© HATII, University of Glasgow Dr Seamus Ross Director HATII (University of Glasgow) & erpanet...

© HATII, University of Glasgow

Dr Seamus Ross

Director

HATII (University of Glasgow) & erpanet

Digital Preservation Research Opportunities

Luxembourg – 28 January 2003 Mapping the Future

© HATII, University of Glasgow

Seamus Ross, Digital Preservation Research Opportunities, DELOS(EU)/NSF Report 2

HATIIHATIIHumanities Advanced Technology and

Information Institute

http://www.hatii.arts.gla.ac.uk/S.Ross@hatii.arts.gla.ac.uk

Digital Preservation:http://www.erpanet.org

Technology for the Heritagehttp://www.digicult.info

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Seamus Ross, Digital Preservation Research Opportunities, DELOS(EU)/NSF Report 3

What is eContent?

• Products of digitisation of analogue materials

• Products of digital data creation—– from scientific processes such as satellites,

metrological monitoring, experiments etc.– as a part of business processes conducted in

digital form– as a result of the use of digital technologies to

create representations of the world (e.g. digital cameras)

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Seamus Ross, Digital Preservation Research Opportunities, DELOS(EU)/NSF Report 4

eContent Supports

• e-commerce through e-content industries as well as-----

• Education

• Life-Long Learning

• Public Enjoyment

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Seamus Ross, Digital Preservation Research Opportunities, DELOS(EU)/NSF Report 5

Documents & Records = Intellectual Assets

Maintaining theAccessibility & Reusability of Intellectual Capital

StorageAccessAuthenticity

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Seamus Ross, Digital Preservation Research Opportunities, DELOS(EU)/NSF Report 6

Background

• Working Group on Digital Preservation and Archiving

• Joint EU and US Workgroup• Sponsored by DELOS -- Europe’s Digital Library

Network of Excellence)• National Science Foundation (NSF) in the US• Create a Research Agenda for Digital

Preservation that will enable research and create new market opportunities for the information society.

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Seamus Ross, Digital Preservation Research Opportunities, DELOS(EU)/NSF Report 7

Who Did the Work• Chairs:• Margaret Hedstrom, University of Michigan• Seamus Ross, HATII, University of Glasgow• The Thinkers• Birte Christensen-Dalsgaard,  Head of Web Archiving Project in

Denmark (Statsbiblioteket)• Kevin Ashley, University of London Computing Centre• Erich Neuhold, Fraunhofer (Darmstadt)• Claude Huc, French Space  Agency• Wendy Duff, University of Toronto• Henry Gladney, HMG Consulting• Anne R. Kenney, Cornell University • Reagan Moore, San Diego Super Computer Center

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Seamus Ross, Digital Preservation Research Opportunities, DELOS(EU)/NSF Report 8

Meeting & The Agenda

• Meet 3 times (Paris (x1) & WDC (x2)

• Report in final stages we have released our summary findings as:– Digital Preservation and Archiving –

Invest to Save

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Seamus Ross, Digital Preservation Research Opportunities, DELOS(EU)/NSF Report 9

Key Message

‘While acknowledging the value of many conventional archival principles, the Working Group concluded that the digital environment was reshaping the archival process to such an extent that it might, in the not too distant future, be unrecognisable. This change will require a paradigm shift in research if it is to provide the innovation, whether theoretical, methodological, or technical, necessary to underpin long-term access to digital resources.’ (from Report)

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Seamus Ross, Digital Preservation Research Opportunities, DELOS(EU)/NSF Report 10

A New Focus

• Focus on delivering results in narrow domains

• Focus on tangible deliverables• Have more emphasis on engineering

and computing science• Recognise that digital entities are the

raw materials for industries of the 21st century – intellectual capital.

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Seamus Ross, Digital Preservation Research Opportunities, DELOS(EU)/NSF Report 11

Three Main Research Areas

• Emerging Research Domains• Re-engineering Preservation Processes, and • Preservation Systems and Technology. • BUT…..

– we note policy, organisational, educational and other activities that require research

– we encourage regional and national takeup of the agenda

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Seamus Ross, Digital Preservation Research Opportunities, DELOS(EU)/NSF Report 12

Emerging Research Domains

• Repositories• Archival Media• Salvage & Rescue

– Digital Archaeology—recovery– Digital Archaeology—analysis

• Storage Abstractions• Documentation of Functionality and Behaviour• Self-Aware Digital Entities• Accelerated Aging• Intellectual Capital

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Seamus Ross, Digital Preservation Research Opportunities, DELOS(EU)/NSF Report 13

Re-engineering Preservation Processes.

• Staging Intervention• Automation of Process• Detecting Trustworthiness and

Information Quality• Scalability• Collection Completeness and Anomaly

Detection• Distributed and Grid Storage

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Seamus Ross, Digital Preservation Research Opportunities, DELOS(EU)/NSF Report 14

Preservation of Systems and Technology.

• Preservation of Systems & Technology• Managing Complex and Dynamic Digital

Entities• Automated Metadata Creation• Long-term Metadata Viability• Multilingual Entities and Technology• Acceptable Loss• Repurposing

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Seamus Ross, Digital Preservation Research Opportunities, DELOS(EU)/NSF Report 15

Core Topics

• three core research topics were likely to have the greatest impact:– self-aware (at least as far as context)

objects, – metadata and the evolution of ontologies,

and – mechanisms for preservation of complex

and dynamic objects.