scholarly journals Portico: A Case Study in the Use of XML for the Long-Term Preservation of Digital Artifacts

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sheila Morrissey ◽  
John Meyer ◽  
Sushil Bhattarai ◽  
Sachin Kurdikar ◽  
Jie Ling ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Digital Preservation ◽  
Problem Space ◽  
Scholarly Literature ◽  
Electronic Form ◽  
Reasonable Solution ◽  
Digital Objects ◽  
Long Term Preservation ◽  
Semantics Linking

In the problem space of long-term preservation of digital objects, the disciplined use of XML affords a reasonable solution to many of the issues associated with ensuring the interpretability and renderability of at least some digital artifacts. This paper describes the experience of Portico, a digital preservation service that preserves scholarly literature in electronic form. It describes some of the challenges and practices entailed in processing and producing XML for the archive, including issues of syntax, semantics, linking, versioning, and prospective issues of scale, variety of formats, and the larger infrastructure of tools and practices required for the use of XML for the long haul.

Re-Animating Greg Lynn's Embryological House: A Case Study in Digital Design Preservation

Leonardo ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 243-249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence Bird ◽  
Guillaume LaBelle
Keyword(s):  
Design Process ◽  
Digital Preservation ◽  
Digital Design ◽  
Media Arts ◽  
Digital Architecture ◽  
Fundamental Part ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Long Term Preservation

Greg Lynn's Embryological House was an early work of digital architecture: a work in which the computer was a fundamental part of the design process. It was the subject of a case study in digital preservation by the Daniel Langlois Foundation's project for the Documentation and Conservation of Media Arts Heritage (DOCAM) and the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA). Research identified characteristics of digital architectural artifacts that are key to their long-term preservation. The results imply a shift in the focus of preservation from the artifact to its transformation in a digital context and a re-evaluation of preservation strategies and principles.

scholarly journals Towards the Development of a Test Corpus of Digital Objects for the Evaluation of File Format Identification Tools and Signatures

2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Fetherston ◽  
Tim Gollins
Keyword(s):  
Digital Preservation ◽  
Verification And Validation ◽  
File Format ◽  
Test Corpus ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Digital Objects ◽  
Automated Processes ◽  
Long Term Preservation

The digital preservation community currently utilises a number of tools and automated processes to identify and validate digital objects. The identification of digital objects is a vital first step in their long-term preservation, but the results returned by tools used for this purpose are lacking in transparency, and are not easily tested or verified. This paper suggests that a test corpus of digital objects is one way of providing this verification and validation, ultimately improving trust in the tools, and providing further stimulus to their development. Issues to be considered are outlined, and attention is drawn to particular examples of existing digital corpora which could conceivably provide a useable framework or starting point for our own communities needs. This paper does not seek to answer all questions in this area, but merely attempts to set out areas for consideration in any next step that is taken.

Digital preservation: some underlying issues for long-term preservation

2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 8-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sneha Tripathi
Keyword(s):  
Design Methodology ◽  
Digital Preservation ◽  
Digital Environment ◽  
Storage Quality ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Digital Storage ◽  
Digital Objects ◽  
Long Term Preservation ◽  
Risk Preparedness

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate the concept of digital preservation and traditional preservation per se and discusses various issues related to long-term preservation in a digital environment. Design/methodology/approach The study attempts to look into the various aspects of preservation in context of digital objects (borne or digitalized) especially. Bundling of an object (digital), digital storage, quality control and risk preparedness are some of the pointers studied to perceive an overall scenario for long-term preservation of an object. Findings Various methods have been suggested to deal with the issues related to long-term preservation of an object which can be used to frame an organization’s policy for long-term preservation. Originality/value The study emphasizes on collective measures incorporating traditional and digital means to ensure long-term preservation. It lists down various checklists to deal with various issues pertinent to long-term digital preservation.

