Notes/Assignments

1. SEMESTER-II
DL07 – Digital Preservation and Archiving
ASSIGNMENT – A1
WHAT IS DIGITAL PRESERVATION? DISCUSS ITS SIGNIFICANCE IN
TODAY’S INFORMATION WORLD.
By Shweta Ravindra Bhavsar
Roll No - (2019PGDLIM020)
(2019-2020)
Centre for Library and Information Management Studies
Sir Dorabji Tata Memorial Library
Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai

2. TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. DIGITAL PRESERVATION...................................................................................................................... 1
1.1 Introduction......................................................................................................................................... 1
1.1.1 Definition........................................................................................................................................... 1
1.2 Fundamentals Of Digital Preservation ......................................................................................... 2
1.3 Strategies Of Digital Preservation................................................................................................. 2
1.5 Importance Of Metadata In Digital Preservation........................................................................ 3
1.6 Need Of Digital Preservation........................................................................................................... 4
2. SIGNIFICANCES OF DIGITAL PRESERVATION IN TODAY’S INFORMATION WORLD........ 4
2.1 Get rid of legacy applications......................................................................................................... 4
2. 2 Enhanced the Access...................................................................................................................... 4
2.3 Support Data Retention in Long-Term ......................................................................................... 5
2.4 Protect Original Items....................................................................................................................... 5
2. 5 Quality Preservation ........................................................................................................................ 5
2. 6 Backup and recovery of data......................................................................................................... 5
2.7 Role in managing privacy of data.................................................................................................. 6
2.8 Copyright protection......................................................................................................................... 6
2. 9 Impact on environment ................................................................................................................... 6
3. CHALLENGES AND ISSUES IN DIGITAL PRESERVATION........................................................... 6
4. CONCLUSION............................................................................................................................................ 7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................................ 7

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1. What is digital preservation? Discuss its significance in today’s information world.
Answer
1. DIGITAL PRESERVATION
1.1 INTRODUCTION
ICT revolution has changed the concept of information sharing from last five decades. The
current technology offers many tools, easy and convenient user-centric services and
inexpensive access to high speed internet services which is resulted into evolution of digital
world. The amount of digital content increased rapidly over the last two decades. “Digital
preservation is about ensuring the viability, sustain-ability, and accessibility of that digital
information over time.” (Berman, 2008) Creating, managing, and storing information are
the three phases of digital preservation. In the age of information society, digital
preservation has become integral part to store and access electronic information. Digital
preservation is management of digital information for long term. Users need different
software, hardware, and electronic devices to access the preserved digital content. Hard
disks, tapes, optical disks, server, etc are the popular storage media used for digital
preservation. “Currently, 5D optical data storage has the potential to store digital data
for thousands of years.” (“Digital Preservation,” 2020). Many libraries, organizations,
government agencies, institutions have taken initiatives to digitally preserve their data. The
number of repositories are growing day-by-day for digital preservation of data. The data
does not only contain the books, manuscripts, letters but also contain the photographs,
video, audio, digitized photographs of coins and rare materials, art objects, masks, glass,
microfilms, etc. India has started “National Digital Preservation Program” in 2008, then
IFLA Guidelines for Digitization Projects, ERPANET Digital Preservation Policy Tool, etc are
the different guidelines for digital preservation. CLOCKSS, PREMIS & LOCKSS, OCLC
Digital Archive, Internet Archive are major programmes in digital preservation. The
various file formats like .jpg,. dox, pdf, .png, .wav, .arc, .mp3, WAVE, SGML, etc. are widely
accepted, non-proprietary formats have been used for data preservation.
ISO/DIS 15489, AS 4390, DOD 5015.2.STD, OAIS (Open Archival Information System) are
different standards of digital preservation.
1.1.1 Definition
(“Digital Preservation Coalition”, 2006) defines digital preservation as “all activities that
are required to maintain access to digital materials beyond the limits of media failure or
technological change. Those materials may be digital records created during the day-to-day

