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Digital preservation – State of the game on the library lawns Digital Futures International Forum National Archives of Australia, 19 September 2007 Colin Webb Director, Web Archiving & Digital Preservation National Library of Australia cwebb@nla.gov.au. What I’m going to cover.
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Digital preservation – State of the game on the library lawnsDigital Futures International ForumNational Archives of Australia, 19 September 2007Colin WebbDirector, Web Archiving& Digital PreservationNational Library of Australiacwebb@nla.gov.au
What I’m going to cover • The story behind the title • Some critical context • What I see as the state of play in the library sector
A story • On the lawns v. in the vault • Context is king!
Libraries? • Local, organisational, special, national, state/provincial, school, university, … Kinds of information? • “Published”, “unpublished”, “grey literature”, information brokerage
Focus on publications • By no means all that libraries hold: • Significant unpublished digital collections, significant preservation challenges • BUT for today, publicly available digital materials A publication is information, regardless of its format or method of delivery, that is made available to the general public, or to an identified public, either free of charge or for a fee. Definition from: PANDORA Selection Guidelines http://pandora.nla.gov.au/selectionguidelines.html#pubdefinition
Kinds of digital materials: Online E-journals Physical format digital publications Issues impacting on preservation: Collecting Access “Preservation” Game of threes • Preservation issue clusters: • Data management • Maintaining accessibility & meaning • Responsibility, sustainability, resources
Collecting to preserve (Strengths and weaknesses of libraries re digital preservation) • Must collect in order to preserve • No obligation on creators to look after, or to create in a way that enables preservation • No obligation on creators to deposit (at C’th level) • World Wild Web – survival unchanged almost impossible • Collecting a preservation prerequisite and imperative – getting material into a safe(ish) place
Collecting to preserve • Legitimate priority for preservation • Achievements – national libraries, IA, IIPC • International Internet Preservation Consortium • 26 members, mostly national libraries
Collecting becomes preservation? • Resource preoccupations • Funding allocations • Brain power and energy to address collecting obstacles • IIPC preoccupations – collecting tools • Database collecting - Xinq
Collecting to preservation NLA Review • Balancing research quality collections against comprehensiveness? • Achievements over 12 years • Dilemmas – what and how to collect for preservation • Resources driven • Legal deposit • Changing nature of online materials
Access and preservation (Strengths and weaknesses of libraries re digital preservation) • Access imperative – critical driver for libraries – federated resource discovery, federated getting, PI’s • Preservation = access • Access as test of preservation • Access in short-term, access in the future
Access and preservation Case study – physical format digital publications • Less concern over collecting • Preservation attention linked to access • Concern over TPM’s • Shifting to concerns over safety of the current “safe place” • Workflow development
Preservation as preservation (Strengths and weaknesses of libraries re digital preservation) • Collecting & access – both part of, and context for, digital preservation • Data management • Obsolescence management • Responsibility, sustainability, resources
Preservation as preservation • Case study of surprising success – • e-journals: KB and publishers • Data management • Emulation • Collecting model (deposit) • Access model • Responsibility, sustainability?
Preservation driven by library needs • Case study – online materials - • IIPC Preservation Working Group • Case study – tools development – • Australian Partnership for Sustainable Repositories (APSR) • METS profile • AONS (Automatic Obsolescence Notification)
Where we are now on the library lawns … • Tools, workflows, end to end hypothesis • Risk assessment • Detailed pres planning • Making it all work? • Making it work for us as individual libraries? • Making it work for communities of libraries? • Making it work for communities?
Where we are now on the library lawns … • Collaboration – recognising our differences, learning from each other, plugging-in tools to business-appropriate workflows
Where we are now on the library lawns … • Sustainability? • dependencies of vision, skills, management , funding, suitable legislative support? • Or preservation won’t happen, regardless of the collaboration, workflows, tools, planning
If we fail to preserve … The vaults will be empty … the lawns only occupied by fools trying to imagine the knowledge of the past …