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why preserve digital assets?. Andrew Wilson Preservation Services and Projects Manager Arts and Humanities Data Service. Outline. what are digital assets why should we preserve them how should we preserve them issues. What are digital assets. outputs of business activities
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why preserve digital assets? Andrew WilsonPreservation Services and Projects ManagerArts and Humanities Data Service
Outline • what are digital assets • why should we preserve them • how should we preserve them • issues
What are digital assets • outputs of business activities • which have value to you for any reason, or • which have potential to add value to your activities/business • intellectual property • also: knowledge, both extrinsic (written down) and intrinsic (in people’s heads)
Some features of digital assets • digital assets in data collections may (will!) be diverse • often no print analogue • preservation requires a rich understanding of their use and makeup • importance of metadata
Why preserve digital assets – use case • increasing significance of data re-use
Why preserve digital assets - necessity • sheer amount of new information being created digitally each year • In 2002 3.5-5.6 exabytes • almost ¾ of new information created was digital • by way of contrast three times this amount is not recorded (‘information flows’)– 99% telephone calls
Other reasons to preserve digital assets • statutory requirements • protect and exploit institutional investments • share innovation and information • aid decision making • build and preserve “the record” of institutional activity in new formats • create digital collections contextualized for different audiences and designed for re-use in different ways (e.g text and data mining) • risks and costs of not retaining digital assets
Digital preservation • storage is not preservation; archiving and preservation are not synonomous • use of Open Archival Information System (OAIS) model: ISO 14721 (2003) • an immediate need • general consensus that no single preservation approach will be sufficient
Digital preservation - approaches • technology preservation • technology emulation • Universal Virtual Computer (UVC) • data migration
Issues • selection • preservation – in what form and for how long • access/use (including discovery) • trust – integrity of data, authentication of content • costs • IPR
a final thought “traditionally, preserving things meant keeping them unchanged; however … if we hold on to digital information without modifications, accessing the information will become increasingly more difficult, if not impossible.” Su-Shing Chen, “The Paradox of Preservation”, Computer, March, 2001, pp. 2-6.