The Five Organizational Stages of Digital Preservation

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The Five Organizational Stages of Digital
Preservation

• AALL Session H-6
• Nancy Y. McGovern
• Cornell University Library

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Five Organizational Stages of Digital
Preservation

• Acknowledge understanding that digital
  preservation is a local concern
• Act initiating digital preservation projects
• Consolidate segueing from projects to programs
• Institutionalize incorporating the larger
  environment
• Externalize Embracing inter-institutional
  collaboration and dependency

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Stage 1 Acknowledge

• Understanding that digital preservation is a
  local concern
• Begins with sense that digital preservation is
  someone elses responsibility
• Optimism that the future will take care of itself
• Enormity of the problem leads to paralysis
• Dependency on digital content and a brush with
  access difficulties leads to acceptance

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Stage 1 Key Indicators

• Policy and planning often non-existent,
  implicit, or very high level
• Technological infrastructure non-existent or
  heterogeneous and decentralized disparate
  elements
• Content and use may reflect extremes from
  pertinent to specific collections to too
  encompassing

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Stage 2 Act

• Initiating digital preservation projects
• Begins with responses to specific threats
• Project-based, usually discrete and one-time
  funding
• One-time fixes to ongoing problem
• Outside mainstream organizational functions
• Inadequacy of approach soon evident

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Stage 2 Key Indicators

• Policy and planning implicit or expressed in
  general terms, though increased evidence of
  commitment
• Technological infrastructure project- specific
  and reactive ad hoc location
• Content and use often deep, but limited depth or
  too broad

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Stage 3 Consolidate

• Segueing from projects to programs
• Recognition of external standards and efforts
• Realization that projects not compatible with
  long-term planning
• Activities become ongoing and more coordinated
• Seen as tied to mission and worthy of support
• Program development based on short-term solutions

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Stage 3 Key Indicators

• Policy and planning development of basic and
  essential policies
• Technological infrastructure assessment of
  technology investment and requisite
  infrastructure, shift to proactive mode
• Content and use assess preservation-readiness of
  collections and define acquisition requirements

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Stage 4 Institutionalize

• Incorporating the larger environment
• Begins with realization that heterogeneous,
  uncoordinated approaches are expensive and
  redundant
• Mapping to external standards and practices
• Proactive coordination across the organization to
  create integrated safe places
• Internalized support on institution-wide basis

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Stage 4 Indicators

• Policy and planning consistent, systematic
  management replaces event-based responses
  comprehensive policy framework provides focus for
  planning
• Technological infrastructure technology planning
  anticipates needs infrastructure investments
  defined at high management level and implemented
  across system
• Content and use acquisition implications affect
  collection development decisions preservation
  linked to access services

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Foundation Documents

• Trusted Digital Repositories Attributes and
  Responsibilities (RLG/OCLC)
• http//www.rlg.org/longterm/repositories.pdf
• Open Archival Information System (OAIS) Reference
  Model (CCSDS)
• http//ssdoo.gsfc.nasa.gov/nost/wwwclassic/documen
  ts/pdf/CCSDS-650.0-B-1.pdf

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Foundation Documents

• TDR on its own lacks an implementation model
• OAIS on its own lacks organizational context
• Together, they leverage community-based efforts
  and enable collaborative initiatives

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RLG-OCLC Attributes of a Trusted Repository

• Administrative Responsibility
• Organizational Viability
• Financial Sustainability
• Technological and Procedural Suitability
• System Security
• Procedural Accountability

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OAIS

• Initiated by NASA
• Developed across domains
• Informed by preservation principles
• Increasingly influential ISO standard
• Benchmark for digital archives for the near-term

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OAIS
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OAIS Responsibilities

• Negotiate for and accept information
• Obtain sufficient control for preservation
• Know the Designated Community
• Ensure the information is independently
  understandable
• Follow established preservation policies and
  procedures
• Make the information available

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OAIS Functions

• Ingest
• Storage
• Data Management
• Access
• Administration
• Preservation

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Digital Preservation Officer

• First DPO appointed January 2002
• http//www.library.cornell.edu/iris/dpo/
• coordinates digital preservation policy
  development and implementation
• serves as the liaison to digital preservation
  initiatives and projects
• developing a conceptual framework for a cohesive
  digital preservation program

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Stage 5 Externalize

• Embracing inter-institutional collaboration and
  dependencies
• Begins with realization that institutional
  programs necessary but insufficient
• Formal and informal arrangements with others
• Integrated safe places coupled with risk
  management approach

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Stage 5 Indicators

• Policy and planning virtual organizations
  complement institutional ones collaboration
  inherent feature in resource planning
• Technological infrastructure distributed and
  highly integrated extra-organizational features
  and services
• Content and use collection development and
  preservation are shared responsibilities

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Stewardship is easy and inexpensive to claim it
is expensive and difficult to honor, and perhaps
it will prove to be all too easy to later
abdicate.

• Cliff Lynch, 2003