Future Access to the Scientific and Cultural Heritage – A shared Responsibility Birte Christensen-Dalsgaard State and University Library

Outline of talk Staging the challenges data and their representation The expectation of researchers based on field studies in Planets Preservation focus Planets CASPAR Summary

Collection Description – depends on purpose for use

Data – harmonised for immediate use Should we keep the original?

Data – From Bits to Interpretation Level 2 GOME Satellite instrument data From CASPAR

New Media We establish collections to give future generations access to this cultural heritage – but how will they access and use it? The answer will influence preservation strategies and quality measures

Information is the important thing What information? Documents…… Data……. Original bits? Look and feel? Behaviour? Performance? Explicit/ Implicit/ Tacit Information : Any type of knowledge that can be exchanged. In an exchange, it is represented by data. Long Term is long enough to be concerned with the impacts of changing technologies, including support for new media and data formats, or with a changing user community. Long Term may extend indefinitely. Ensure that the information to be preserved is Independently Understandable to (and usable by) the Designated Community. From CASPAR

Interview with three futurologists If knowledge is not available 24/7 and accessible in a meaningful way – then it is not used Searching on the basis of words will disappear – will start to search on the basis of argumentation Data are stored in international databases. Databases are linked. Data becomes cheaper to reconstruct by the minute – cheaper to reconstruct than to store.

Trends – which might be explored Researchers are not prepared to travel to collections as part of their normal research. May go before publishing Researchers use many sources – but miss handles to evaluate quality (authenticity) What is perceived as the best copy? We live in a global society and researchers and citizen's act and think internationally – and work with linked or integrated material Opening hours – meaningful? Formulate queries in more abstract terms?

How to document the creation of ideas? Output - Process

CASPAR and Planets CASPAR – focus on developing framework and methodology for capturing relevant information as part of the process Planets – focus on creating framework and methodology for common, existing objects

Project Architecture Reflects Problem Structure Preservation Planning Services Characterisation Services Preservation Action Services Test Bed: evaluation and validation services Dissemination Take-up & Training User Community Supplier Community Interoperability Framework From Planets

Interoperability Framework Includes Interoperable distributed services Service registries and shared data-stores Encapsulate tools as services Orchestration capability to combine services From Planets

Representation Information The Data Object is “interpreted using” the Representation Information (RepInfo) The Reference Model is designed to ensure that an OAIS is not set the impossible task of having to provide all possible RepInfo immediately Hence: Take account of the Designated Community and its associated Knowledge Base The amount of RepInfo is not fixed Additional RepInfo will be needed over time How do we define a Designated Community? Created how? By whom? From CASPAR

Why focus on Representation Information? Shareable A piece of Representation Information (RepInfo) can be associated with large numbers of different digital objects Shared need RepInfo Network – potentially huge and growing (as Designated Community Knowledge Base changes) Huge variety Structure, Semantics, Software etc But Of course we need lots of other “metadata” PDI, Packaging, Descriptive – Information plus… From CASPAR

CASPAR information flow architecture Rep Info Virtualisation How do we capture the Representation Information? From CASPAR

Summary Focus on sharing the effort involved in Digital Preservation Forward looking: Digital Preservation should be an integrated part of information creation Retrospective: Hard work