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business of an organisation, i.e. “born-digital” materials created for a specific purpose (e.g.
teaching resources), or the products of digitisation projects”.
According to (Kirchhoff, 2008) digital preservation as “series of management policies and
activities necessary to ensure the enduring usability, authenticity, discoverability, and
accessibility of content over the very long-term.”
1.2 FUNDAMENTALS OF DIGITAL PRESERVATION
Archival appraisal is a process of identifying records and other materials to be
preserved by determining their permanent value. Archival appraisal plays role at
Single or the various stages of acquisition and processing. Identification, an
identifier is a unique label. Metadata standards proving uniform and unique way of
data description and browsing. Mainly include are content, context and structure of
the data. Integrity, data integrity is integral part as it gives assurance to the data. Ensure
the data is the same as it was when it was originally recorded. Fixity, File fixity checking is
the process of validating that a file has not changed or been altered from a previous state.
1.3 STRATEGIES OF DIGITAL PRESERVATION
Long-term preservation (indefinite access to digital material), Medium-term preservation
(access to digital material for defined period but not indefinitely)., short-term preservation
(access to digital materials either for a defined period of time while use is predicted but which
does not extend beyond the until it becomes inaccessible because of changes in technology)
these are the three categories depending on the lifespan of a digital object. UNESCO’s
Guidelines for the Preservation of Digital Heritage (2003) group these strategies under
the following four categories. 1) Short-term Strategies includes Bit-stream Copying,
Refreshing, Replication, Technology Preservation or Computer Museum, Backwards
Compatibility and Version Migration. 2) Medium- to Long-term Strategies includes
Migration, Viewers and Migration at the Point of Access Emulation, Canonicalization,
Emulation. 3) Investment Strategies includes Restricting Range of Formats and Standards,
Reliance on Standards, Data Abstraction and Structuring, Encapsulation, Software Re-
engineering, Universal Virtual Computer. 4) Alternative strategies Analogue Backups,
Digital Archaeology or Data Recovery. Combination Strategies - Single strategy may fail
so that we can use combination of these four strategies for digital preservation example is
Persistent archives.
1.3.1 Major terms in digital preservation
Emulation: Emulation uses a special type of software, called an emulator, to translate
instructions from original software to execute on new platforms. (Arora, 2006)

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Encapsulation: Encapsulation may be seen as a technique of grouping together digital
objects and metadata necessary to describe and provide access to that object. (Arora, 2006)
Re-engineering: Software reengineering may offer a number of strategies for transforming
software as technologies change similar to transformation of data format. (Arora, 2006)
Canonicalization: Canonicalization is a technique designed to allow determination of
whether the essential characteristics of a document have remained intact through a
conversion from one format to another. (Arora, 2006)
1.4 ORGANIZATIONAL STAGES OF DIGITAL PRESERVATION
Acknowledge, Act, Consolidate, Institutionalize, Externalize these five stages help to
identify, manage and make accessible digital collection of organizations. These five stages
have three key indicators that is policy and planning, technological infrastructure, and
content and use
(Pardo,2005) “Cornell’s Five Organizational Stages of Digital Preservation”
1.5 IMPORTANCE OF METADATA IN DIGITAL PRESERVATION
Metadata is integral part of digital preservation. For identification, store, describe and
dissemination of information metadata is necessary. For the retrieval of information, unique
identifications or names of digital object is must. There are four types of metadata helps in
preserving digital objects. Descriptive Metadata includes bibliographic description,
Identification Metadata, basically track formats and versions of digital object, Structural
Metadata, facilitate navigation of elements within digital objects. Administrative or
Technical Metadata ensure longevity of digital collection and required for long-term
collection management. Mainly include are content, context and structure of the data.

