Digital Asset Preservation
Title:
Digital Asset Management for preservation and access with long term use
Creator:
Alexandra Garant
Definition of Project:
This project's focus is on digital assets and their management in preservation and curation to ensure access and long-term use. The parameters of this annotated bibliography will cover the issues that are faced when managing and curating digital assets. It also covers how to cultivate? digital asset management for the purpose of preservation and access. The annotated bibliography focuses on the public sector and how digital assets and their management is being handled, and cultivated despite obstacles in public and academic institutions. This narrows the scope of this project, and excludes coverage of private corporations and medical areas. The article choices were all primarily from scholarly journals to ensure the validity of the research.
Annotations:
Beamsley, T.G. (1999). Securing digital image assets in museums and libraries: A risk management approach. Library Trends, 48(2), 359-378.
Teresa Grose Beamsley takes apart how museums and archives evaluate and secure their collections, whether they are artifacts, manuscripts, or contextual texts. It is through this process that she dives into how to secure digital image assets. When an asset is digitized, what does this do to the value of the physical asset and how does the institution that owns the asset maintain control over its digital counterparts? Moreover, how does the institution allow access to these digital image assets and maintain their control of that access? Through digital curation processes, you can establish a high-quality image that is a faithful? representation of the original and will help maintain the value but not necessary for public access. In the case of museums maintaining control of their assets, as Beamsley points out, museums are there to display their artifacts to the public so that learning and exposure to artifacts may happen. Beamsley does a thorough job evaluating the risks and the counter measures to secure assets, yet represent assets digitally for their purpose by adjusting resolutions according to the institution’s audience. For example, the public has access to low resolution images, while the asset held by the institution is retained and preserved in a higher resolution archival file. She notes this method has been adopted by multiple institutions, such as The Henry Ford museum, as a way to secure the use of their digital image assets. Bamsley's article lays out different techniques for assessing the risks involved with digital image assets. Identifying and acknowledging risks is essential in the planning and implementation of digital preservation practices and therefore being equipped with techniques to assess these risks is essential. She is clear that each institution will need to assess their risks based on their needs, collections, and how the public or people use and access their materials. She maintains that although she has laid out a lot of risks and solutions that due to the changing nature of technology, use, and context, other risks and solutions may arise through the changing nature of access and technologies that link digital images with their asset and contextual metadata.
Brown, A. (2008). Digital preservation guidance note 1: Selecting file formats for long-term preservation. London, UK: The National Archives. Retrieved from http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/selecting-file-formats.pdf
This document emphasizes the importance of choosing file formats that can be used and read in a current program and also a program developed in the future. The author points out that when file formats are selected for migration, a lot of information can be lost from the original object to the migrated version. For example, basic characteristics of a file, such as formatting of font and indents, may be altered or lost. Adrian Brown identifies and elaborates on criteria for data creators to consider when selecting a file format. These include a file format’s ubiquity, support, disclosure, documentation quality, stability, ease of identification and validation, intellectual property rights, metadata support, complexity, interoperability, viability, and re-usability. These criteria are important to digital preservation because they allow users over time and across software to access objects due to manageable file formats that work across operating systems (interoperability).
Cocciolo, A. (2016). When archivists and digital assets managers collide: tensions and ways forward. The American Archivist, 79(1), 121-136. doi: 10.17723/0360-9081.79.1.121
This article discusses the tensions that have risen due to the differing attitudes towards digital assets, primarily those of digital asset managers and digital archivists. This article contributes to the literature on digital preservation of digital assets by defining these two conflicting attitudes and their different approaches to digital assets and their uses. Anthony Cocciolo makes a distinction between the two sides as: archivists deal with assets or productions at the end of their lifecycles whereas digital asset managers view digital assets as never having an end in their lifecycle and therefore need to be preserved for eternal use. The author sees these two fields as separate rather than one converging on another. One of the primary tension points that the author discusses is digital preservation, primarily concerning file formats and the ability to either properly migrate without loss of the asset or the ability to use the asset. It is particularly interesting at the differing purpose of digital preservation, either to preserve the item in its original format or the item is to be preserved so that it may be accessed long term (not dependent on its original creation).
Cordeiro, M.I. (2004). From rescue to long-term maintenance: preservation as a core function in the management of digital assets. The Journal of Information and Knowledge Management Systems,
34(1), 6-16. doi: 10.1108/03055720410530933
Maria Inez Cordeiro writes in this article about the risks, the technical strategies, the importance of metadata, reliable systems and standards to allow digital preservation. Without digital preservation practices, including preservation metadata, long term use and understandability make the artifact either irrelevant or unreachable. Cordeiro emphasizes how metadata is important to being able to link an asset to its content and not just hold information on its format, but information about the actual asset itself within a context. Additionally, digital preservation does not only refer to physical objects that have been rendered through digitization but also the plethora and variety of digital assets, artifacts, and information being created currently. These need to be addressed at the time of creation for digital preservation rather than waiting for it to age enough to preserve in the future.
Fine, D., & Johnson, T. (2005). Digital asset management in the public sector. Journal of Digital Asset Management, 1(1), 25-31.
Organizing, distributing, and controlled access is an institutional necessity for digital asset management with ever-growing need and intake of digital information and assets. There is a divergence from private sector and the public sector where the public sector must be transparent, meet regulations, and keep records of everything. Therefore, it is much more complex when it comes to the management and preservation of digital information and assets as there is a higher demand for communication, dissemination and access of information to the public for decision making. There is a strong need for time and money to be placed on proper management to reach the goals of long-term use and access. An additional challenge faced by public sector institutions is that they typically operate on tight budgets and workflows that make it difficult to implement or maintain proper standards for digital management. This means that when it comes to facing the strong needs for time and money to properly manage digital assets in the public sector, money and time are limited and difficult to change from tight budgets and under-staffing. The article focuses on how the Bonneville Power Administration and the Bureau of Land Transport are effectively acknowledging their need for managing digital assets and since the two public organizations face similar challenges of budget and bureaucratic requirements, they have come to a solution that works for both institutions using Extensis Portfolio. Using the Extensis Portfolio, BPA organizes their digital assets and are able to retrieve the assets at a higher rate than previously. This contributes greatly to understanding the challenges and how through active research and attention to software developments, standard and procedure creation, solutions for tackling digital assets for long term use and access is possible.
