18th Annual Preservation Conference
Perspectives on Digital Preservation
Kenneth
Thibodeau, Director
Electronic
Records Archives Program
National
Archives and Records Administration (NARA)
NARA's Vision for the Electronic Records Archives
"The Electronic Records Archives will authentically preserve and provide access to any kind of electronic record, free from dependency on any specific hardware or software, enabling NARA to carry out its mission into the future."
NARA's Electronic Records Challenge
Take any type of record
Created using any type of application
On any computing platform
From any entity in the Federal Government, and
Provide discovery and delivery to anyone with an interest and legal right of access
Now and for the life of the republic
Advanced Technologies to Build Knowledge from Data
Ultra-large-scale data-mining technologies
for rapid mining, filtering, correlating, and assessing of vast quantities of heterogeneous and unstructured data ....
Data storage and management technologies:
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Tools for collecting, indexing, archiving, and synthesis
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Protocols for data compatibility, conversion, interoperability, and interpretation in networked environments ….
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Representation, preservation, and storage of multimedia collections
Purpose of Preservation:
Authentic Preserved Records
What comes out of preservation is identical to what went in, in all essential respects
Authenticity
Is a function of the identification and characterization of the object deemed authentic.
E.g., what is an authentic copy of Thomas Jefferson's writing?
Possibilities for Digital Preservation
Possibilities for Digital Preservation
Technology Preservation Methods
Perpetuate the problems of current technologies
Increasingly complex to support and use
Thousands of combinations of hardware, operating systems, application software packages
Increasingly difficult to train and assist users
Even more complex as the focus shifts from individual systems to networks, distributed applications, and grid computing
Becomes very complex for collections of documents accumulated over time
Run counter to the major direction of IT
Intellectual property rights
Version Migration
Migration to Standard Form
Typed Object Model
J. Ockerbloom, U. Pennsylvania
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All digital data 'things' are objects with
- Specified attributes
- Specified methods (operations)
- Specific semantics
- A Type is defined by given values or parameters for the attributes, methods, or semantics of a class of objects.
- Any digital object (byte sequence) has a format; i.e. a specified encoding for an object of that type
- Byte sequences can be converted from one format to another
- It is possible to perform conversions that respect type
- 'Respectful' conversions cannot be distinguished when viewed through an interface for the type.
Rosetta Stone
Arcot Rajasekar, SDSC
Object Interchange Format
Persistent Archives Method
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Characterize significant properties of the things that are to be preserved.
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Express these properties in formal models
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Encapsulate objects in metadata defined in the models.
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Use software "mediators" to enable future technologies to interpret the models and metadata
- to rebuild and repopulate collections
- to re-present the records
- support information discovery and delivery.
Knowledge Based Persistent Archives
National Partnership for Advanced National Partnership
for Advanced Computational Infrastructure
http://www.archives.gov/ electronic_records_archives/