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Different standardised model has been developed and followed for digital preservation.
Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System (OAIS). It is concerned with
ingest, archival storage, data management, administration, access, and preservation
planning these are technical aspects of a digital object’s life cycle. PREMIS, METS, etc are
the example of standardised model used for digital preservation.
1.6 NEED OF DIGITAL PRESERVATION
In this Information and Communication Technological era every digital resource needs to be
preserved such as collective resources like union catalogues, catalogues, wikis, websites,
different communication records, data sets, etc. Digital preservation manages to save the
information for future generations without changing original content of data. Every
organization, institute, agencies, etc. want long time usability and global information
dissemination of available data, digital preservation help them to achieve this goal. With the
exponential growth of digital information, obsolescence of standards and formats are
increasing. For this obsolescence digital preservation assure the overtime access of data.
2. SIGNIFICANCES OF DIGITAL PRESERVATION IN TODAY’S INFORMATION
WORLD
For maintaining sustainability of e-resources digital preservation is necessity. ICT revolution
has changed the perspective of preservation. In true manner digital preservation is making
the preservation easier and accessible for everyone around the globe. Digital preservation
creates aids for audio visualization, customizability, creation, and revision of documents.
Digital preservation uses many hardware, software, high quality equipments, and media
storage for preserving the digital object. There are many significances of digital information
in todays information society those are listed below:
2.1 Get rid of legacy applications
There will not be any technological obsolescence in near future as new applications and
software will be valid for long time and compatible with almost every device. New
technologies “storage media” claims that the digitally preserved objects can be accessed in
the future for long time. Earlier legacy applications used to supress by new versions and
was difficult to manage but with new technologies it became easy to maintain earlier
software. Hence in near future it will be easy to maintain and migrate data with managed
storage system.
2. 2 Enhanced and Ensure the Accessibility and availability
Digital preservation has enhanced the access to Digital Objects as User can access digital
resources from anywhere in the world and around the clock. The main goal of digital

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preservation is providing ease of access. Ensure perpetual access to digital resources.
Providing access effectively and efficiently in changing technological era over the data
network. Digital preservation of resources allows multiple access of single resource at one
time though Web interface. Also, remote access is available because of digital preservation.
Access digital resources are not limited to any area. Enhanced the content through
metadata. Provide access to various formats of data.
2.3 Support Data Retention in Long-Term
Main aim of digital preservation is data retention which helps to keep important information
for future reference or use. The information is organized by using updated technology helps
to retain data for long time. Many institutions, government agencies organizations, etc have
their own data retention policies. This policy helps them to analyse which information has
importance to archive, also describe the retention period of data, how long it will be kept,
deletion of data. Hence, it is helping to manage and acquire only important data. Future
generation could be able to access and search digital heritage of information. No chance of
tearing, acidification of pages that is why digital preservation of e-resources have a long life
than print resources. Also, no chance of missing pages. The advanced ICT technologies in
digital preservation increases the retention period of data. Also, transferring of data from
one media to another media is relatively easy and quick.
2.4 Protect Original Items
Digital preservation of original item can be used to create high-quality copy of an original
item. Hence the one digital copy can be provided and accessed with indexing tools by
multiple users. Therefore, one can restrict the use of physical copy up to certain extent which
protect the deterioration of physical material. Preservation of original material can be done
easily with the help of digital preservation. Digital objects are easy to reformat, edit and print.
2. 5 Quality Preservation
“The digital preservation has potential for qualitative preservation of information. The
preservation-quality images can be scanned at high resolution and bit depth for best
possible quality. Binding and shelving are excluded so that as a result quality remains the
same despite multiple usage by several users. However, caution need to be followed while
choosing digitised information as preservation media.” (Arora, 2006)
2. 6 Backup and recovery of data
Backup of data on multiple server and storage media like hard disk, tapes, servers, etc. are
protecting the digital resources from natural and biological calamities. Digitally preserved
resources protecting the resources from different factors such as biological factors like

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deterioration, acidification of pages, worm attacks. Also, from natural calamities like disaster,
tsunami, climate change. Helping easy in recovery of data.
2.7 Role in managing privacy of data
Digital Information era is highly insecure because of cybercrimes mainly digital migration
protect and secure the information up to certain extent. Moreover, using preservation
standards reducing the danger of data privacy.
2.8 Copyright protection
Ensure integrity for legal value preservation. With the digital preservation it became easy to
find our plagiarised materials. Description metadata and other details ensure right
management.
2. 9 Impact on environment
It has a great impact on digital preservation as it enables paperless preservation of
resources. By saving the paper it is contributing in favour of environment because it is
directly reducing the usage of trees. Processes become paperless and online because of
digital preservation.
2.10 Cost - effective
Saves the cost of producing multiple copies of physical resource as one digital copy can
be accessed by multiple users. Open and free preservation tools and software are helping
to preserve digital content at low cost and saves the money which can be used for different
developmental process. Maintenance cost is comparably low.
2.11 other significances
Also because of various file formats like audio and video differently abled people can
access the digitally preserved objects and learn themselves. Comparably less physical
space is required for storage of digital materials.
3. CHALLENGES AND ISSUES IN DIGITAL PRESERVATION
Although there are many significances of digital preservation, but the complex and dynamic
nature of digital content is major challenge. The classic example is non accessible URL’s.
For accessing the digital content users need to have up-to-date technology hence machine
dependence has increased. Emergence of new formats and style is challenging in terms
of encoding and compression for digital preservation. Deterioration of storage devices
can happen which leads to corruption of digital files. The media may physically survive for
years but technology which support to read and interpret become obsolete after few years.

