Information Longevity

Key Information Sources

Preserving Difficult Electronic Works: Moving Images, Websites, and Electronic Art, Powerpoint slides of Howard Besser's May 2, 2004 talk at Pratt University

Recent Digital Longevity Activities, Powerpoint slides of Howard Besser's December 8, 2001 Talk to meeting of National Initiative for a Networked Cultural Heritage at the Getty Center in Los Angeles

Longevity Issues for Electronic Literature, Powerpoint slides of Howard Besser's April 6, 2002 Talk to meeting of Electronic Literature Organization in Los Angeles

National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program

The National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program was established by Congress to "develop a national strategy to collect, archive, and preserve the burgeoning amounts of digital content, especially materials that are created only in digital formats, for current and future generations." As an initial step, the Library of Congress scheduled a series of meetings with various stakeholder groups from the technology, business, entertainment, academic, legal, archival, and library communities. Background papers were commissioned to give "environmental scans," for the meetings. These papers are available on the new NDIIPP web site together with a summary of background findings and a summary of the meetings.

Library (of Congress) Announces Approval of Plan to Preserve America's Digital Heritage, February 14, 2003 press release (and Plan Approved To Save U.S. Digital History, Washington Post, February 15, 2003)

Council on Library & Information Resources, Building a National Strategy for Digital Preservation: Issues in Digital Media Archiving

Reports & Papers  (Mainly Background Environmental Scans)

Peter Lyman, Archiving the World Wide Web

Dale Flecker, Preserving Digital Periodicals

Samuel Brylawski, Preservation of Digitally Recorded Sound

Frank Romano, E-books and the Challenge of Preservation

Mary Ide, Dave MacCarn, Thom Shepard, and Leah Weisse, Understanding the Preservation Challenge of Digital Television

Howard D. Wactlar and Michael G. Christel, Digital Video Archives: Managing through Metadata

Papers and Analysis of Problems, Guides

• Besser, Howard.  Digital longevity, in Maxine Sitts (ed.) Handbook for Digital Projects: A Management Tool for Preservation and Access, Andover MA: Northeast Document Conservation Center, 2000, pages 155-166 (http://www.nedcc.org/digital/ix.htm)
• Preservation Management of Digital Materials; A Handbook (originally by Neil Beagrie & Maggie Jones, but updated by Digital Preservation Coalition
• Besser, Howard.  Longevity of Electronic Art, submitted to International Cultural Heritage Informatics Meeting, 2001 (posted while under review)
• Besser, Howard.  Digital Preservation of Moving Image Material?, submitted to The Moving Image, Fall 2001  (posted while under review)
• Lyman, Peter and Howard Besser (1998). Defining the Problem of our Vanishing Memory: Background, Current Status, Models for Resoltuion, in Margaret MacLean and Ben H. Davis (eds.) Time and Bits: Managing Digital Continuity (website | book), Los Angeles: Getty Conservation Institute, 1999
• Time & Bits: Managing Digital Continuity, a February 1998 Conference on Digital Longevity, hosted by the Getty Conservation and Information Institutes
• Task Force on the Archiving of Digital Information, 5/96 final report of task force created by Commission on Preservation and Access and Research Libraries Group
• Rothenberg, Jeff. Avoiding Technological Quicksand: Finding a Viable Technical Foundation for Digital Preservation, Washington, D.C.: Council on Library and Information Resources, January 1999
• Digital Collections:A strategic policy framework for creating and preserving digital collections by Neil Beagrie and Daniel Greenstein, UK's Arts and Humanities Data Service, July 1998
• Preservation 2000: An International Conference on the Preservation and Long Term Accessibility of Digital Materials, 6-8 December 2000, York, England
• Digital Archive -- OCLC's approach to digital preservation
• Digital Preservation Commons -- OCLC's and RLG's joint effort at digital preservation, announced March 2000

