Keeping Your Digital Works Alive

December 13, 2013Alabama Digital Humanities Center

Jody L. DeRidderjlderidder@ua.edu

Overview• Challenges• Needs• Solutions• Resources!

Hardware keeps changing!• Computer upgrades• Where’s that floppy insert?• Wait, I use a Mac now… (or an

iphone?)

Challenges

Software keeps changing!• Windows 95 to 98 to 2000 to XP to…• Which version of Word was that?• They stopped making this software…

Challenges

File Formats keep changing!• Huh? My computer can’t open this!• Can anything open my files now?• It doesn’t look right. What happened?

Challenges

Media has issues!• CD, DVD bit loss within 3 years• Flash drives fail much more quickly• Hard drives crash• Cloud storage is not secure or

guaranteed

Challenges

What do we really need?

• Access!• Usability!

Needs

Requirements for access and use:• How do I find it?• How do I know what it is?• How do I know how to open it?

Needs

Selecting Content• Focus on what you REALLY need

to keep• Find out what it takes to manage

those types of content • Be realistic!

Solutions

Selecting Formats• Text:

– PDF/A, XML, Open Office XML, UTF-8 or ASCII text

• Images: – TIFF, JP2, PDF/A (or X), PNG

• Sound: – WAVE, FLAC

• Video: – MPEG-2, MPEG-4

Solutions

Preparation for Reuse• Metadata:

– description!• File naming:

– useful & consistent• Organization:

– categorize, document, group like content

Solutions

Storage & Backups• External Hard drive(s)• Multiple copies in multiple places• Using the cloud• Update, update, update

Solutions

Regular Reviews!• Check those files!

– Corrupt?– Format still supported?– Hardware/software going out of date?

Solutions

Migrating Content• What is the most important aspect?

– Text? Image? Audio?• What form do you need it in?• Find a converter• Test first; and review afterwards• Keep the original!

Solutions

Resources

Recommendations for Authors and Creators (from UA Libraries Digital Services):

http://tinyurl.com/au5oz8u

Resources