© HATII, University of Glasgow Dr Seamus Ross Director HATII (University of Glasgow) & erpanet Digital Preservation Research Opportunities Luxembourg –

© HATII, University of Glasgow

Dr Seamus Ross

Director

HATII (University of Glasgow) & erpanet

Digital Preservation Research Opportunities

Luxembourg – 28 January 2003 Mapping the Future


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

HATIIHATIIHumanities Advanced Technology and

Information Institute

http://www.hatii.arts.gla.ac.uk/[email protected]

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

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



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)



eContent Supports

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

• Education

• Life-Long Learning

• Public Enjoyment



Documents & Records = Intellectual Assets

Maintaining theAccessibility & Reusability of Intellectual Capital

StorageAccessAuthenticity



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.



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



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



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)



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.



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



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



Re-engineering Preservation Processes.

• Staging Intervention• Automation of Process• Detecting Trustworthiness and

Information Quality• Scalability• Collection Completeness and Anomaly

Detection• Distributed and Grid Storage



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



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.