Preservation Policy Overview & Assessment

1. Session 2 Preservation Policy Overview& Assessment

2. In This Session • What is a Digital Preservation Policy? • Walkthrough the Policy Template • Preservation Preparedness Activities • Policy Building Case Study - ISU

3. What is a Digital Preservation Policy? • “Digital preservation policies document an organization’s commitment to preserve digital content for future use; specify file formats to be preserved and the level of preservation to be provided; and ensure compliance with standards and best practices for responsible stewardship of digital information.” • From Long Definition of Digital Preservation, prepared by the ALCTS Preservation and Reformatting Section, Working Group on Defining Digital Preservation, accessed at http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/alcts/resources/preserv/defdigpres0408.cfm.

4. Building on Successful Digital Preservation Policies

5. Policy Template – Diving In! • Addressing issues of Scope and Selection Criteria can help to clarify policies on: Strategies Economics & Sustainability Operating Principles Challenges Roles & Responsibilities Outreach & Education Metadata Permissions & Access Distributed Responsibilities

6. Scope • This section summarizes the resource groups for which the institution takes responsibility and prioritizes these according to institutional importance.

7. Scope Who are the key departments and individuals you might need to coordinate with to identify assets and discover preservation needs for each of the primary resource groups that might exist across your institution?

8. Selection Criteria • This section outlines the way decisions are made regarding what will be preserved.

9. Selection Criteria Establishing selection criteria is a good opportunity to begin thinking about available resources and sustainable strategies and how these relate to priorities

10. Defining Your Digital Assets • Defining digital assets at your institution • Digitized (e.g., scanned newspapers) • Born-digital (e.g., websites) • Electronic records (e.g., spreadsheets, databases, emails) • Digital Research Data (e.g., raw sensor data) • Where do your digital assets reside? • At the departmental & unit level? Outside your institution? • Who are the major producers and consumers? • Researchers? Scholars? External parties? • Can they be deposited for preservation? • To what extent?

11. Strategies • This section summarizes the lifecycle management practices of the institution. Broad categories might include content creation, content integrity, and content maintenance.

12. Strategies • Perform a technical assessment of your Library’s existing approaches and capacity for creating, and maintaining digital assets. • Factor in organizational structure, staffing and skill sets. • Address issues of quality control through preservation planning & risk assessment

13. Strategies OAIS CRL – Trustworthy Repositories Audit & Certification (TRAC) NEDCC - Readiness Assessment Digital Repository Audit Method Based on Risk Assessment (DRAMBORA) Data Seal of Approval (DSA) Planet Preservation Planning Tool – (Plato)

14. Operating Principles • This section provides overview of methodologies and philosophies undergirding preservation activity (e.g., OAIS, TRAC, etc).

15. Operating Principles Communicate position toward trustworthy preservation by identifying steps taken to ensure use of standards • OAIS • Digital Preservation Readiness Assessment • Trustworthy Repositories Audit & Certification (TRAC) • DRAMBORA • Data Seal of Approval

16. Roles & Responsibilities • This section details who is involved and at what level they are involved. Who is charged with preservation responsibility?

17. Roles & Responsibilities Preservation responsibility will undoubtedly be a joint endeavor (particularly between your Library, campus IT, and other external parties) and policy should reflect solidified agreements between all parties charged with responsibility.

18. Metadata • This section describes policy/policies for ascribing metadata to preservation objects. May include schema references or documentation bodies (e.g., LC, DLF, NARA).

19. Metadata Metadata is increasingly becoming central to trustworthy preservation, and policy statements should articulate your Library’s position on capturing some level of preservation metadata, and the role it will play in managing that metadata.

20. Permissions & Access • This section documents policies around permissions and access of preserved content.

21. Permissions & Access Establishing the options for access and use of your institutions’ digital assets will go a long way toward both defining what sorts of management and dissemination workflows might need to be developed, as well as how to communicate the terms of such access and use.

22. Distributed Responsibilities • This section contains information about what the institution’s relationship is to other institutions, and whether it may partner with other institutions to preserve its own collections or the collections of other institutions and under what circumstances.

23. Distributed Responsibilities Navigating the rights issues can go a long way toward articulating the terms under which partnerships can be pursued to further preservation development.

24. Economics & Sustainability • This section documents expected costs and who shoulders the responsibility for those costs.

25. Economics & Sustainability • Financial Sustainability: • Sustainable Management & Financial Plans • Multi-Year Budget • Factoring in financial cycles • Review Schedules (annual) • Seek diverse revenue streams to support preservation activities

26. Challenges • This section acknowledges the challenges the institution/field faces in preserving digital collections.

27. Challenges • Remember Trends in Digital Preservation • Perform Risk Assessment • Committing to analyze and report on risk, benefit, investment and expenditures • Identifying the real and potential threats to the digital preservation program, the digital collections, producers and consumers • Should include an inventory of file formats, technology infrastructure, legal mandates, staffing, etc.

28. Outreach & Education • This section gives an overview of any outreach and education activities undertaken by the institution.

29. Outreach & Education • Champion your policies • Share your development • Develop workshops • Join coalitions and working groups • Know your sphere of influence • Be open to learning and evolving!

30. Circling Back Around • Policy Statement • Summary Statement

31. Policy Statement • This is a simple statement that summarizes the purpose of your digital preservation policy.

32. Policy Statement • Review your institution’s broader mission statements • Consider other legal, ethical, and policy mandates • Articulate the needs and the opportunities related to your institution’s resource groups

33. Summary Statement • This is a set of simple paragraphs that summarize the overall intent of the institution.

34. Summary Statement Why does your institution preserve content (e.g., institutional, legal, consortial obligations)?

35. Date/Authors • This section provides the date of last revision and contact information for the authors

36. Related Documents • This section lists other institutional documentation that has a relationship to digital preservation and/or this policy itself. Examples might include such documentation as Disaster Plan, Records Management Policy, and Collections Development Policy.

37. Definitions/Glossary • This section would clarify terms used throughout the document.

38. Before We Move On… Time for one or two quick questions…