Digital Preservation Q&A - Recent questions tagged standards

DIY digitisation, good or bad?

Thu, 18 Feb 2016 08:59:04 +0000

Our digitisation workflow is a long and complex one that takes well over a year from the time we start gathering another batch to digitise, to the time we finally make the digitised items publicly available.

Because it takes so long, we often gets requests to bypass our existing procedures by scanning or photographing works using standard desktop scanners or cameras. What do others think of this? As long as we comply with our digitisation standards and properly check the quality of the results, would it be acceptable to bypass our established digitisation procedures?

So far we have only done this for items we don't intend to preserve long term, but we are facing increasing pressure to also do it for more valuable special collections items

Are there frameworks or standards for migration testing available?

Wed, 24 Sep 2014 17:00:34 +0000

Does anyone have frameworks or standards for testing prior to migration that they are willing to share?

What encryption would you using for LTO tape for long-term storage or transport, why?

Mon, 21 Jul 2014 17:53:56 +0000

there are different options for encrypting at the drive, fabric, server side for encrypting data for placement on LTO tape. but what are the considerations for long term preservation use cases. And for interoperation if sending between instituations - long term keys (loss or lockin) etc.

What are the research and development needs for digital cultural heritage?

Thu, 03 Jul 2014 13:57:50 +0000

Given limited resources, how do we prioritize the necessary work to advance the field of digital cultural heritage? What standards, practices, workflows, tools, and platforms are most needed? Furthermore, what are the elements that contribute to a successful R&D endeavor in this field? At an even more basic level, what are the intrinsic properties of a digital humanities or arts collection? These are just some of the questions that will be considered for an upcoming session at this year's Digital Preservation conference hosted by the National Digital Stewardship Alliance in Washington, DC. Before responding we invite you to read the following guest post on The Signal:

http://blogs.loc.gov/digitalpreservation/2014/07/research-and-development-for-digital-cultural-heritage-preservation-a-virtual-and-in-person-open-forum/

Your comments, suggestions, and examples will help inform the session!

What is Preservation Planning?

Wed, 28 May 2014 19:22:12 +0000

Preservation planning is often a term encountered across the digital preservation community. But what exactly are we talking about when referring to 'Preservation Planning'?

Assuming that 'preservation' is a whole activity and preservation planning is part of that whole, how does this one constituant part fit in with the other parts? Can preservation planning be put into a simple diagram (such as the DCC life cylce Model)?

I'm looking for a really clear definition of what preservation planning is, it's impact, and the reasons to carry these activities out.

I'm really interested to learn how do you know when you are carrying out preservation planning, and how can others - my organisation - know when I'm doing preservation planning? How can I tell if the preservation planning I’m doing is effective. What processes/activities are part of preservation planning?

What is a file format?

Wed, 21 May 2014 18:34:47 +0000

Not to get too theoretical, but I think it is important to develop a common understanding of key concepts in the digital preservation field.

File formats are often discussed but there are varying ideas put forward to explain what they are/what the term means. This variance can cause confusion and make it difficult to agree on common processes and tools to use for digital preservation purposes.

Some sub-questions to help the discussion:

Is a file format a standard for use in formatting files?

Is a file format a common way of structuring the internal structure (format) of files?

Is a file format whatever The National Archive's DROID tool identifies?

Can the spread sheet files created by Microsoft Excel 2007 SP2 with an ODS extension be considered Open Document Spread sheet formatted files?

Can the (significantly different) spread sheet files created by OpenOffice 3.x with the ODS extension be considered Open Document Spread sheet formatted files?

Do we need multiple terms to refer to the various different types of concepts that we currently refer to as "file formats"