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August 05, 2008
Digital preservation
Digital preservation; a paradox in and of itself?
The topic of preserving digital files is a complex subject, particularly in large-scale digital projects, where project management and the sheer logistics of the storage of massive amounts of digital information is a daunting reality to most content and IT managers. When concrete terms of longevity are unknown in any certainty for digital formats, the reality of preserving digital files is a difficult topic to assess. Project managers for digital projects can put enormous amounts of time into planning for the storage of digital files to ensure the longevity of digital information, and incorporate methods of migration, duplication and even emulation of obsolete applications, operating systems, or hardware platforms in the efforts of preserving digital information.
Avoiding technological quicksand, a report from Council on Library and Information Resources from 1999 hits on many of the key issues of digital preservation that are still applicable to issues of digital preservation, even almost ten years later. The author is the first to point out that the paradox in the term, digital preservation: "...given the fact that digital documents can be copied perfectly, which is often naively taken to mean that they are eternal." Rothenberg adds that the problem is not solely in the actual digital file, but also in the "administrative, procedural, organizational, and policy issues".
Media decay and hardware obsolescence (and, in some cases, software) are facts of life in the existence of almost every digital format, though careful planning in the overall incorporation into a database or digital library is key to successful 'survival rates' of digital information. An interesting aspect to Rothenberg's report, was the idea of three distinct definitions and relation to time that is apparent in digital projects. Many projects are approached in relatively short term efforts, in that digitization is used as a method of reformatting material or transferring to a digital format in an effort to salvage information from the original format or container. The medium term effort considers issues of digital longevity, but retains formats that are contemporary with the time the digital file was created (oftentimes, software based, such as Microsoft Office formats for example). These formats are usually considered as being more commonplace at the point of digitization, yet are still defined by a propitiatory software or assume a level of compatibility to systems down the road, and thus, are not as sustainable in the larger picture. Rothenberg defines the long term as digital formats which are not software dependent, and "must handle current and future records of unknown type in a uniform way, while being capable of evolving as necessary." Interestingly, the author calls for minimal human interaction in the long term effort, with method of data refreshment and migration to take place in a uniform, automatic and synchronous manner.
Rothenberg also considers the access, fidelity, and the ease of the entire document management system to be tradeoffs between each other in terms of priority in the retention of digital files. The theory is that increased accessibility will lead to lower quality digital formats, as with the ease of the system, etc. With all that said, the evolution of archival digital files (or, dare I say, a singular file format as suggested by Rothenberg?) will be an interesting development to watch transpire.
More recent report on Digital Preservation: Mind the Gap: Assessing Digital Preservation Needs in the UK, 2008
Posted by vad17 at August 5, 2008 01:40 PM
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