NDSA:Draft scope

LATEST Draft - August 13, 2012

Cathy and I toss out this "revised based on discussions at our last meeting" scope note to you all - we welcome comments/edits/suggestions:

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The Content Working Group is developing case studies and models to share compelling stories that demonstrate the value of digital preservation in our communities. The case studies will be shared with all stakeholders, from content producers to cultural heritage organizations, with goals of:

• engaging all members of the community in the preservation of content,

• encouraging the cultivation of relationships that could enable preservation, and,

• in conjunction with other working groups in the NDSA, identifying actionable next steps to ensure important content is preserved.

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Draft CWG Scope Revisions, July 2012

Focusing on investigating guidelines for the selection of significant content, discovery of at-risk digital content or collections, and engaging all stakeholders in the process of acquiring the content, preserving it, and providing access to it.

The Content Working Group’s current scope of work involves "content teams" grouped in the following topical areas:

• Government
• Geospatial
• News, Media, and Journalism
• Science, Mathematics, Technology and Medicine
• Social Sciences
• Cultural Heritage
• Arts & Humanities

The Content Teams are assessing and selecting categories of content in their topical areas that are important for preserving. The groups are developing case studies and/or models to share broadly with all stakeholders, from content producers to cultural heritage organizations. The goal of the case studies is to engage all members of the community in the preservation of content and to encourage the cultivation of relationships that could enable preservation.

Case studies will:

• Establish the value of the content and provide the rationale for selecting it for preservation. What value does the content have? Is anyone collecting it? What factors affect its risk of disappearance?
• Document recognized opportunities for preserving this content. Are there workflows in the creation or distribution of content that present opportunities for preservation?
• Describe target audiences/stakeholders. Who would find value in this content and how might they be engaged in the process of preservation?
• Outline a plan for educating stakeholders. How might NDSA or another organization raise the awareness of stakeholders including content creators, publishers, educators, libraries, researchers, or donors? consumers of content
• Describe potential obstacles or risk factors. What barriers for users/creators/preservationists might be faced and what options are there for overcoming them?
• Develop actionable next steps. What can we do next, as a community or as individual institutions to ensure that important content is preserved?

COMMENTS FROM JULY MEETING

Previous work related to developing a registry of content and clearinghouse of stakeholders.

Draft scope statement: Form “content teams” grouped in topical areas (government, geospatial, etc.) and develop case study to engage stakeholders in the preservation of content.

What are we trying to accomplish? Preserve content for which there is an identified need that no one institution is responsible for. We rely on contacts of NDSA members to identify at-risk content.

Some members hesitant to say that they have resources to share to preserve valuable content. Purposes of case studies is to move beyond identifying at-risk content to identifying challenges and stakeholders of preserving identified content.

Suggestion: describe nature of collaboration with other NDSA working groups—when do they bring in expertise?

Michael Stoller: “What we do is connect content with the people who can help preserve it, in one way or another.”

Jason Gish: “In the TV world, we know what’s at risk. It’s deciding what in a storage facility should and can be preserved.”

Framework of digital curation life cycle. InterPARES chapter on appraisal for digital objects. This working group can build on [modules of?] content and appraisal.

One dimension is bringing in perspectives of stakeholder of consumer. We can serve as a conduit to those kinds of communities of interest in content to help custodians of content to determine value. We don’t necessarily need to represent this explicitly in draft scope, but case studies especially should be cognizant of the domains we’re serving.

In archives, established record schedules; in other areas, no such government record schedules. However, some schedules are quite general and could apply to other content areas—as a starting point.

Archival appraisal priorities not just based on budgetary resources, but also on difficulty of managing content: in what sense is a database a record?

Jason Gish: Case studies could demonstrate that entry-level cost of preservation isn’t prohibitive, to help to make the argument to the people who write the checks.

About finding partners, some of whom have existing infrastructure that could perform archival function on behalf of stakeholders.

Rachel Frick: Importance of case studies is to develop compelling stories to demonstrate value of digital preservation.

Once we have case studies, we can put them out for comment and sharing, we can do more case studies, and then we’ll begin to see the impact.