Introduction
High-performing and tightly integrated organisations can sometimes suffer from inertia, even when processes are well understood and benefits or risks are immediate. So given that digital preservation processes are sometimes poorly understood and benefits or risks deferred, it’s perhaps not a surprise that making progress in digital preservation can seem hard. Historically the lack of tools was a significant constraint to digital preservation: but as new tools and technologies have emerged so it becomes apparent that we need to revisit policy and strategy too, reviewing and updating expectations and adapting requirements to emerging trends.
Three obstacles seem to inhibit deployment of digital preservation systems even when there is budget and management support: capturing requirements, acceptance testing and ongoing maintenance. For example, there is a gap between preservation planning one hand and articulating requirements on the other. Digital preservation staff have typically spent a lot of effort on preservation planning, assuming that this can be translated effortlessly into requirements: but that may not be as simple as it first sounds. Similarly, digital preservation has progressed in many contexts through flexible, agile development at small scale, but with a relatively poor fit into organisational or enterprise architectures: so scaling from local to enterprise solutions becomes challenging and can prevent the emergence of ‘enterprise wide’ solutions. And rapidly-changing expectations of what digital preservation systems should deliver too often conflicts with the senior management assumption that ‘we’ve bought a thing so the problem is fixed’. Digital preservation systems need to be maintained and this is not a weakness.
Large and complex organisations typically refer these challenges to systems or business analysts who recommend and implement solutions based on a mix of new technology and updated processes. They shield operational staff from interactions with developers and vice versa and crucially map these into organisational structures. Digital preservation has typically arisen ‘from the ground up’ meaning integration of systems and change to processes can be overlooked.
How can we reduce obstacles that arise on the road between planning and deployment? What skills, knowledge and techniques do we need and how can we extend or adapt these for the digital preservation community?
This DPC briefing day, sponsored by Jisc and open to all, explores the skills necessary to ensure that digital preservation solutions can be acquired and tailored to purpose. Using the Jisc-funded Research Data Shared Service as a case study in supporting institutions to move from digital preservation plans to actions, it profiles the skills and systems required and show how digital preservation can not only benefit from these skills, but also contribute something meaningful about resilience and longevity for those planning institutional infrastructure. It also provides a neutral forum where those involved in capturing digital preservation requirements and can talk directly and without prejudice about the challenges they face and explore ways in which they can be turned into solutions.
Presentations will:
- examine institutional decision making processes and how to engage with them
- discuss and procedures for procurement and roll out of preservation solutions
- present recent case studies and good practice in the deployment and maintenance of digital preservation solutions
- introduce and examine the range of proprietary and open source solutions for digital preservation currently available
- introduce and explore the Jisc-funded Research Data Shared Service as a model for other sectors
The day will include a moderated discussion session where technologists, procurement managers and collection owners will be free to discuss and review obstacles to procuring, integrating and implementing digital preservation solutions.
Who should come?
These workshops will interest:
- Collections managers, librarians, curators and archivists in all institutions
- Research data managers in higher education
- Records managers in institutions with a need for long-lived data
- IT managers, procurement managers and business analysts
- CIOs and CTOs in organisations with commercial intellectual property
- Vendors and developers with digital preservation solutions
- Researchers with interests in research data management
Programme (Members please login to watch recordings)
1000 – Registration open, tea and coffee
1030 – Welcome and Introductions from William Kilbride, DPC
1115 – Q&A
1220 – Q&A
1230 – Lunch (provided)
1330 – Jisc Research Data Shared Service: 'Putting preservation into practice using shared preservation infrastructure' with Dom Fripp and Paul Stokes, Jisc plus Arkivum, Artefactual Systems and Preservica
1500 – Coffee
1530 – Jisc Shared Service Roundtable and Q&A
1610 – Next steps and thanks
1615 – Close