McGovern, M. (2013). Digital asset management: where to start. Curator: The Museum Journal, 56(2), 237–254.
Megan McGovern lays out a framework for creating a digital asset management system, primarily in a museum setting and how it is necessary to focus on creating documentation and a strategic plan to coordinate and secure policies regarding collection development, intellectual property policies, and metadata schemas. Due to this, she argues that the process for creating a DAM system within an institution like a museum, will be less daunting because it is backed with policies and procedures. She demonstrates and authenticates this through working with a team creating a digital asset management system at Corning Museum of Glass. This work contributes to the study on digital asset management and long term use due to its layout of creating a thoughtful and critical strategic plan, planning for the long-term purpose and capabilities of a digital asset management system within an institution. By planning critically, including metadata standards and technical specifications, the outcomes result in long term access of the assets digitally.
Oehlerts, B., & Shu, L. (2013). Digital preservation strategies at Colorado State University libraries. Library Management, 34(1/2), 83-95. http://dx.doi.org.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/10.1108/01435121311298298
This article is a case study on how digital preservation practices are in place and of importance to a library in terms of digital assets preservation and their long-term management. The authors consult literature nationally and internationally when looking at the standards for digital preservation of digital artifacts, including how to prepare for migration and format changes in the future to ensure long-term access. A great aspect that this case study provides is the section on “Lessons Learned”. Often progress is made in a new field due to mistakes made, which the lessons learned section provides. From these lessons this institution and others coming after it, will be able to critically evaluate these lessons to prevent errors. Since digital preservation and management of digital assets is a newer idea and still often on the back burner of many institutions, this provides a great “learn from your mistakes.” This article also contributes to the importance of collaboration in developing standards for digital asset preservation through their in-depth research of the current literature available by notable global institutions as well as identifying their own documentation on their own practices in the field. Through collaboration, there is a higher possibility of creating standards that will increase interoperability and file format standards that will allow for current and long-term access across institutions.
Schottlaender, B.E.C. (2014). The digital preservation imperative: an ecosystem view. Library Resources and Technical Services, 58(1), 2-3.
Brian Schottlaender argues in this article the essential need of digital preservation as digital data/assets are more fragile and more complex than their analog counterparts. The fragility of digital content can be from the easy accessibility and modification of an original document either by the original creator or not, or technology hardware and software life span being short and ever changing. He argues that to preserve these materials there must be active preservation happening to ensure the digital assets have not been damaged or technology around it has not succumbed to irrelevance. Schottlaender lays out different ecosystems used to preserve digital assets, such as DPN used by several universities to have services for transmission, replication, auditing and succession of assets to ensure their status and preservation is active. This editorial contributes to the field of digital preservation of digital assets by exemplifying the growing need of digital preservation and explaining the differences between digital assets and their physical assets counterparts.
Toygar, A., Rohm, C. E. T., & Zhu, J. (2013). A new asset type: digital assets. Journal of International Technology and Information Management, 22(4), 113-119.
Digital assets have come into our world not only due to information technology but due to “Digital Citizenry”. The thing that sets digital assets apart from physical counterparts or intangible assets is their connection to information technology. The value of this article to the field of digital preservation and digital assets is that it helps to define what a digital asset is, which without knowledge of what a digital asset is, then one would struggle to identify how to use other literature to digitally preserve this asset type. Further definition of digital asset also allows for them to be protected under the law as physical and intangible assets are currently. One of the complexities of digital assets and determining a definition and ownership of it is that there are other entities involved in their housing and creation. This is broken down into the following example: there is the email account holder and there is the email account provider and how this relationship deals with ownership after an account holder is no longer able to make decisions regarding their assets. This article pushes for a legal definition and therefore protection of digital assets due to their increasing influence and growth in our global world. By acknowledging the importance of regulation acknowledgement of digital assets the field can move forward because there is clear understanding on the use, reuse, and preservation of digital assets.
van Wijngaarden, H. (2007). Long-term preservation and permanent access: How to ensure the long-term reuse value of your digital assets. Journal of Digital Asset Management, 3(2), 102-109.
http://dx.doi.org.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/10.1057/palgrave.dam.3650064
In the growing technology world, there is little attention given to the constant updating of computer operating systems for faster, higher functioning software. This reality is resulting in software that stores and displays digital assets are becoming obsolete, rendering the asset no longer accessible. Libraries and digital curators have realized the need for change regarding digital assets to have long term access and use. Collaboration among libraries, archives, and NASA, attention to early digital preservation research came up with requirements of storage using the OAIS Reference Model, metadata standards, and accessibility tools. A difference acknowledged between physical assets and digital assets is the need to start the preservation process the moment the digital asset is created or shortly following creation to ensure long-term access. The difficulty of long term access, as exposed through the KB e-Depot case study, is the use of migration tools for “out of date” programs, as there are very few options of migration tools to choose from and the process is far from perfect. This means that there are digital assets that cannot be accessed and there is inadequate software development to properly ensure migration from one format to another. The value given here in this article is the growing attention given to digital preservation to further influence additional research, even internationally, to protect digital assets despite the current culture of looking for the next newer, faster computer systems.