Backing up digital preservation practice with empirical research

2017 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 66-82
Author(s):  
Gareth Kay ◽  
Libor Coufal ◽  
Mark Pearson
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Base ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Digital Preservation ◽  
Graph Database ◽  
National Library ◽  
Software Applications ◽  
Functional Relationships ◽  
File Formats ◽  
Digital Objects

This article introduces the National Library of Australia’s Digital Preservation Knowledge Base which helps the Library to manage digital objects from its collections over the long term. The Knowledge Base includes information on file formats, rendering software, operating systems, hardware and, most importantly, the relationships between them. Most of the work on the Knowledge Base over the last few years has been focused on the mapping of functional relationships between file formats, their versions and software applications. The information is gathered through unique empirical research and is initially being recorded in a multiple-worksheet Excel file in a semi-structured format, though development of a prototype graph database is underway.

scholarly journals Letter to the Editor: Authentic Digital Objects

2009 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 4-7
Author(s):  
Andrew Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Rich Source ◽  
Digital Certificate ◽  
Digital Repository ◽  
Letter To The Editor ◽  
Digital Objects ◽  
Letter Writer ◽  
Long Term Preservation

Long-term preservation of digital objects requires curators to be able to guarantee the archival authenticity of the objects in a digital repository. In IJDC 4(1), Ronald Jantz suggested that a digital certificate is sufficient to ensure authenticity. The letter writer takes issue with this view and points out some of the archival misinterpretations in the Jantz article. He maintains that the archival literature is a rich source for discussions of authenticity that has been ignored to the detriment of Jantz’s arguments.

Digital Preservation Challenges, Infrastructures and Evaluations

2013 ◽  
pp. 74-86
Author(s):  
David Giaretta
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Reference Model ◽  
Digital Rights Management ◽  
Digital Preservation ◽  
Science Data ◽  
Data Infrastructure ◽  
Loosely Coupled ◽  
Digital Objects ◽  
Historical Resources

To preserve digitally encoded information over a long term following the OAIS Reference Model requires that the information remains accessible, understandable and usable by a specified Designated Community. These are significant challenges for repositories. It will be argued that infrastructure which is needed to support this preservation must be seen in the context of the broader science data infrastructure which international and national funders seek to put in place. Moreover aspects of the preservation components of this infrastructure must themselves be preservable, resulting in a recursive system which must also be highly adaptable, loosely coupled and asynchronous. Even more difficult is to be able to judge whether any proposal is actually likely to be effective. From the earliest discussions of concerns about the preservability of digital objects there have been calls for some way of judging the quality of digital repositories. In this chapter several interrelated efforts which contribute to solutions for these issues will be outlined. Evidence about the challenges which must be overcome and the consistency of demands across nations, disciplines and organisations will be presented, based on extensive surveys which have been carried out by the PARSE.Insight project (http://www.parse-insight.eu). The key points about the revision of the OAIS Reference Model which is underway will be provided; OAIS provides many of the key concepts which underpin the efforts to judge solutions. In the past few years the Trustworthy Repositories Audit and Certification: Criteria and Checklist (TRAC) document has been produced, as well as a number of related checklists. These efforts provide the background of the international effort (the RAC Working Group http://wiki.digitalrepositoryauditandcertification.org) to produce a full ISO standard on which an accreditation and certification process can be built. If successful this standard and associated processes will allow funders to have an independent evaluation of the effectiveness of the archives they support and data producers to have a basis for deciding which repository to entrust with their valuable data. It could shape the digital preservation market. The CASPAR project (http://www.casparpreserves.eu) is an EU part funded project with total spend of 16MEuros which is trying to faithfully implement almost all aspects of the OAIS Reference Model in particular the Information Model. The latter involves tools for capturing all types of Representation Information (Structure, Semantics and all Other types), and tools for defining the Designated Community. This chapter will describe implementations of tools and infrastructure components to support repositories in their task of long term preservation of digital resources, including the capture and preservation of digital rights management and evidence of authenticity associated with digital objects. In order to justify their existence, most repositories must also support contemporaneous use of contemporary as well as “historical” resources; the authors will show how the same techniques can support both, and hence link to the fuller science data infrastructure.

Investigating the Needs, Capabilities and Decision Making Mechanisms in Digital Preservation

2013 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 17-39
Author(s):  
Daniel Burda ◽  
Frank Teuteberg
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Effective Means ◽  
Digital Preservation ◽  
Digital Information ◽  
Processing Theory ◽  
Organizational Information ◽  
Multiple Case ◽  
Soft And Hardware

Firms are required to consciously retain information in an effort to ensure compliance with legal and business needs. However, sustained accessibility to digital information cannot be taken for granted as it is threatened by expeditiously changing technologies associated with the risk of obsolete soft- and hardware. As part of an effort to ensure long-term access to digital information, digital preservation (DP) provides effective means. But still little is known about DP in firms. In this study the authors aim to provide insights into a firm’s DP needs, capabilities and decision making mechanisms by conducting a multiple case study through the lens of organizational information processing theory. The results indicate that a lack of decision making procedures and responsibilities impedes the alignment between DP needs and capabilities, which seems to foster a culture of information hoarding. Based on the authors’ empirical insights about DP in firms they derive an explanatory model and provide five managerial recommendations.

