NDSA:Digital Preservation 101

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Introduction

The "Digital Preservation 101" section provides a gentle introduction to the concepts of preserving your digital information. The guidance is basic and is meant to be a place to get started.

Digital preservation can be defined as the series of managed activities necessary to ensure meaningful continued access, for as long as it is required, to digital objects and materials.

Digital preservation is the set of processes and activities that ensures long-term, sustained storage of, access to and interpretation of digital information. Curation is an applied form of preservation that focuses on interpretation and is often (though not exclusively) used in relation to working with scientific datasets. The ultimate objective of all digital preservation activity is to keep valuable and useful digital material (increasingly online) available for future generations of scholars, researchers and other user groups.

Introductory Resources

• Slides: [File:Intro_digpres_121510.ppt]. Slides from a December 15, 2010, webinar presented by Lisa A. Gregory, Jennifer Ricker and Amy Rudersdorf of the North Carolina State Library.
• Tutorial: Cornell/ICPSR Tutorial
• Video: NDIIPP: Why Digital Preservation is Important for You
• Video: NDIIPP: Why Digital Preservation is Important for Everyone
• Webinar: ALA Preserving Your Personal Digital Memories webinar
• Webinar: WebJunction An Introduction to Digital Preservation webinar. A December 15, 2010, webinar presented by Lisa A. Gregory, Jennifer Ricker and Amy Rudersdorf of the North Carolina State Library.
• Videos - Team Digital Preservation [1](how many to include, if any?)

What's missing??

• News articles/Blogs - to make a case to business cases to explain what is DP, digital archiving or find existing business cases. Also find examples of success of the benefits of digital preservation.
• Standards - overview of standards available (OAIS, PREMIS, etc). The names of the standards should also be reflected in the glossary. Some information about putting standards in context and how standards are applied in practice/not applied.
• Metadata - description of types of metadata (administrative, technical, structural, descriptive, preservation).
• Born-digital vs. digitization - differences
• Naming authority - different lists.
• Legal - IP, Copyright, PPI, any other restrictions (privacy protections, embargo, security)
• Other:
  • "Cool" digital preservation repositories - a list of some examples
  • Skills and competencies - skills matrix for a digital preservationist (DCC website)