1. DIGITAL PRESERVATION –
MANAGE AND PROVIDE
ACCESS
BY MICHAEL PAULMENO
BASED ON PRESENTATIONSGIVENATTHE 2016 DIGITAL PRESERVATIONOUTREACH
AND EDUCATIONWORKSHOP IN JACKSON, MS

2. MODULE 5
MANAGE

3. MODULES
Identify - what digital content do you have?
Select - what portion of that content will be preserved?
Store - how should your content be stored for the long term?
Protect - what steps are needed to protect your digital content?
Manage - what provisions are needed for long-term management?
Provide - how should your content be made available over time?

4. LEARNING OBJECTIVES
• Designating People & Policies
• Selecting & ManagingTechnology
• Securing Funding & Advocacy
• Utilizing Standards & Assessment

5. PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT
• Digital preservation on going process
• Involves multiple parts
• Preservation planning (on-going)
• Self-assessment (internal process)
• Audit (external review by peers)

6. BALANCED MANAGEMENT
• Preservation programs don’t run themselves
• An effective approach will address
• Organizational requirements and objectives
• Technological opportunities and change
• Resources – funding, staff, equipment, etc.

7. THREE ELEMENTS OF ORGANIZATION
Preservation
Management
People
PoliciesTechnology

8. ORGANIZATIONAL ELEMENT: PEOPLE
Knowledge and skills include:
• Policy development
• Project management
• Repository/software management, programming
• Metadata management
• Legal expertise
• Marketing expertise

9. ORGANIZATIONAL ELEMENT: PEOPLE
• Understand skills needed
• Match people to skills

10. ORGANIZATIONAL ELEMENT: POLICIES
• Good policies are important
• Help deal with potential issues
• Defines roles, responsibilities, goals, etc.
• Ensure compliance with standards
• Lays foundation for future growth
• Examples
• Strategic plan
• Preservation plan

11. ORGANIZATIONAL ELEMENT: POLICIES
• Examples
• Strategic plan
• Preservation plan
• Must be written and enforce

12. ORGANIZATIONAL ELEMENT: POLICIES
Benefits of a preservation policy:
• Specifies institutional commitment
• Developing policy builds DP team
• Demonstrates compliance – meet requirements
• Manages expectations – message to stakeholders
• Identifies issues and challenges
• Raises awareness
• Defines roles and responsibilities

13. ORGANIZATIONAL ELEMENT:TECHNOLOGY
• Needs to be part of overall strategy
• Preservation and policy concerns should inform technology decisions
• Key concerns:
• Managing
• Selecting
• Investing
• Funding

14. MANAGING TECHNOLOGY
• Prioritize: weigh requirements to be met
• Assess: define criteria to select appropriate
• Plan: identify steps to meet goals
• Select: decide when to own/join/share
• Fund: allocate resources
• Monitor: look ahead, be prepared
• Evaluate: measure outcomes and success

15. PRIORITIZE AND ASSESS
• Ask yourself questions
• What are our needs?
• Do we have technical staff?
• Can we sustain funding commitments?
• Answers should inform further decisions

16. PLAN
• Develop a road map for purchases and decisions
• Create backup/disaster plans (and test them!)
• Consider all scenarios (paranoia can be a good thing)
• Think carefully; not all decisions easily undone

17. A WORD ON BACKUPS …
• No system is 100% effective
• Follow the LOCKSS principle (Lots of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe)
• Devise a disaster plan and test it regularly

18. SELECTING TECHNOLOGY
• Many considerations
• On-premise vs. hosted
• Locally developed vs. contracted
• Turnkey vs. in-house development
• Open-source vs. proprietary
• Evaluate options and consider what is the best fit
• Read fine print

19. SELECTING TECHNOLOGY
Characteristics of sound software:
• written in a well-documented language
• usable on a wide variety of platforms
• sustained support by creators/developers
• modular in design
• supports batch processing and workflows
• licenses support secondary use

20. SELECTING TECHNOLOGY
Characteristics of good vendors:
• Transparent
• Easily available support
• Solid offerings

21. SELECTING TECHNOLOGY
• Seek out other customers
• Read reviews, blogs, etc.
• Shop around
• Always be willing to walk away from a deal

22. INVESTING IN TECHNOLOGY
• Do you buy it?
• Do you lease it?
• Do you share it?
• Do you develop it?

23. INVESTING IN TECHNOLOGY
• Investment and selection influence each other
• Look at funding levels, staff, and needs
• What sort of commitment is needs/desire?