Moving Image & Electronic Art Preservation

• Permanence Through Change: The Variable Media Approach, a recent book (2003) from the Daniel Langlois Foundation (Montreal) and the Guggenheim Museum (New York) (press release)
• Guggenheim Museum's Variable Media Initiative and Variable Media Network
• International Network for the Conservation of Contemporary Art (INCCA)
• Capturing Live Performance Events, Internet2/CNI Performance Archive & Retrieval Working Group, October 2003
• Video Preservation Resources, Video History Project (including: Video Preservation: The Basics by Sherry Miller Hocking and Mona Jimenez, Reel to Real: A Case Study of BAVC's Remastering Model by Luke Hones [edited by Sherry Miller Hocking and Mona Jimenez], and historical texts on video preservation
• Background Environmental Scans released May 2002 by National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program
• Mary Ide, Dave MacCarn, Thom Shepard, and Leah Weisse, Understanding the Preservation Challenge of Digital Television
• Howard D. Wactlar and Michael G. Christel, Digital Video Archives: Managing through Metadata
• Archiving the Avant Garde: Documenting and Preserving Variable Media Art
• UK's PRONOM Project  for managing information about the file formats used to store electronic records, and the software applications needed to render these formats (developed by the Digital Preservation Department of the UK National Archives) project documentation

Schemes for encoding media types (much wider than longevity issues)

• UK's PRONOM Project  for managing information about the file formats used to store electronic records, and the software applications needed to render these formats (developed by the Digital Preservation Department of the UK National Archives) project documentation
• Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard (METS)  Standard for encoding structural and adminstrative metadata
• The Library of Congress Audio-Visual Prototyping Project, extending METS to streaming media types
• Technical Imaging Metadata Standard, National Information Standards Organization standard for encoding still images
• AUDIOMD: Audio Technical Metadata Extension Schema, Library of Congress' scheme for encoding audio

Copyright Issues impacting on Preservation

• Request for exemption from DMCA (Digital Milennium Copyright Act) anti-circumvention provisions for purposes of Archiving, Internet Archive, December 18, 2002

Metadata/Standards

• Standards, Best Practices, and White Papers, California Digital Library Strategic Technology, Architecture, and Standards Committee (includes standards and best practices for still images and digital objects, scanning and metadata, etc.)
• Preservation Metadata and the OAIS Information Model: A Recommendation for Content Information, OCLC/RLG Preservation Metadata Working Group, October 2001
• Preservation Metadata for Digital Objects: A Review of the State of the Art, OCLC/RLG Working Group on Preservation Metadata, January 31, 2001 (press release)
• CEDARS Metadata for Digital Preservation
• National Standards Organization Invitational Meeting on Technical Metadata Elements for Image Files, April 18-19, 1999, Washington DC (sponsored by the National Information Standards Organization and the Digital Library Federation) (Howard's opening presentation | meeting summary)
• Metadata and Standards links
• A Structured Approach to Enterprise Modeling and Analysis -- IDEF(0), Knowledge Based Systems, Inc.

Architectures and building trusted Digital Repositories

• Preserving Digital Materials: Final Report of the Digital and Archiving Committee, presented to Univerity of California's SOPAG Committee, October 18, 2001
• Preservation Metadata and the OAIS Information Model: A Recommendation for Content Information, OCLC/RLG Preservation Metadata Working Group, October 2001
• Trusted Digital Repositories: Attributes and Responsibilities, RLG/OCLC Final Report, May 2002 (revised version of Attributes of a Trusted Digital Repository, RLG/OCLC Interim Report, August 2001)
• Space Data Systems efforts: International Standards Organization (ISO) Archiving Standards, and their Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System (OAIS) | (US Efforts Towards ISO Archiving Standards)

