Digital History Collection Preservation
Bibliographer: John Patrick Jouppi
Preserving the Present: Current Digital Preservation Practices for History Collections
Definition of Project: The scholarship included in his project provides an overview of the challenges experienced and practices adopted by librarians, archivists, and museum professionals currently or recently engaged in digital preservation of history collections. Special consideration has been given to draw attention to digital objects and attendant strategies of interest to organizations tasked with the preservation of a given community’s digital heritage. Of specific interest are matters of digital news and newspaper preservation, digital oral history preservation & curation, and strategies for curating and preserving a variety of born-digital files of historical significance.
A consistent theme throughout the scholarship is the importance of inter-organizational and interdisciplinary collaboration, especially among institutions with limited resources. As such, this project should be of particular use to historical repositories whose capabilities may be limited in terms of staff, breadth of expertise, and funding such as those operating within small to medium sized public libraries, historical societies, city archives, and municipal museums.
Annotations:
Boss, K., & Broussard, M. (2017). Challenges of archiving and preserving born-digital news applications. International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions,43(2), 150-157.
This article succinctly explains the threats to digital preservation posed by the latest born-digital news applications, such as ProPublica’s “Dollars for Docs” project, which allow for interactivity and exploration, through complex software which query databases and, therefore, cannot be captured and preserved in the same manner as more traditional news sources such as print articles and video clips. (p. 151) Many news outlets are producing such applications, ranging from The New York Times to increasingly digital hometown newspapers. Since it is difficult to ascertain how many of these applications exist, it is impossible to determine how many are currently being lost. The authors recommend building upon previously abandoned projects such as the NICAR News App Archive to not only ascertain the extent of the scope and quantity of these applications, but also determine the best practices for capturing and archiving news apps for long-term access. (p.151) To this end, Boss and Broussard call for the identification of the significant properties of these objects, and suggest adoption of the PREMIS metadata schema for documentation and discovery purposes. They contend that if news applications are going to survive as preserved digital objects, the work will require close cooperation from as many contributing organizations as possible, and recommend the consultation and adoption of the National Digital Stewardship Alliance’s description of digital preservation levels, which incorporate considerations for the object’s safe storage, fixity, information security, metadata, and file format compatibility at four levels of increasing preservation status. (p.154)
Conrad, S. (2012). Analog, the sequel: an analysis of current film archiving practice and hesitance to embrace digital preservation. Archival Issues,34(1), 27-43.
This exploration of the difficulties involved in preserving cultural heritage within major film archives is instructive to organizations of all sizes willing to commit to preserving their own collections of digital video. Preservation of modern digital moving picture materials presents a unique set of challenges which must be negotiated thoughtfully in order to ensure sustainable practices and long-term access. Conrad underscores the importance of engaging in this work by pointing to the failures of the past stating, “fewer than half of the films made before 1950 survive today, and only an estimated ten percent survive from the 1910s” (p.27). By examining practices of the Academy Film Archive, she draws attention to a variety of threats to digital asset management of this type of media including obsolescence, limited data compression options, the cost of storage, the changing nature of universally accepted file types, codecs, and compression rates, and the lack of a standardized metadata schema for motion picture preservation. The complexities inherent to the digital preservation of motion pictures have resulted in widespread hesitancy to fully adopt the practice, even as more and more films are made. Despite this hesitancy, Conrad maintains that given the nature of modern filmmaking, the industry must develop and adhere to specific strategies, and soon.
Howard, R., Fox, H., & Daniels, C. (2011). The born-digital deluge: documenting twenty-first century events. Archival Issues,33(2), 100-111.
This article is a fascinating case study in a rapid response to unforeseen circumstances utilizing community members’ born-digital materials for the purpose of preserving the memory of an historic event. As libraries, archives, and museums engage in collaborative efforts with the members of their service areas to document the histories of their communities, it is increasingly necessary to understand best practice approaches to acquiring, selecting, describing, and preserving donated born-digital materials. Howard, Fox, and Daniels provide a model for those processes as they unfolded at the University of Louisville archives in the wake of a sudden and historic flood which took place in August of 2009. In this case study, the authors highlight the importance of modifying the standard deed of gift, rendering the process as easy as possible in order to maximize the impact of their request for public photographs of the phenomenon. They argue that organizations willing to engage in similar rapid-response preservation projects should be prepared to receive materials submitted with anything, or nothing, in the way of metadata. While frustrating, the authors contend that the lack of descriptive metadata associated with these types of born-digital objects does not necessarily indicate they are unworthy of preservation. Indeed, they argue the value of long-term preservation of sudden emergency events can only truly be known as the events recede into history. (p. 107)
Krabbenhoeft, N., Skinner, K., Schultz, M., & Zarndt, F. (2013). Chronicles in preservation: preserving digital news and newspapers. Preservation, Digital Technology & Culture,42(4), 199-203.
