1. Use It or Lose It! Preserving Your Digital Documents
Rob Spindler, University Archivist
Arizona State University Libraries
2006 SAA/COSA/NAGARA Annual Meeting
Washington DC
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2. Use It or Lose It! Preserving Your Digital Documents
I started offering this presentation in 2001 because I believe:
Advocacy with creators is necessary for successful preservation
Widespread confusion regarding the opportunities and threats of digital materials
Creators are busy people who need simple solutions!
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3. Use It or Lose It! Preserving Your Digital Documents
In this session we will:
Review a very brief version of Use It or Lose It
Discuss whether this is good advice given at the right level
Discuss prospects for digital preservation advocacy
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4. Eight Challenges of Electronic Document Preservation
Review of eight fundamental issues
Present nine recommendations
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5. Eight Challenges – Storage Media
1. Physical Degradation of Storage Media
CD’s or DVD’s last years, BUT
Temperature/Humidity
Pollutants 
Improper Handling
Scratches, bent
Label adhesives/Inks
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6. Eight Challenges – Storage Media
2. Physical Obsolescence of Storage Media
5.25” floppy discs 
Obsolete backup tape cartridges
Obsolete optical discs/cartridges
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7. Eight Challenges – Storage Media
Three Types of Recordable DVD (2001):
DVD-R / DVD-RW (Pioneer/Toshiba)
DVD+R / DVD+RW (Philips/Ricoh)
DVD-RAM – Type 1 & 2
(IBM, Gateway)
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8. Eight Challenges – Storage Media
Recent and Forthcoming DVD Formats:
Single sided/double layer DVD’s
Lightscribe® labeling system (HP)
Blu-Ray® DVD’s and HD-DVD’s
25 gig for single side/single layer
50 gig for single side/double layer
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9. Eight Challenges – Storage Media
3. Obsolescence of Media Recording or Playback Devices
Data storage efficiency increases 10X-50X every 10 years
Recording device production life about 10 years.
Mfg. product support 5-7 yrs. after production termination
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10. Eight Challenges – Software
4. Migration Failure
Three kinds of migration:
Migration to new release of same software.
Migration to new software
Migration to software independent format (e.g. ASCII Text)
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11. Eight Challenges – Software
4. Migration Failure
(Software, Operating System or Encoding Incompatibility)
New software release won’t run file from old release.
New software release opens old file but contents are corrupted.
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12. Eight Challenges – Software
Incompatibility, continued:
Software is not compatible with operating system.
Display with one internet browser doesn’t look the same in a different browser.
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13. Eight Challenges – Software
Incompatibility, continued:
Proprietary codes from HTML editing packages do not convert to new HTML applications.
Browser does not support encoding standard used (XML).
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14. Eight Challenges – Human Factors
5. Human Error / Vandalism
Accidental or malicious deletion.
Website is vandalized.
Virus protection failure
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15. Eight Challenges – Backups
6. Backups, Snapshots and Crawling 
Backups lost or overwritten.
Wrong files backed up.
Incomplete snapshot: Crawler did not capture subpages, images or “Hidden Web” sources
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16. Eight Challenges – Metadata
 7. Lost or Absent Metadata
Metadata is Data about Data
Two Types of Metadata:
Administrative
Descriptive
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17. Eight Challenges – Metadata
 Administrative Metadata:
Hardware and Software Requirements
Maintenance & Migration History
Version Control
Data Dictionaries
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18. Eight Challenges – Metadata
 Descriptive Metadata:
Media Labels
File Lists
Electronic Descriptions:
File folder titles
Filenames
File Header – Dublin Core
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19. Eight Challenges – Metadata
 8. Linkage/Addressing Failure:
URL in document changes
Linkage between description and digital object fails
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20. What to Do? Recommendations…
1) Actively manage your files!
2) Select Carefully!
3) Refresh and/or migrate to new storage media on a regular schedule
4) Consider redundant and/or offline storage
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21. What to Do? Recommendations…
 5) If you can, use standards:
ASCII text
Unicode (supports foreign languages)
For HTML web documents, use W3c standards and verification service
For encoded text: TEI, XML
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22. What to Do? Recommendations…
 6) If you must, select robust software:
Use widely adopted software with “large installed base”
Look for proven export capabilities
Ask about backwards compatibility
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23. What to Do? Recommendations…
 7) Plan for migration:
Migrate legacy and active content:
to new release of same software
to compatible different software
Test migrations w/sample data
Retain obsolete software and files
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24. What to Do? Recommendations…
 8) Address Human Factors:
Provide adequate training
Conduct audits and quality control checks
Create, maintain and document procedures
Maintain secure systems and virus protection.
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25. What to Do? Recommendations…
 9) Create and Maintain Metadata:
Label your storage media
Create descriptive filenames and file folder titles
Make Data Dictionaries – consider paper or offline
Use Dublin Core for Webstuff
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26. Use It or Lose It! Preserving Your Digital Documents
Rob Spindler, University Archivist
Arizona State University Libraries
2006 SAA/COSA/NAGARA Annual Meeting
Washington DC
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.
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1/14/2019