1. Data Management and Digital Preservation Carly Dearborn, MSIS Digital Preservation & Electronic Records Archivist cdearbor@purdue.edu https://purr.purdue.edu/legal/digitalpreservation https://www.lib.purdue.edu/spcol/digital-preservation-at-purdue

2. What is digital preservation? The series of managed activities, policies, strategies and actions to ensure the accurate rendering of digital content for as long as necessary, regardless of the challenges of media failure and technological change. - National Digital Stewardship Alliance (NDSA)

3. Digital preservation is not… A monthly backup A zip drive Forever Standardized

5. Digital preservation concepts Sustainability – Preservation starts the moment the data is created. Good data management makes preservation easier Authenticity – The quality is genuine, not counterfeit. The record is what it purports to be. Reliability – The quality of being dependable and trustworthy. Created by a competent authority and according to established practice Significant Properties – The characteristics (technical, intellectual, and aesthetic) which are the most important features to preserve. Appraisal – You can’t save everything. Deleting data is just as important as preserving

6. Preservation in PURR Working Group drafted PURR Digital Preservation Policy using the Trustworthy Repository Audit Checklist (TRAC) as guiding document. TRAC/ISO 16363 influenced documentation such as mission statement, policies, job descriptions, business plan, etc. The Open Archival Information System (OAIS) Reference Model is a standard in digital preservation and an ISO standard – ISO 14721

7. OAIS Reference Model Provides conceptual recommendations (not prescriptive) for all technical aspects of digital object’s life cycle: ingest, archival storage, management, administration, access, and preservation planning. Data producers submits their data in the form of a Submission Information Package (SIP) The repository stores the data with appropriate metadata as an Archival Information Package (AIP) The repository provides access to producer or other users in the form of a Dissemination Information Package (DIP)

8. OAIS “lite”

10. Archival Information Package (AIP) The data destined for long-term preservation comprises the AIP The AIP is designed to stand the test of time and to be repository and technology agnostic. What would future consumers need to know about this data in order to view, use, access it? – Metadata is a very important part of the AIP – Preservation, descriptive, technical, rights metadata included.

11. AIP example

12. PURR preservation strategies Levels based on identification of file format Bit-level Preservation: basic level of preservation in PURR. Limited Preservation: datasets will receive bit- level preservation and be migrated when appropriate. Preservation of look and feel cannot be guaranteed. Full Preservation: datasets will receive bit-level preservation and be migrated/normalized during life-cycle.

13. PURR preservation actions Preservation actions performed to keep data viable over the long-term. – Robust metadata (preservation, descriptive, technical, rights) – Secure storage and redundant backup (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe – LOCKSS) – Fixity (checksums to ensure reliability/authenticity of data) – Normalization (in response to preservation planning) – Migration (in response to threat of obsolescence)

14. Normalization v. Migration Normalization – process on ingest which transforms format into a more preservation “friendly” format. In response to preservation planning. – i.e. compressed container formats will be expanded Migration – process during preservation lifecycle when format is transformed to a more current version or long-term preservation format. In response to obsolescence. – i.e. migrate WordPerfect files to PDF – May loose some properties of original format

15. PURR format recommendations Sustainable – Openly documented, supported by a wide range of software platforms, widely adopted, have no data compression (or lossless data compression), and are widely accepted within the archival community. Supported – Supported formats are proprietary, widely adopted, publically and commercially important, have lossy data compression, or may be a format which has been depreciated in favor of a newer version Unsustainable – These formats are proprietary, have little publically documented information, are not widely adopted, have lossy data compression, and are only supported by a single or very few software platforms.

16. Preservation documentation https://purr.purdue.edu/legal/digitalpreservation Recommends file formats, discusses levels of support, describes preservation strategies.

17. Data appraisal the process of determining the value and thus the final disposition of records, making them either temporary or permanent. - National Archives & Records Administration (NARA)

18. Data appraisal Appraisal is a subjective process to define/asses the continuing value of data (and to combat bulk!) Types of value to consider: Legal Evidentiary Historical Research Ephemeral Administrative Fiscal Economic

19. Data appraisal Useful to think about post-grant/project – What can you afford to keep, what needs to be kept to support final deliverable? Librarians/archivists can assist but we need your help to measure impact/significance of data Preservation can be expensive; these are considerations institutional repositories will look at when appraising your content.

20. Preservation planning today Use sustainable formats – Reduces the need to migrate and lose data Assign metadata throughout lifecycle to understand and render the data. – Markup declarations, data description language, etc. – What will others need to understand your data? Back up! Redundant backup is good prevention against human error, hardware fail, corruption. Appraise and reappraise