Longevity-related Projects

• Digital Preservation Coalition, United Kingdom's Website on digital preservation issues
• British Archives Digital Preservation Department
• DSpace, MIT's Durable Digital Repository for the intellectual output of MIT faculty and researchers
• What's new in digital preservation, regular updates from the UK's DPC and Australia's PADI
• Long-term Retention of Digital Research Materials, Research Libraries Group website
• NEA give Bay Area Video Coalition $150,000 to develop curriculum for preservation of electronic art
• Electronic Resource Preservation and Access NETwork launched (European project sponsored by RLG starting Nov 2001)
• Collection-Based Persistent Digital Archives - Part 1, by Reagan Moore et. al., D-Lib Magazine, 6:3, March 2000 (San Diego Supercomputer Center Digital Archiving Project)
• Great Britain's Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) Digital Preservation
• Preserving Access to Digital Information (PADI), National Library of Australia
• Safeguarding European Photographic Images for Access (SEPIA)
• Networked European Depository Library (NEDLIB) (and long-term preservation study, as well as previous summary of recent plans)
• Internet Archive
• The CEDARS Project (CURL Exemplars in Digital Archives), part of the UK's Consortium of University Research Libraries (CURL) aiming to provide guidance and best practices for digital library preservation (project summary)
• Creating Creative Archiving at Michigan and Leeds (CAMiLEON Project) on emulation (see Emulation, Preservation, and Abstraction, David Holdsworth, RLG DigitNews 5:4, August 15, 2001)
• Cornell PRISM Project (Preservation, Reliability, Interoperability, Security, Metadata) for digital information (begun late 1999)
• International Research on Permanent Authentication Records in Electronic Systems (InterPARES), an international archival world project examining how to make electronically-generated records last over time. It is developing the theoretical and methodological knowledge needed, then will formulate mofel policies, strategies, and standards.
• Preserving and Accessing Networked DOcumentary Resources of Australia (PANDORA), National Library of Australia
• Mapping the Internet Electronic Resources Virtual Archive (Minerva) project of Library of Congress, described by Bill Arms et. al. in Collecting and Preserving the Web: The Minerva Prototype, RLG DigiNews 5:2, April 15, 2001
• Preserving Cornell's Digital Image Collections: Implementing an Archival Strategy, funded by the Institute of Library and Museum Services
• Upstate Video History Project, Newark Valley, NY, starting 1999
• Digital Technology, from OCLC's Preservation Resources
• A Project on Preservation of Digital Data, Raymond Lorie, RLG DigiNews 5:3, June 15, 2001,  IBM emulation project

Electronic Journal Archiving

• The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation's e-Journal archiving program
• LOCKSS (Lots Of Copies Keep Stuff Safe), the Stanford-based, NSF-funded project to promote local storage of electronic journals in the hopes that redundant copies will improve the chances of persistence over time (beginning Spring 2000)

Other Sources, Position Papers, etc.

• RLG's DigiNews
• Issues & Innovations in Preserving Digital Information, Association of Research Libraries' Transforming Libraries, Issue #5, 1998
• Preservation Management of Digital Materials Study, UK's Arts and Humanities Data Service, begun 1999
• WGBH Educational Foundation Universal Preservation Format
• RLG Preservation Working Group on Digital Archiving, 5/97 Progress Report
• Hedstrom, Margaret and Sheon Montgomery. Digital Pre servation Needs and Requirements in RLG Member Institution, 1998
• Image Conservation links
• Clock Library, The Long Now Foundation's attempt to begin grappling with long-term preservation issues
• Building and Sustaining Digital Collections: Models for Libraries and Museums, Council on Library and Information Resources, August 2001
• Powerpoint slides from Howard's 1998 talk on Planning to Maximize Longevity of Digital Information
• Archives & Records Preservation
• National Archives and Records Administration Center for Electronic Records
• Digital Archive Directions Workshop, 6/22-26-98 ISO/NARA workshop on Digital Archiving
• NSF Workshop on Data Archiving and Information Preservation
• Statement on the Preservation of Digitized Reproductions by Society of American Archivists (6/97)
• Managing Electronic Records - A Shared Responsibility, 1997 revision of policy statement of the Australian Archives

Sites for General Conservation/Preservation/Longevity Information

• National Media Laboratory
• Conservation Online (Stanford Library Preservation/Conservation Dept)
• Commission on Preservation & Access