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Keeping Your Digital Works Alive. December 13, 2013 Alabama Digital Humanities Center Jody L. DeRidder jlderidder@ua.edu. Overview. Challenges Needs Solutions Resources!. Challenges. Hardware keeps changing!. Computer upgrades Where’s that floppy insert?
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Keeping Your Digital Works Alive December 13, 2013 Alabama Digital Humanities Center Jody L. DeRidder jlderidder@ua.edu
Overview • Challenges • Needs • Solutions • Resources!
Challenges Hardware keeps changing! • Computer upgrades • Where’s that floppy insert? • Wait, I use a Mac now… (or an iphone?)
Challenges Software keeps changing! • Windows 95 to 98 to 2000 to XP to… • Which version of Word was that? • They stopped making this software…
Challenges File Formats keep changing! • Huh? My computer can’t open this! • Can anything open my files now? • It doesn’t look right. What happened?
Challenges Media has issues! • CD, DVD bit loss within 3 years • Flash drives fail much more quickly • Hard drives crash • Cloud storage is not secure or guaranteed
Needs What do we really need? • Access! • Usability!
Needs Requirements for access and use: • How do I find it? • How do I know what it is? • How do I know how to open it?
Solutions Selecting Content • Focus on what you REALLY need to keep • Find out what it takes to manage those types of content • Be realistic!
Solutions Selecting Formats • Text: • PDF/A, XML, Open Office XML, UTF-8 or ASCII text • Images: • TIFF, JP2, PDF/A (or X), PNG • Sound: • WAVE, FLAC • Video: • MPEG-2, MPEG-4
Solutions Preparation for Reuse • Metadata: • description! • File naming: • useful & consistent • Organization: • categorize, document, group like content
Solutions Storage & Backups • External Hard drive(s) • Multiple copies in multiple places • Using the cloud • Update, update, update
Solutions Regular Reviews! • Check those files! • Corrupt? • Format still supported? • Hardware/software going out of date?
Solutions Migrating Content • What is the most important aspect? • Text? Image? Audio? • What form do you need it in? • Find a converter • Test first; and review afterwards • Keep the original!
Resources Resources Recommendations for Authors and Creators (from UA Libraries Digital Services): http://tinyurl.com/au5oz8u