24. DESIGNATED FUNDING
• Funds set aside for digital preservation
• May not be explicit (e.g., budget line item)
• Must be able to make a compelling case
• Measurable indication of intent to preserve
• Challenging to do, but important
• Over time, contributes to track record

25. MONITOR AND EVALUATE
• Is the software working?
• Do we like it?
• Does it do what we need?
• Is the vendor supportive and responsive?
• What are our options for migration

26. USING STANDARDS
• Lots to choose from!
• Why follow one?
• Ensure long term preservation
• Avoids haphazard planning
• Helps communicating with others

27. DP STANDARDS
Standards emerging since 1996 report :
• Trusted Digital Repositories, 2002
• Open Archival Information Systems (OAIS) Reference Model, 2003 plus
standardization (ISO 14721:2012)
• Preservation Metadata Implementation Strategies, 2005 plus updates
• Trustworthy Repositories Audit and Certification (TRAC), 2011
• Audit and Certification of Trustworthy Digital Repositories (ISO 16363:2012)
• NDSA Levels of Digital Preservation (LoDP), 2013

28. TRUSTED DIGITAL REPOSITORY
A TDR should have these characteristics:
• community standards (OAIS Compliance)
• commitment (Administrative Responsibility)
• management (Organizational Viability)
• resources (Financial Sustainability)
• infrastructure (Technological Suitability)
• protection and control (System Security)
• documentation (Procedural Accountability)

29. OPEN ARCHIVAL INFORMATION SYSTEM
• Framework for designing a long term
preservation system
• Definition: “Any organization or system charged
with the task of preserving information over the
long term and making it accessible to a class of
users”1.
• Conceptual design for an archive
• Consists of producers, consumers, management,
and the archive
• Each has a unique function (see right)
1. Lavoie, Brian. “Meeting the Challenges of Digital Preservation:TheOAIS Reference Model.”Accessed on April 5, 2017. http://www.oclc.org/research/publications/library/2000/lavoie-
oais.html.

30. MORE INFORMATION
• Lavoie, Brian. “Meeting the Challenges of Digital Preservation:The OAIS Reference
Model.” http://www.oclc.org/research/publications/library/2000/lavoie-oais.html.
• ConsultativeCommittee for Space Data Systems. “Reference Model for an OpenArchival
Information System.” https://public.ccsds.org/pubs/650x0m2.pdf
• National Digital Stewardship Alliance: http://ndsa.org/

31. Any Questions?

32. MODULE 6
PROVIDE

33. MODULES
Identify - what digital content do you have?
Select - what portion of that content will be preserved?
Store - how should your content be stored for the long term?
Protect - what steps are needed to protect your digital content?
Manage - what provisions are needed for long-term management?
Provide - how should your content be made available over time?

34. LEARNING OBJECTIVES
• Describe the difference between preservation and access technologies
• Describe the value of long-term access policies
• Be aware of legal and rights management issues connected to digital
records

35. OVERVIEW

36. TECHNOLOGY ISSUES
Image By Bjarni Juliusson (Own work) [Public domain], viaWikimedia Commons

37. What is Long-termAccess?
Preservation makes long-term access possible…
Preservation
• relies upon proven technologies to
preserve digital objects across
generations of technology
• accumulates metadata over the life
cycle to trace and preserve content
• preservation systems create new
versions of digital objects for access
to deliver as needs change over time
• purpose: ensure long-term access
• focus: future users
Access
• relies on cutting edge
technologies to provide best and
fastest access at a point in time
• selects metadata needed to use
and understand content
• access systems deliver objects
with user-oriented services to
make the objects
• purpose: provide content to users
• focus: current users

38. PROVEN VS. CUTTING EDGE TECHNOLOGIES
Proven
Reliable, well-documented, widely used
Trade-off ease of use for long term
sustainability
Ex. Hard disks, tape drives, SQL
databases, Debian Linux, C++
Cutting Edge
New, advanced, and unproven
Convenient, but potentially
unsustainable
Ex.Windows 10, CockroachDB, Dart,
Fedora

