Tackling the challenge of long term digital preservation through PCP The PREFORMA Project Anna Kasimati Studies and Programs Office, Greek Film Centre

The identity of Greek Film Centre  a public benefit non-profit legal entity  administratively and financially autonomous  operates in the public interest  main objective is support and co-produce Greek films  holds an extended movie database and archive  focusing to actions that further preserve, save and demonstrate

Role in the project A memory institution which contributes to:  the analysis of the requirements for the audio-visual domain  the provision of data sets for testing  the dissemination and the networking Principal domain of interest: audio-visual (films)

The identity of PREFORMA project  PREFORMA is a Pre-Commercial Procurement project co-funded by the European Commission under its FP7-ICT Programme.  Start: 1 January 2014  Duration: 48 month (end 31 December 2017)

The PREFORMA partners  Riksarkivet National Archives – Sweden (Coordinator)  Center of Expertise of Digital Heritage - Belgium  Promoter S.r.l - Italy  Fraunhofer Gesellschaft zur Foerderung del Angewandten Forschung Research Institute- Germany  University of Skövde - Sweden  University of Padua - Italy  The Netherlands Institute for Sound & Vision - Netherlands  Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage - Belgium  Greek Film Center - Greece  Local Government Management Agency - Ireland  Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation - Germany  Girona City Council -Spain  Ministry of Culture - Estonia  National Library of Sweden - Sweden

Concept  The software used for implementing standards for the production of the electronic files is not in control neither by the institutions that produces them nor by the memory institutions.  Conformance tests of transfers are done by memory institutions, but are not totally reliable; different software for testing could end up in different results.  This poses problems in long-term preservation. Data objects meant for preservation, passing through an uncontrolled generative process, can jeopardise the whole preservation exercise.

Aim and Objectives  The aim: to address the challenge of implementing various good quality standardised file formats for preserving data content long term.  The main objective: to give memory institutions full control of the process of conformity tests of files to be ingested into archives.  The main objective of the PCP launched by PREFORMA: to develop and deploy an open source software licensed reference implementation for various file format standards, aimed for any memory institution (or other organisation with a preservation task) that wish to check conformance with a specific standard.

Specific Objectives  Develop a set of tools that support a reference implementation  Set up a sustainable network of common interest with representatives from memory institutions, researchers and developers who are interested in contributing to the definition of the requirements and taking part in the assessment and the exploitation of the results produced by the suppliers  Improve the quality of standards implementation  Carry through dissemination activities

Expected outcomes establish a long-term sustainable ecosystem around developed tools organize a network of common interest create a set modules for each media type provide the Technical Reference of these modules and their API develop a web application that provides the user interface to the 4 modules

Important Dates  Next Information Day: PREFORMA Networking Session at EGI Community Forum 2014, Helsinki, 21 May 2014  Publication of the call: end May 2014  Deadline to present the proposals: end July 2014  Selection of the winners: end September 2014  End of the negotiation: end October 2014  Start of the work: 1stNovember 2014

Follow us! PREFORMA Website project.eu PREFORMA Blog ture.net/projects/pr eforma/ Thank you, Anna Kasimati Greek Film Centre