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Presented by Priscilla Kaplan, Asst. Director for Digital Library Services at Florida, Center for Library Automation
Kaplan began by distinguishing between 3 terms:
- Curation – The activity of managing the use of data from its point of creation, to ensures its usability for a contemporary purpose, and also available for reuse.
- Archiving – A curation activity that ensures that data is properly selected, stored, can be accessed and that its logical and physical integrity is maintained over time, including security and authenticity.
- Preservation – An activity within archiving in which specific items of data are maintained over time so that they can be accessed and understood through changes in technology.
Lifecycle Management of data
- There should be a proactive approach to preservation
- Each stage in lifecycle (creation, appraisal, documentation, reuse) should be actively managed
Creation: choice of format
- Data should be documented, transparent(readable by humans), and non-proprietary
- Sustainability of Digital File Formats (LC)
Creation: use of format
- Things to consider: bit depth, resolution, embedded metadata(this can be added to images), external dependencies.
- A Framework of Guidance for Building Good Digital Collections (IMLS and NISO)
Creation: Documentation
- Descriptive metadata-document as much as possible at the point of creation
- Consider source and intellectual property rights
- Project wide details- who., what, when, how
- Maintained persistent identifier
- Digital provenance-over document changes
Selection/Appraisal/Review
Digital is Different!
- The impact of abundance- the ease of creation makes it harder
- More weight to practical considerations- copyright may limit preservation efforts
- Earlier decision points
- Digital Curation Manual, Appraisal and Selection
Use and Reuse
- Dynamic data continues to be created, annotated and linked-it continually changes
- Feeds into publication and research process
- Curators add value through exhibitions and events
Beyond this information, Kaplan made the point that digital preservation is ensuring that a digital object is usable over the long term, ie.- usable beyond changes in technology.
These are the strategies to use for successful long tem preservation of digital objects:
- Availability-physical control of data to be preserved
- Authenticity- both the source and the content of the object must be verifiable
- Fixity- the quality of an object is not altered or deleted, threatened by insecure storage or media migration
- Viability- the data is readable from media
- Renderability- the quality of being displayable or otherwise usable
- Rights- do you have the right to preserve the data
Kaplan recommends the Open Archival Information system (OAIS)- a framework for understanding and applying concepts needed for long term preservation of digital information.
Kaplan also brought in the concept of a Trusted Digital Repository-one whose mission is to provide reliable, long-term access to managed digital resources to its community-both now and in the future. This is a joint OCLC and RLG concept.
For preservation metadata, Kaplan said the PREMIS Data Dictionary is becoming a standard.