This article describes the successful collaboration of digital newspaper collections working together to create a model that is transmittable and adoptable by libraries, archives, and historical societies engaged in this type of work. Here, the authors describe the Chronicles in Preservation project, led by the Educopia Institute and funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, which has leveraged the availability of an explosion of digital newspaper content to create and maintain a package of best practice deliverables for the purpose of providing guidance for institutions wishing to digitize their own collections but lacking digital preservation strategies of their own and/or inter-organizational support structures. The authors describe these three deliverables as (1) guidelines for digital newspaper preservation readiness, (2) comparative analysis of distributed digital preservation frameworks, and (3) interoperability tools. (p. 201) The guidelines provide models for inventorying, format management, metadata packaging, checksum management, folder hierarchies, and preservation packaging. (p. 202) Export of packaged collections to distributed digital preservation networks has allowed the Chronicles in Preservation project to store these collections using LOCKSS across seven internationally distributed servers. Interoperability is ensured by the use of such tools as the DAITSS Description Service, Bagger, bagit.py, and UNT PREMIS Event Service, among others. These approaches and tools were generated and vetted through close collaboration between the Chronicles project, digital newspaper industry stakeholders, librarians, and digital preservationists and serve as one of the most easily accessible and reliable models for digital newspaper preservation available today.
Krahmer, A. (2016). Digital newspaper preservation through collaboration. Digital Library Perspectives,32(2), 73-87.
Krahmer’s exploration of this elaborate collaboration between the private and public sectors, academic and public libraries, historical societies, and other similar institutions will be of great interest to librarians and archivists working with historical newspaper collections and struggling to adapt to the increasingly born-digital nature of local newspapers. In this article, Krahmer explores the success of The Portal to Texas History, established in the early 2000s as a collaborative effort to share digitized newspapers between a small number of participating organizations, which rapidly expanded to more than 90 member organizations sharing more than three million documents. Krahmer advises organizations seeking to build their own similar networks begin by matching what your institution has to what other institutions need, starting small, starting local, expecting the unexpected (opportunities for serendipitous discovery), and committing to spreading the word. (p.85-86) She argues that organizing for the digital preservation of newspaper content, both current and historical, and often scattered throughout numerous institutions, provides a critical foundation for future projects, research, and learning. (p.86)
Matusiak, K., Tyler, A., Newton, C., & Polepeddi, P. (2017). Finding access and digital preservation solutions for a digitized oral history project. Digital Library Perspectives,33(2), 88-99.
This article provides a solid collaborative model for persevering in the face of technical obsolescence on a shoestring budget. When compared to larger institutions with greater reach and resources, small and medium-sized public libraries often face challenges when it comes to matters of responsible digital preservation and providing access to collections. In the case described by Matusiak et al., the Jefferson County Public Library (Jeffco Library) sought to preserve and expand access to a collection of 163 oral histories and attendant materials it had collected as part of a collaboration between a number of regional historical societies. When an initial hosting agreement with a regional repository utilizing MODS as its core metadata standard proved unsustainable, the Jeffco Library engaged in a partnership with the University of Denver LIS program to develop a recommendation to adopt DuraCloud as solution for their digital preservation needs and Omeka to host their digital collection. The authors describe these solutions as imperfect, yet appropriate options worth emulating considering the limitations under which the project was operating. They state that the process of building sustainable digital collections requires constant attention to the selection and maintenance of access and preservation solutions and argue no collection can be successfully maintained on the same platform forever. To that end, they advocate for routine planning for collection migration from budgeting, functionality, and standards compliance perspectives.
O'Flaherty, E. (2015). Trinity college archives: a digital curation challenge. New Review of Information Networking,20, 200-213.
While serving as a rather grandiose example of librarians and archivists struggling to navigate the transition to an increasingly born-digital world, O’Flaherty’s examination of the College Archives of Trinity College Dublin remains applicable to even the smallest repositories with collections of historic significance. Such institutions are constantly working to employ traditional archival and preservation methods alongside the unique challenges posed by the preservation of born-digital materials. In this article, O’Flaherty examines challenges imposed by the electronic records of the College Archives of Trinity College Dublin, which date to 1592 and contain a wealth of items of unquestionable historic value, such as the TCD foundation charter. O’Flaherty examines the stresses placed on the archives stemming from the shift to incorporation of born-digital College records and the apparent need for the establishment of a hybrid records management system which would manage the entirety of the College’s records for the entire duration of their lifecycle, all while addressing issues of technological obsolescence and a lack of descriptive and preservation metadata for centuries of existing records. To that end, she advocates for adherence to specific reference models in keeping with international preservation standards such as OAIS. Understanding that the ultimate decision making authority related to large-scale digital preservation efforts is often not in the hands of the librarians and archivists tasked with its implementation, she concludes by explaining the importance of “selling” a given preservation strategy, once decided upon, to the organization.
