Katherine Skinner - Economics of Digital Preservation

Katherine Skinner Executive Director, Educopia Institute Program Manager, MetaArchive Cooperative MCN 2009, Portland Oregon

What does it cost if we don’t preserve?
What is the cost to preserve (and who pays)?
Economically sustainable digital preservation in practice
MetaArchive Cooperative example
MetaArchive 2009

Print vs. digital media and preservation
Preservation as act of will
Timing is everything
Short window, long timeframe
MetaArchive 2009

Cost of not preserving assets:
Institutional
Cultural, Political, Scientific
Financial
MetaArchive 2009

Preservation, in context
Cultural memory organizations created to perform two major functions:
provide access and preservation for important assets/cultural artifacts
Need these services more than ever in digital age
Content more fleeting, less likely to survive with benign neglect
MetaArchive 2009

Outsourcing of core mission = Loss of core mission
Danger of becoming a broker rather than a do-er
Brokers unlikely to survive in tight economic times
MetaArchive 2009

Loss of historical perspective
Blindness to our own political mechanisms
Loss of scientific data that helps to better understand and preserve our bodies and our world
MetaArchive 2009

Expenditures on digital assets are growing
Investment in digitizing
Investment in creating born digital assets
Investment in acquiring digital assets
One spectacular crash away from major loss
Real world examples (and why we hear little of them…)
MetaArchive 2009

So what does it cost TO preserve…
MetaArchive 2009

Still difficult to pin down, but many are trying
Blue Ribbon Panel, US
NDIIPP, US
JISC and ESPIDA cost analysis work
LIFE Model
MetaArchive 2009

Defining economically sustainable digital preservation:
“ set of business, social, technological, and policy mechanisms that encourage the gathering of important information assets into digital preservation systems, and support the indefinite persistence of digital preservation systems, enabling access to and use of the information assets into the long-term future.”
Source: “Sustaining the Digital Investment: Issues and Challenges of Economically Sustainable Digital Preservation” Blue Ribbon Task Force on Sustainable Digital Preservation and Access (Dec 2008)
MetaArchive 2009

Not a “Simple Matter of Resources” (akin to IBM’s Simple Matter of Programming)
Underlying principles may NOT be known yet
Candidate economic models need study
No single model will fit all circumstances
Source: B. Lavoie, “The Fifth Blackbird” (March/April 2008)
MetaArchive 2009

“ Systematic challenges” and other barriers…
One-time funding models are prevalent and inadequate
Alignment is poor between stakeholders and their roles/responsibilities
MetaArchive 2009

Blue Ribbon preliminary findings (2008)
It is easier to ‘sell’ outcomes than processes.
Avoid excessive discounting of the benefits from digital preservation
Separating preservation costs from other costs is difficult
Diversity of funding streams is important for sustainable digital preservation
Non-monetary incentives are important.
Consider the full range of options when selecting an economic model to support digital preservation.
MetaArchive 2009

Must include the financial costs associated with:
writing and upkeep of plans and policies
training staff
selecting and implementing a system/solution/service
developing/maintaining software
selecting assets to preserve
documenting those assets (metadata)
data wrangling those assets such that they can be preserved
assessing/monitoring those assets’ viability over time (and the system/solution/service used as well!)
infrastructure costs (hardware, physical space, utilities)
All of the people who assist in the above
MetaArchive 2009

LIFE model
methodology for analyzing the lifecycle of a collection of digital materials and its associated costs
Acquisition, Ingest, Metadata, Bit-stream preservation, Content preservation, Access
Two things to assess—importance to society of preserving materials and the life-cycle cost of preservation for materials.
MetaArchive 2009

MetaArchive 2009

Founded on the premise that cultural memory organizations should maintain their historical role as cultural stewards
Preservation of digital assets as corollary to preserving physical ones
Need in house expertise and knowledge
Value of curators and librarians and archivists
Chose technical and organizational infrastructure that capitalizes on cultural memory organization’s proven methodologies
Distributed preservation
Partnership to keep costing affordable
MetaArchive 2009

A distributed digital preservation cooperative for digital archives, based on LOCKSS
Founded in 2003; supported by combination of sponsored funding (NDIIPP, NHPRC), consulting fees, and membership fees
Provides digital preservation infrastructure and training and models to enable other groups to establish similar networks
MetaArchive 2009

MetaArchive 2009 12 US Members + Lib. of Congress 2 Overseas Members

Auburn University
Boston College
Clemson University
Emory University
Florida State Univ.
Folger Shakespeare Lib.
Georgia Tech
Pontifícia Universidade Católica (RIO)
Rice University
Univ. of Hull
Univ. of Louisville
Univ. of North Texas
Univ. of South Carolina
Virginia Tech
Library of Congress
NDLTD
SDSC
MetaArchive 2009

reducing our short- and long-term costs
Investing in a commonly-owned solution, not purchasing a service
Sharing technological development and organizational tasks
decentralizing our activities
Safety in this “brave new world” of digital preservation may well reside in shared knowledge and shared commitment
decreasing dependence on third-party solutions
There is room for various types of solutions
Increased capacity for acting as a community of cultural stewards
MetaArchive 2009

MetaArchive revenue streams
Sponsored funding
NDIIPP investment of $1.25M
NHPRC investment of $300K
Member investments
Sustaining Members: $5K/year plus $0.67/GB/yr
Preservation Members: $1K/year plus $0.67/GB/yr
Consulting services
MetaArchive 2009

Central operational expenses for MetaArchive
Three staff members
Manager
Systems administrator
Programmer
Cloud computing infrastructure for some central network functions
Two “servers” plus testing servers
MetaArchive 2009

Distributed operational expenses
Roles played by member institution staff
Head/lead administrator (1 hr/wk)
Curator/data wrangler (1 hr/wk)
Programmer/plugin writer (1 hr/wk)
Systems Admin/cache manager (approx 1hr/mo)
Server at each institution
16 TB caches at <$4,600 each
MetaArchive 2009

By using the Cooperative model, we keep pricing extremely low
Members “pony up” resources in lieu of $$
For the price of a small central administration, members receive access to an extended network, both technically and organizationally
MetaArchive 2009

Dr. Katherine Skinner
404 783 2534
[email_address]
http://www.metaarchive.org
MetaArchive 2009

Katherine Skinner - Economics of Digital Preservation

by dianezorich on Nov 12, 2009

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