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The life span of digital media is relatively shorter. Insufficient planning, resources, and
infrastructure, also the physical condition is threat for digital preservation. Legal issue
of copyright, security and privacy of data, funding issue, proper policy framework are
major issues of digital preservation.
4. CONCLUSION
Digital preservation has become necessity of an era. Digital preservation is management of
digital information for long term. It is an ongoing process of monitoring of the evolving
technological environment and preservation methods. Many new technologies storage
media, software are maintaining digitally preserved objects. Many national and international
initiatives are contributing in digital preservation. Also, the academic and research libraries
are getting into digital preservation. Contributing in digital heritage of information as support
the preservation of digitised historical collections.
REFERENCES
1. Arora,J. (2006). Digital Preservation: An Overview. In Proceeding of PLANNER 2006
(106-148). Gandhinagar: INFLIBNET Centre. Retrieved from
http://ir.inflibnet.ac.in:8080/ir/ViewerJS/#../bitstream/1944/1466/1/8.pdf
2. Becker, C., & Rauber, A. (2011). Decision criteria in digital preservation: What to
measure and how. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and
Technology, 62(6), 1009-1028. Retrieved from
https://ezproxy.tiss.edu:2070/doi/epdf/10.1002/asi.21527
3. Berman, F. (2008). Got data?: A guide to data preservation in the information age.
Communications of the ACM - Surviving the Data Deluge, 51(12), 50–56. Retrieved from
https://ezproxy.tiss.edu:2075/10.1145/1409360.1409376
4. Concept of Digital Preservation. (2019, April 02). Retrieved June 30, 2020, from
https://en.unesco.org/themes/information-preservation/digital-heritage/concept-digital-
preservation
5. Dalle, R. (n.d.). What are the characteristics and advantages of a digital archive?.
Retrieved June 30, 2020 from https://www.docbyte.com/blog/what-are-the-characteristics-
and-advantages-of-a-digital-archive
6. Dhansegaran, G. (2004). In Proceeding 2nd Convention PLANNER – 2004 (71-74).
Imphal, Manipur University : INFLIBNET Centre. Retrieved from
http://ir.inflibnet.ac.in:8080/ir/ViewerJS/#../bitstream/1944/422/1/04Planner_10.pdf
7. Digital preservation. (2020, July 01). Retrieved July 03, 2020, from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_preservation
8. Digital Preservation Coalition (n.d.). Retrieved June 30, 2020 from
https://www.dpconline.org/

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9.Jharotia, A.K. ( n.d.). Importance of digital preservation in digital era. (n.a.). Retrieved
from
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326534604_IMPORTANCE_OF_DIGITAL_PRE
SERVATION_IN_DIGITAL_ERA
10. Kirchhoff, A. J. (2008). Digital preservation: challenges and implementation. Learned
Publishing, 21, 285-294.
11. Lakshminarasimhappa, M. C. (2014). Digital preservation in libraries why and how?.
International Journal of Digital Library Services,4(4), 90-97. Retrieved from
http://www.ijodls.in/uploads/3/6/0/3/3603729/9444.pdf
12.Meddings, C. (2011). Digital Preservation: The Library Perspective. The Serials
Librarian, 60 (1-4), 55–60. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1080/0361526X.2011.556437
13. Russell, K. (1999). Digital Preservation: Ensuring Access to Digital Materials
Information the Future. CEDARS, www.leeds.ac.uk/cedars/Chapter.htm
14. Pardo, T. A., Cresswell, A. M., Dawes, S. S., & Burke, G. B. (2005). Building State
Government Digital Preservation Partnership A Capability Assessment and Planning
Toolkit : Version 1.0. Albany,New York : Center for Technology in Government University.
Retrieved from
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