Pierce, K. (2011). Collaborative efforts to preserve born-digital architectural records: a case study documenting present-day practice. Art Documentation,30(2), 43-48.
In this article Pierce describes the difficulties involved in preserving architectural records which have been created electronically for approximately the last forty years and have only recently begun to find their way to historic preservationists. Libraries, museums, and archives, particularly those serving as municipal history repositories will often be looked to as the de facto preservation venues for inherently problematic, yet valuable digital objects such as these. Pierce states that long-term preservation of born-digital architectural records is often not necessarily a priority in the private sphere of architecture firms despite their tendency to engage in robust asset management practices for the purposes of satisfying legal requirements and maximizing marketing potential. Such assets produced with antiquated CAD software and other obsolete hardware and software present a problem to archivists and historic preservationists who have increasingly become their custodians. She identifies a number of instructive efforts such as the Governance, Architecture, Urbanism, Democracy, Interaction (GAUDI) collaborative in Europe and the Digital Design Data Project undertaken by the Art Institute of Chicago which have sought to understand the methods architecture and design firms employ in the creation of these objects to better inform archival practices for museums and other repositories. The former has produced a number of tangible resources including a metadata schema (known as Metadata for Architectural Content in Europe) presented at a GAUDI conference in 2007 which allows for advanced searching of born-digital records across repositories. (p.45) She states archivists and historic preservationists wishing to create their own local networks must emulate these approaches and engage architecture firms to better understand the conditions under which modern architectural records are being constructed. This approach ensures that preservation practices both catch up to and keep pace with their creators until specialists with training in both disciplines become the standard.
Roland, L., & Bawden, D. (2012) The future of history: investigating the preservation of information in the digital age. Library & Information History,28(3), 220-236.
In this study, Roland and Bawden share their findings from a series of forty-one semi-structured interviews with historians, archivists, librarians, and web researchers on the topics of digitally preserving modern information and the need for effective curation of digital data. By engaging a wide network of professionals to reflect critically on the future of history, Roland and Bawden encourage historians to begin to think more proactively about the needs of future historians by engaging in their work with an imaginative outlook. The authors cogently argue for conscientious approach to digital preservation and curation to address a central theme of great interest to historians working in the present era with a focus on preserving past: the fear of ignoring the present and contributing to a “black hole in the knowledge base of the 21st century” (p.220) In discussing the historian’s craft, the interview candidates draw attention to the current state of flux in which many memory institutions currently exist, with the responsibility for preserving born-digital material largely undefined. These findings serve to broaden conversation concerning the duties of historians, librarians, and archivists engaged in historic preservation. Above all, the authors emphasize that born-digital content will increasingly constitute the records of the future and are most vulnerable to loss, the results of which are potentially destructive not only to the field of history, but to our ability “to hold governments, institutions, corporations, or individuals to account” (p.232).
Tebeau, M. (2013). Listening to the city: oral history and place in the digital era. The Oral History Review,40(1), 25-35.
This article serves as a fascinating example of the ways in which mobile technology can be leveraged to create meaningful relationships and experiences through the digital preservation and curation of readily available individual and collective memories. Oral histories tend to be a powerful way to capture and tell individual threads of larger stories, make connections and find common ground. The desire to preserve and make oral histories accessible often preempts the development of effective manners of doing so, and strategies for effective curation of digital oral histories yielding meaningful community engagement are frustratingly illusive. Tebeau advocates for a model of curation developed at what he terms “the intersection of oral history and digital humanities theory and practice” (p. 25). To do so, he draws attention to the Cleveland Historical Project, which was developed by the Center for Public History & Digital Humanities at Cleveland State University, and sought to leverage the widespread availability of mobile devices to undertake an innovative city-wide oral history project. He describes each story as consisting of several layers of information, including images, but with a special focus on sound, most often oral history. Utilizing simple, yet thoroughly functional archival software and a mobile-optimized website, the stories are geolocated and presented on a map. The project has successfully engaged hundreds of students, teachers, and members of the community to tell stories about locations throughout the city in a collaboration the likes of which he describes as an example of “(an) aspect of the digital revolution that has forced scholars to reimagine their relation to public audiences and the curatorial process itself” (p.31).
