Preservation for the Next Generation

UKOLN is supported by: Preservation for the Next Generation Marieke Guy, UKOLN Internet Librarian International 16 th October 2008 Resources tagged with jisc-powr on Delicious

Digital Preservation…
“ The most threatened documents in modern archives are usually not the oldest, but the newest.”
The Social Life of Information by John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid

Why Web Sites?
Recognised strategic importance of Web sites
To protect your institution
Legal reasons
Audit and authenticity
To be forward thinking
To save you money and embarrassment
Responsibility to staff and users
Uniqueness
Heritage

The JISC PoWR Project
JISC Preservation of Web Resources project
Focus on digital preservation issues of relevance to UK HE/FE Web management community
5 months (May – September 2008)
2 partners: UKOLN and ULCC + friendly lawyer
Identify, share and seek to embed best practices
3 Workshops: London, Aberdeen, Manchester
Key resources: briefing papers, case studies and handbook
Uses a blog as its user engagement and dissemination channel. See: <http://jiscpowr.jiscinvolve.org/>

Concerns…
Risks identified in joint UKOLN/ULCC’s submission for the JISC PoWR project:
Institutions wouldn’t be sufficiently interested in the preservation of Web resources
The complexities (technical, policy, resourcing, legal, …) would be sufficient to de-motivate institutions
Tensions between the priorities of the different interested parties

Challenges…
Low priority
Unsure on whose responsibility it is
Complicated – Web is big, transient, dynamic
Gap of understanding between different communities
What do we preserve? Selection decisions
What makes a Web site (bits or essence)?
Technical issues and dependencies
Legal issues
Is it worth preserving anyway?
Web 2.0

Feedback from First Workshop
“ The challenges are significant, especially in terms of how to preserve Web resources….The workshop’s core message to practitioners was therefore to start building an internal network amongst relevant practitioners as advice and guidance emerge.
My thinking about this matter was certainly stimulated and I look forward to the next two workshops, and the handbook that will result. Web preservation is an issue which was always important but now grows increasingly urgent.”
Preservation of Web Resources: Making a Start , Stephen Emmott, Ariadne (56) Jul 2008

Courtesy of Flickr Stereotypes…

Web Managers?
Young Gen x, got pink hair and body piercings
Familiar with technology
Keen to create new things, like making mashups!
Good at dealing with expectations
Good communications skills
Interested in information, getting information out there
Want to be open…
Web presence gets bigger by the day
Tensions with IT services…won’t let them experiment
Not bothered about preservation

Records Managers?
Pessimistic – deal with planning for the worst imaginable contingencies
Sensible approach, risk management approach
Flexible, good communication and negotiation skills
Comfort with new technologies?
Afraid of IT, content to let it remain a mystery
Set in their ways (Rethinking RM for Web 2.0 world – Bailey)
Want to be closed…
Like to define their work by record/information
Interested (primarily) in management of records, procedures, preservation (and destruction) of records
RMs are lower than librarians? – RMS Bulletin

What about Librarians?
Do you have something to offer to Web resource preservation?
Quite the ones who end up doing the work

Web Specialist University Archivist, Records Manager and FOI Co-ordinator Lizzie Richmond Head of Web Services Alison Wildish
Archivist
Background in collection cataloguing and archival administration and conservation
Paper environment
Responsible to the archives – keep them safe and accessible for the future
Web specialist
Background in information technology, web design and development, communication and marketing
Digital environment
Responsible to the user – keep things up to date and useful
Acknowledgements to Wildish and Richmond: <http://www.slideshare.net/jiscpowr/jiscpowr-wildish>

Marieke Guy and Brian Kelly (UKOLN): We’re doing these workshops on Web Preservation and wondered if you’d be willing to give us a case study about the approach from the University of Bath… “ “ ”

University Archivist, Records Manager and FOI Co-ordinator Oh no… not this again! Why me? This sounds technical… I’m a paper person I have enough trouble trying to preserve hard copy records without having to worry about the web I can see the value in theory, but in practice it’s too huge I guess it might be a good idea, but no one much cares what I think I am interested though… Now and the past

Web Specialist Head of Web Services EEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKK!!! In all honesty it isn’t interesting to me… We struggle to keep the site current – never mind thinking about preserving the old stuff I am future watching… need to know what to bring in not how to keep hold of the past Why is it something I should think about now? I’m not really that interested Now and the future

The Web Equivalent
So what is the Web equivalent of the printed prospectus?
Your Home page?
It is your institution’s anniversary and your director would like an example of how the institution’s Web site has developed since launch
Currently only anecdotal evidence/tacit knowledge
CMS brought in, search added
Changes in navigation, branding
Accessibility, language, content
Interactive elements, multimedia
We can use the Internet Archive’s Way Back machine!

