Digital Preservation: Redefining Established Concepts

1. Digital Preservation: Redefining Established Concepts Nancy Kunde UW Madison Records Officer Campus IT Committee February 15, 2008

2. What has happened to traditional academic records? • Hard copy no longer being produced • Content has changed • Fragmented record • Examples: timetable, course bulletin, directories

3. Changing Recordkeeping Landscape • Records are most frequently the result of transactions or database driven • Process driven not an ‘end product’ • Variety of formats and storage media • Use of proprietary software • Impact of ERP systems (enterprise resource planning) • Tremendous computing power from the individual desktop

4. The Florence Flood

5. What is preservation? • The professional discipline of protecting materials by minimizing chemical and physical deterioration and damage to minimize the loss of information and to extend the life of cultural property. –The act of keeping from harm, injury, decay, or destruction, especially through noninvasive treatment.

6. Classic Preservation • Providing proper storage environment • Providing proper housing for documents • Serious preservation work, if needed • Little need to check back • Little work required for items kept less than 10 years

7. Redefining Preservation • Identification of valuable records/data early in life cycle (appraisal of record content) • Preservation work required for some items within a short period of time • Preservation work required numerous times on a single object over its lifespan • Constant need to check • Still requires proper housing and good storage environment

8. Five Preservation Concepts • Longevity of the media Great concern in paper world. In the digital world media likely will out last the systems designed to read them. • QualityIn paper world very important. In the digital world, scanning permits greater or lesser quality. What is acceptable to the function or process?

9. Five Preservation Concepts • ChoiceSelection of materials or records to be preserved could be delayed.In the digital world, these decisions need to be made at the moment of creation. • IntegrityIn hard copy world, it is based on both physical and intellectual properties.Without a doubt, this is greatest challenge to digital preservation. Authenticity plus reliability are necessary.

10. Five Preservation Concepts • Accessibility Preservation and access (often at odds with each other in paper world) now are viewed as one.In the digital world, it is the preservation of access that is critical. • Administrative Rule 12 . Most of the concepts are now embedded in Admin Rule12 approved by WI Legislature in 2001.

11. Preservation Strategies • Refreshing • Migration • Emulation • Metadata-REQUIRED

12. Meeting the Challenge • Preservation related as much to organizational process and cultural change as to technical issues. • Requires new look at records policy and procedures, integrating it into IT architecture, financial support

13. Developing a Campus Preservation Strategy • Institutional management supportNewly re-structured CRRGIntegrating archives and records management into other campus initiatives (DoIT IT Policy development, ARP) • Must address legal compliance requirements (risk assessment) • Must address records retention requirements • Assessment of tools • Institutional archival repository-infrastructure development.

14. Some Concluding Thoughts • Raise awareness to importance of digital preservation to research, ongoing administrative functions and to research activities. • Consider digital recordkeeping issues at the outset of project development, initiation of new research project • Building collaborative partnerships will be critical to successful development of digital preservation strategy for UW Madison.