Digital continuity and Digital Sustainability: current problems, ongoing trends and [Archives New Zealand’s] solutions Presentation for Christchurch Recordkeeping Forum Mick Crouch Business Analyst Digital Sustainability

“Preservation can be thought of as communication with the future. Information that is understood today is transmitted to an unknown system in the future where it will be interpreted and displayed.” Toward a Theory of Digital Preservation Reagan Moore, San Diego Supercomputer Center

A Brief History of Digital Continuity 1960sEarly digital archive programmes 1990sResearch (InterPARES I, Pittsburgh, Monash, etc.) Post-custodialism and paradigm shifts Awareness raising: “The lost decades”, “digital amnesia” 2000sDigital recordkeeping programmes Collaborative, intensified research (ErpaNet, PLANETS, InterPARES II & III, DELOS) Standards (OAIS, PREMIS, ADRI etc)

Where Are We Now? Digital preservation = community Many examples of digital archives systems: Korea, Malaysia, Switzerland, Netherlands, France, Australia, etc Useful experiences to share Shift of focus to practice

Collaborative Research and Practice Archives, libraries, science / research sectors, arts, academics Preservation planning services Methodologies, tools and services Preservation action tools Testbeds and prototypes Aim for dissemination and take-up

Interesting Trends Out of the box software E.g. Safety Deposit Box (Tessella Support Services and The National Archives UK) Malaysia Switzerland Netherlands and others Further developments for each implementation Open source add-ons

Obstacles Transfer a problematic concept Slow rates of transfer to established digital archives Most common transfers from last resort context Agencies keeping copies of records Mixed approaches to access Still an afterthought, with focus on preservation? (e.g. Swiss handling of databases) Often access is through existing finding aids systems Agency access interface for direct transfers (e.g. France)

Shared Services for (Non-Archival) Information

What is Archives New Zealand doing? Digital Continuity Action Plan Interim Digital Archive (IDA) development Work on file formats Digital Archaeology Community of Practice / Practical Implementers Guild Guidance – ERKSS Review, Web, TC/DRM Research – datasets, web, legacy records, TC/DRM

Archives NZ - Interim Digital Archive

How the Interim Digital Archive Works Refer PRONOM format registry, TNA Digital Record Analyse & prepare Assign archival metadata IngestIdentify DROID Identify & validate JHOVE Normalise XENA Manage & preserve in repository

Ingest and Normalisation

The Digital Archaeology Project Hands-on experience with records held at Archives NZ What do we hold? 297 floppy disks 113 CDs or DVDs 21 9-track tapes 16 data cartridges 2 ZIP disks

Practical Implementers Guild Archives New Zealand National Library New Zealand Statistics New Zealand Victoria University Te Papa

Research Datasets across the public sector – collaboration with Statistics New Zealand Web Information Continuity Project TC / DRM Legacy records

Research findings Agencies hold information which is at risk and/ or inaccessible Retrieval of legacy information is expensive and takes a long time Twenty-eight public sector agencies hold digital records over 25 years old; nearly a third of these offices hold more than 100 gigabytes of digital records each

Digital Continuity Action Plan

Digital Continuity Action Plan: Key Messages There when you need it. Information will be maintained as long as needed. Some is needed only for a few months, some forever. Authentic and reliable. Information is tamper-proof and free of technological rights restrictions. It can be trusted to be authentic and reliable. Trusted access. New Zealanders can be confident they can find and use information that is publicly available, and that their sensitive information will be protected from unauthorised access. Do nothing, lose everything. If no action is taken, public sector digital information will be lost. We need a proactive approach to maintain information for the future.

Digital Continuity Action Plan Consultation 206 public offices and 76 local authorities were asked to provide feedback 63 written submissions were received from 55 different organisations Local government now in scope The term ‘information’ replaces ‘records’ and ‘documents’

Next steps Consultation wrapped up Nov 2008 Reviewed by Strategic Advisory Group Dec 2008 Rewritten into an Action Plan Feb 2009 Sent to Minister March 2009 Two weeks of further consultation The action plan goes to cabinet through the Officials Committee April 2009 Cabinet approves it as official Government policy Action point projects in July 2009

Don’t forget! It’s all about digital: The public records and archives of today and tomorrow will be in digital formats. Archives New Zealand is supporting digital continuity across the broader public sector. Do nothing, lose everything: if we don’t actively manage digital records and archives, we will have nothing in the future. We need to work together: Archives New Zealand is looking for partners to help trial new systems with real data – are you interested?