The University of Bath Home Page

Institutional Web Page History
We captured screen images from the Internet Archive of the home page since 1997
Used FireFox Piclens extension to produce an interactive gallery of the images
Created a video with commentary providing reflections on the changes to the home page
This allowed us to draw parallels with the real world example
Used as a scenario for first workshop (it’s the University’s anniversary)
To illustrate one approach – use of a third party service (Internet Archive) – issues?
To illustrate preservation of the user experience (as opposed to the underlying data)

What about Web 2.0?
The JISC PoWR project explicitly sought to engage with the preservation implications of Web 2.0
The project has used blogs and wikis to support its work
Implications of Web 2.0 for Web site preservation:
Use of 3 rd party services
Content = collaboration and communication
Richer diversity of services (not just a file on a filestore/CMS/database)
More complex IPR issues
Project looked at Wikis, blogs, reuse of data, disposable data, slideshare

One Example: Blogs
How might you migrate the contents of a blog
This question was raised by Casey Leaver, shortly before leaving Warwick University
She migrated her blog from blogs at Warwick Univ to Wordpress
Note, though, that not all data was transferred (e.g. title, but not contents) so there’s a need to check transfer mechanisms
See also Derek Morrison, Auricle
http://caseyleaver.wordpress.com/2008/02/20/the-spirit-of-web-20/

What PoWR Recommends
Preservation is possible!
Not everything
Not every version of every resource
Not forever
Not perfect
Manage your resources
Protect your resources
Keep some of them permanently

Approaches
Business as usual
Policy review
Quick wins
A finite solution
A strategic approach
Convince the decision-makers
Think about internal and external drivers
Include Web Preservation in policy
Preservation-friendly features in future procurements
Resources to manage capture and curation of resources

Stoppers
We need to consult lots of other people from different backgrounds, some of whom I don't know very well, and we don’t have a shared language
We'll need to form a virtual committee or task force to get this done
We need to take it to the very top of the Institution and they probably won't listen
We need to write a persuasive case and it's going to make me very unpopular
We'll need to buy, implement, and learn new software
It's going to cost a lot of money
People will have to change what they're doing
We need to gather evidence of who would be affected by data loss, and why
We need to do risk analysis
We need to do change management

Starters: Effecting Change
Use the Handbook and the drivers listed
Use the Espida approach - outcomes
You can get quick results by running a pilot project, especially if it's very selective
Web harvesting software is open-source (i.e. free)
You could set up a regular harvest of the Institution's website with little or no disruption
Consulting a few people is an easy way to get results, and not the same as establishing a virtual committee

Starting Point
What Web resources have you got? Where are they? Why have you got them? Who wants them? For how long?
Ways of finding out include a survey, research, ask your DNS manager, Compile IAR
Find your policies, assess them, strategic thinking
Appraise and select
Collaborate
Last step is the technology one - archive, domain harvesting etc.

The Handbook
Final copy now being proof read
Creative Commons licence

Rethinking Web Preservation
Chris Rusbridge: I would argue that outcome-related phrases like "long term accessibility" or "usability over time" are better than the process-oriented phrase "digital preservation“
How does this relate to JISC PoWR work?
Consider institutional :
Lack of interest in “digital preservation”
Importance of use of services
Importance of reuse of services
This needs to complement:
National approaches to Web preservation and Web harvesting

Web Specialist University Archivist, Records Manager and FOI Co-ordinator Lizzie Richmond Head of Web Services Alison Wildish
Better informed about differences between printed and web records and their implications
Recognition that web preservation should be addressed to avoid gap in University history
This is worth doing
There’s a lot to think about
We’ll need to work together to succeed
We need a strategy because:
- its important at an institutional level
- consistency of approach will be crucial
- the line between publication and record is blurred
What have we learned?

Conclusions
JISC PoWR project has:
Helped to begin process of raising awareness on Web preservation within institutions
Facilitated engagement with key stakeholders in a small number of institutions
Produced examples of pragmatic approaches to preservation of Web resources
Received feedback on the approaches
Produced draft handbook to share these approaches more widely
The challenges of Web site preservation are only just beginning

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Preservation for the Next Generation

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