Remaining Future Proof Publishers and Digital Preservation Eefke Smit STM Director Standards and Technology Berlin, APE 2014 Conference, January 29, 2014

Preservation – why ? “Alles van Waarde is Weerloos” All Things of Value are Defenceless Lucebert Dutch Poet,

Why DIGITAL preservation is important, especially in STM environments Essential in STM publishing environments 1. Authors seek the eternal life via their publications 2. Publishers build the future Records of Science 3. Libraries wish to assure future access 4. Users wish to consult the collective memory And all is now digital, And digital stuff is extremely brittle.

The Dangers of Decay for anything Digital See Atlas of Digital Damages Digital Decay can be caused by: – Software is not backwards compatible – Hardware no longer exists – Storage medium unaccessible or decayed: bit rot ! – Computer environment no longer supported – Website no longer exists, URL broken – Repository holders have disappeared – Location of files unclear, unknown – Metadata unreadable or incomprehendible – Access mechanisms broken (DRM)

5 Publishers collaborate in many initiatives Portico, Clockss, KB e-depot, BL, APA, Aparsen See the Keepers Registery (thekeepers.org): covers ISSNs Combination of preservation strategies: Outsourcing, normalisation, migration, emulation Agreements on disaster recovery and long term access

What matters most for publishers in DP Solutions exist for: Independent digital archives: E-Depot, Portico, Clockss Tools and services Persistent Identifiers: DOIs widely used Stakeholder collaboration Yet to be solved How many archives? Audits and Certification on future reliability Bringing down costs Standards for metadating New identifiers pop up: interoperability framework needed More stakeholder collaboration needed Chain solutions, from cradle to archive

APARSEN, working towards a Centre of Excellence Aim: bring coherence, cohesion and continuity in digital preservation among a wide variety of stakeholder groups Project has 31 partners in 13 EU-countries STM was a founding member of APA Objective: Create a Centre of Excellence for tools, services, consulting, research Takes digital preservation to a higher level of recognition Raising awareness -> idenitifying gaps-> providing recommendations -> sharing best practice

APARSEN Network of Excellence

Impressions

Important for publishers in APARSEN Trust in the reliability of repositories: – Self assessments (DSA) – Monitored self-auditing (Nestor – DIN approach) – Full certification ISO Common metadating standards – Solve the identifier soup via interoperability frameworks – Collaboration throughout the chain Costs and requirements for depositing content – Cost modeling and cost comparing (see 4C project) – Business models – Innovation and research in easier ways of preservation

The New Challenges Digital Preservation is not just about texts and documents, it is multimedia In STM the new challenge is Research Data and Open Access solutions Publications will increasingly be multi-versioned, multi- sourced and multi-media See STM statements on working together with trustworthy digital repositories Ensure bi-directional linking between data and publications, Agree on and ensure the use of persistent identifiers (DOI, ORCID, ISNI) Ensure integration of multimedia data and publications

“Hell is a place where nothing connects to nothing” T.S. Eliott in his introduction to Dante’s Inferno. He added: “We are in the business of finding connections--within texts, between texts and contexts, between texts and ourselves, between our readings and …etc” How does this relate to Digital Preservation ? In Digital Preservation we are creating the connections to the future, in order to make sure that the future can make connections back to us.

Questions? Eefke Smit International STM Association