com/information-world-review/features/2084000/perils-digital-preservation