iPres 2009 – Preservation Infrastructure Track
In San Francisco at iPres sitting in the preservation infrastructure track.
Stephen Abrams (CDL) is telling us about micro-curation services. Lots of clear categorisation of types of services that institutions might require. Currently talking about storage requirements. Provide for safety through redundancy, meaning through context, utility through service. Rattling through too fast to capture detail.
Q. How do CDL services compare with iRods?
A. i-Rods are all part of one controlled environment. CDL Micro-services can run as small discreet functions
Pam Armstrong and Johanna Smith from Library and Archives Canada.
They have a trusted Digital repository project that is running from 2008-2010. They are showing a value management framework. The first concern is ’significance’. They are looking at government records and are trying to determine which records are important even before they arrive at the archive. Talking about a filtering process. Trying to deal with web 2.0 issues and are working on some guidelines.
They have established a records management task force with a high level of government support. A directive on recordkeeping is linked to a management accountability framework. If departments are found to be wanting with their records management function, they are denied the right to delete records. Good stick. There are functional requirements for EDRMS based on ISO. There is a proposed shared service for EDRMS for government info in Canada. They have built open source software eRTA for records managers. They have been working on metadata core set. They are using MODS and MARC and the info is discoverable by public. They have got to their summary already … my o my – these talks are quick!
The lessons learnt include the usefulness of the mandatory instrument that has consequences (see above).
Q. do you accept all formats?
A. No, they have acceptable formats. Can’t do all formats.
Q. How implemented is all of this?
A. The implementation is uneven. All the instances across govt are implemented inconsistently. They have got lots of work to do to bring the legacy information into line.
Robert Sharpe – Tessella
Representing PLANETS consortium. Title is “Are you Ready? Assessment of readiness of organisations for Digital Preservation”. (I’m interested in this talk. Wondering how this matches up with JISC-funded AIDA project). They did a survey. To establish whether people were ready to use Digital Preservation solutions. The target group for PLANETS is national libraries and archives. There are 96 of these in Europe. They also invited any other interested parties to contribute. They got 206 responses. 70% responses from Europe. They were a diverse community representing a range of roles.
15% digital preservation
16% in general preservation
22% curation
16% IT
also directors researchers data managers etc …
93% aware of DP challenges.
17% had not considered solutions.
52% did not have preservation policies.
They were 3 times more likely to have a DP budget if they had a DP policy in place. The majority had budgets to do capital activities. DP not really embedded in the institutions that responded still. What needs to be preserved? Stuff in file systems = 77% … many other categories going down to a long tail. National Libraries feel they have almost no control of the formats they have to accept. National Archives however claim high levels of control.
80% of organisations say they have less than 100TB to store in 2009. They think that by 2019, 70% orgs will have more than 100TB and 42% will have more than 1Pb. 85% have a solution or are working on one. They are generally expecting ‘plug and play’ components. That’s the trend and what people are expecting.
What functionality is important? Single most important function was that the repository must maintain authenticity, reliability and integrity of records. 17 different functions cited. Least important function is ‘checks for duplicate items’.Very little agreement on which standards should be used! (surprise surprise!) Of 13 standards on Robert’s chart, PREMIS in the middle in terms of who is using it already.
Summary …
Excellent start on getting DP message out
More work needed on policies and budgets
Wide range of types of digital info from range of sources
Significant quantities of data to preserve
Component-based solutions required
Best practice not yet clear
Early adopters are busy and planning to do more
Q. We are doing a good job with early adopters but what about the wider community. The success factor will be general users engaging with Digital Preservation
A. Yes
Q. The standards you showed, the figures are high for people not even having heard of them!
A. Yes.
End of session
iPres 2008
The 5th International Conference on Preservation of Digital Objects took place at the British Library at the start of this week, as anyone who looked at the Guardian on Tuesday might have noticed.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/30/internet.digitalmusic
It was a confident and very well organised conference and seemed to reflect the fact that the field of Digital Preservation is really beginning to articulate where and how it should position itself in the information management landscape. Even in comparison with December last year (at the Digital Curation conference in Washington D.C.), there seems to have been a shift in tone. Back then, it seemed as if a lot of the speakers were voicing concern that Digital Preservation was not only perceived as difficult by the wider community – but actually was difficult (even for preservation experts) – and there was no guarantee that solutions would be forthcoming! (I acknowledge that others may not have got the same impression from that conference but that’s how it seems to me now as I cast my mind back to it). 10 months later on however, there is much less talk about the general difficulty of it all … and much more focus on how to do it, how to collaborate, and how to sell the benefits more widely.
Admittedly, we were treated to a candid assessment at the end of the conference by a good-humoured but down-to-earth Steve Knight from the National Library of New Zealand, who felt he had to take issue with the determinedly upbeat theme of the conference “Joined Up and Working: Tools and Methods for Digital Preservation”, but nonetheless, an oversubscribed conference including delegates from 33 countries, featuring 66 speakers, in parallel sessions, attracting 6 different sponsors … would seem to indicate that even if things aren’t as ‘joined up and working’ as they might be – then it’s a pretty safe bet that with that level of enthusiasm from so many bright and inquisitive people, it soon will be!
One of the highlights for me was hearing Jose Carlos Ramalho (University of Minho, Portugal) describe the preservation solution that he and his colleagues had developed as part of the RODA and CRiB projects: a service oriented preservation approach to dealing with repository information using the concept of significant properties … ahhh, music to the ears! All up and running and being used by the Portuguese National Archives.
That’s not to say that others haven’t got ingenious functioning preservation solutions, but I was particularly impressed with Jose’s matter of factness and the briskness of his delivery. He made it all sound pretty straightforward – which makes a nice change and confers great credit on him, not only for making difficult things sound do-able … but also for sounding like he enjoys doing it.
Headline message from the conference – Don’t mention the ‘Preservation’ word! (it’s confusing and people worry about it) … it’s all about enabling future ACCESS to spectacular resources.