39. THE RIGHT TOOL FOR THE RIGHT JOB
Different systems for preservation and access
No one size fits all solution
Ask yourself
• Will this system still exist in 10 years? 20?
• Is the system user friendly?
• Is it fast and convenient or proven and reliable?
• Does the system require third party (i.e., vendor)
support?
39

40. The RightTool for the Right Job (cont’d)
Static web pages - access
Omeka - access
Archivematica - preservation
SQL Database - preservation

41. SUSTAINABILITY
Access requires technology to be well managed and sustainable
Long term funding and expertise need to be in place
Ask yourself:
What happens if funding is cut?
How many staff know how to maintain the software?
Is the technology robust and reliable?

42. PRESERVATION AND THE CLOUD
You can’t always do it yourself
Cloud service providers offer solid alternatives to self hosting
Ask yourself:
Do we have the funding and expertise to migrate servers?
Will funding be present to sustain cloud subscriptions?
What happens if we must back out of a cloud subscription?

43. PRESERVATION AND THE CLOUD (CONT’D)
Benefits
Easy disaster preparedness
Wide range of offerings
Less on-site IT staff required
Drawbacks
Cost
Complex pricing (ex., AWS)
Learning curve

44. REQUIREMENTS FOR PROVIDING ACCESS
Use current and known technologies
Software should be well-documented and maintained
Ask yourself
When was the program last updated?
Is it open-source or proprietary?
What is the total cost of ownership?

45. REQUIREMENTS FOR PROVIDING ACCESS
(CONT’D)
Content should be delivered completely, be intact, and well-formed
Content should be accurately described

46. REQUIREMENTS FOR PROVIDING ACCESS
(CONT’D)
Provide access in accordance with policy
Provide fair access
Everyone should be able to access materials equally
Ensure accessibility for people with disabilities

47. Managing Access
E. von Seutter Photograph Collection, PI/1985.0032, Mississippi Department of Archives and History

48. MANAGING ACCESS
• Policies managing digital access should apply to staff and
users
• Policies enable consistent, sustainable access over time. Ad
hoc decisions do not!
48

49. STAFF POLICY QUESTIONS
• Who is allowed to have back end access to content?
• What about preservation masters versus access copies?
49

50. USER POLICY QUESTIONS
• Are access policies equal for all content?
• If not, how are categories managed?
50

51. USER POLICY QUESTIONS
• How are exceptions/special requests handled?
• How do users request/get access?
51

52. ACCESS POLICIES SHOULD...
• ...address requirements for preservation systems to produce
access objects
• ...reflect and respond to new discovery/delivery issues that
emerge
• ...be written down and implemented!
52

53. Legal Issues
New Capitol Photograph Album, Series 317, Mississippi Department of Archives and History

54. LEGAL ISSUES
Things to think about:
Do you have the right to distribute the content?
E.g., authors’ papers versus university-produced
content
54

55. LEGAL ISSUES
Things to think about:
Are there access restrictions in deeds of gift or donor
agreements?
E.g., time restrictions on opening records
55

56. LEGAL ISSUES
Things to think about:
Is there any confidential information that must be
redacted?
E.g., Social Security numbers, medical
information, student records
56

57. LEGAL ISSUES
Things to think about:
Is there any material you should not provide access
to?
E.g., university blueprints
57

58. • Know your content to address relevant legal issues
for preservation and access
• Document and preserve your decisions about legal
issues regarding access to your content
But I’m not a lawyer!
58

59. • Know who your legal adviser is (or find one) and
develop a sound working relationship
• It is your legal adviser’s responsibility to help –
help them help you
But I’m not a lawyer!
59

60. Understand Users
Conrad Nutschan [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC BY-SA 2.0
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], viaWikimedia Commons

61. Understand Users
• Know who utilizes collection
• Understand what users expect
• Expectation driven by technologies users know and want

62. Understand Users
• How do we anticipate needs of future users?
• How should digital content be packages for delivery over time?
• What sort of tracking instruments (surveys, GoogleAnalytics, etc) should we
use?

63. Understand Users
• Preservation a pathway from one generation of technology to the next
• Migration of content critical to ensuring long term access
• No one can predict the future, but planning still important

64. Any Questions?