scholarly journals Representing a Relationship: The use of metadata to represent the relationship between physical objects and their digital surrogates

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Laura Jamieson
Keyword(s):  
Best Practice ◽  
Physical Object ◽  
Digital Collections ◽  
Significant Development ◽  
Digital Material ◽  
Digital Objects ◽  
Physical Objects ◽  
The Relationship

<p>Digital collections are increasingly prominent in museums as born-digital material is acquired by institutions, and digital surrogates of physical items are created through digital imaging, digitisation, and reformatting projects. These digital collections are a significant development in museums and a useful tool, particularly for access. When a digital surrogate is created of a physical object, they have an inherent connection to one another. Representing this relationship is important for museums in order to provide context for their collection items. These types of relationships also occur across physical formats, and the consequence of a breakdown in this relationship has been shown in the literature to lead to a loss of context. However, it is unclear how the relationship a physical object has with its digital surrogate is represented in the metadata. Current literature on digital collections only briefly explores existing relationships between digital and physical collections and provides no framework for best practice in a museum context.  This thesis examines how metadata is used to represent the relationship between a physical object and its digital surrogate at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. The research involved a single-site case study, with interviews and documentary research which were thematically analysed. This thesis shows how the relationship between physical and digital objects are primarily represented at Te Papa through the collection management system’s structure, with some metadata elements representing the relationship incidentally. It also shows that there are differing worldviews and perspectives across the GLAM domains in the language and the drivers of digitisation.  This research serves as a snapshot of current practice at one institution and encourages further research to better understand the long-term implications of this and other approaches. For museums, understanding how the relationship between physical objects and digital surrogates is currently being represented through metadata could help support professional practice for both types of collections, ensure the relationship is maintained, and help support existing and future digital interventions in museums.</p>

scholarly journals Emulation: From Digital Artefact to Remotely Rendered Environments

2009 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 146-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk Von Suchodoletz ◽  
Jeffrey Van der Hoeven
Keyword(s):  
Operating Systems ◽  
Contextual Information ◽  
Path Model ◽  
Primary Object ◽  
Computer Environment ◽  
Digital Artefact ◽  
Digital Objects ◽  
User Friendly ◽  
Long Term Preservation

Emulation used as a long-term preservation strategy offers the potential to keep digital objects in their original condition and experience them within their original computer environment. However, having just an emulator in place is not enough. To apply emulation as a fully fledged strategy, an automated and user-friendly approach is required. This cannot be done without knowledge and contextual information of the original software. This paper combines the existing concept of a view path, which captures the contextual information of software, together with new insights into improving the concept with extra metadata. It provides regularly updated instructions for archival management to preserve and access its artefacts. The view-path model requires extensions to the metadata set of the primary object of interest and depends on additionally stored secondary objects for environment recreation like applications or operating systems. This article also addresses a strategy of rendering digital objects by running emulation processes remotely. The advantage of this strategy is that it improves user convenience while maximizing emulation capability.

scholarly journals Sustaining Engineering Informatics: Toward Methods and Metrics for Digital Curation

2008 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 59-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Josh Lubell ◽  
Sudarsan Rachuri ◽  
Mahesh Mani ◽  
Eswaran Subrahmanian
Keyword(s):  
Functional Model ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Digital Curation ◽  
Open Archival Information System ◽  
User Access ◽  
Digital Objects ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Design And Manufacture

Ensuring the long-term usability of engineering informatics (EI) artifacts is a challenge, particularly for products with longer lifecycles than the computing hardware and software used for their design and manufacture. Addressing this challenge requires characterizing the nature of EI, defining metrics for EI sustainability, and developing methods for long-term EI curation. In this paper we highlight various issues related to long-term archival of EI and describe the work towards methods and metrics for sustaining EI. We propose an approach to enhance the Open Archival Information System (OAIS) functional model to incorporate EI sustainability criteria, Digital Object Prototypes (DOPs), and end user access requirements. We discuss the end user’s requirements from the point of view of reference, reuse and rationale – the “3Rs” – to better understand the level of granularity and abstractions required in the definition of engineering digital objects. Finally we present a proposed case study and experiment.

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