Digital Preservation
Digital Commonwealth and Digital Preservation
While the Digital Commonwealth (DigiComm) actively promotes creation of digital resources, its officers also acknowledge the remarkable fragility of digital data. Many factors come to bear in this matter, including:
- Poor quality image capture
- Inadequate metadata
- Obsolescence of hardware and/or software platforms
- Hardware and/or software failure
- Insufficient infrastructure to support long-term storage
- Proprietary file formats, which can suddenly become unsupported
- Deficient back-up of data
- Poorly implemented migration strategies
- Human interference--accidental or deliberate
Frankly stated, institutions inattentive to such factors are at considerable risk of loss. Preserving digital data, then, must be an ongoing concern for all cultural heritage institutions with digital
With this in mind, the Digital Commonwealth wishes to make it clear that preservation of digital data is not a service we provide. Responsibility for digital preservation rests entirely with member institutions. The Digital Commonwealth will, however, help facilitate effective digital preservation action by pointing its members to such reputable digital preservation resources as the following:
Berkeley Digital Library SunSITE – Preservation Resources
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Preservation/
Collaborative Digitization Program
http://cdpheritage.org/digital/index.cfm
Columbia University
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/services/preservation/dlpolicy.html
http://www.columbia.edu/acis/dl/imagespec.html
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/libraries/digital/criteria/html
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/libraries/inside/projects/metadata/
Cornell University
http://www.library.cornell.edu/digital/pres-research.html
http://www.library.cornell.edu/digitalpreservatiaon/iris/tutorial/dpm/eng_index.html
Digital Preservation Coalition
http://www.dpconline.org/graphics/
http://www.dpconline.org/graphics/handbook/index.html
Harvard University
http://preserve.harvard.edu/resources/digital.html
Library of Congress – National Digital Information Infrastructure and
Preservation Program
http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/
NEDCC – Handbook for Digital Projects: A Management Tool for Preservation
and Access
http://www.nedcc.org/digital/dighome.htm
North Carolina Exploring Cultural Heritage Online
http://www.ncecho.org/Guide/toc.htm
Preserving Access to Digital Information (PADI)
http://www.nla.gov.au/padi/
RLG – Audit Checklist for Certifying Digital Repositories
http://www.rlg.org/en/page.php?Page_ID=20769
RLG-OCLC – Trusted Digital Repositories: Attributes and Responsibilities
http://www.rlg.org/legacy/longterm/repositories.pdf
Digital Commonwealth maintains a Digital Preservation Subcommittee, which is charged with monitoring developments in the digital preservation community that may be of interest and importance to our members. Consequently, this resources page will be updated frequently.