Untitled (Hidden Track): Born Digital Content Preservation

Service at UIUC

Tracy Popp, MS LIS, CASDigital Preservation Coordinator

University Library

Stewarding Digital Content: Select Challenges

–Not “eye legible” – dependent upon abstracted layers of hardware and software to understand–Maintaining authenticity/provenance–Resource issues–Working at scale –Hardware/software subject to relatively rapid obsolescence

Computer Storage Media History * (*not complete)

http://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/?category=storhttp://www.dpworkshop.org/dpm-eng/timeline/viewall.html http://www.ricomputermuseum.org/Home/collections-gallery/

the-history-of-computer-data-storage

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d9/Punch-card-5081.jpg/800px-Punch-card-

5081.jpg

Punched cards (as early as 1725) Magnetic tape (1950s)

“Being aware of the context of relevant technology contributes to identifying and weighing options for preserving digital content. The path technology

takes from idea, to development, to implementation, to mainstream use, and, in most cases, to obsolescence is an important cycle to appreciate.” – DPM

http://www.dpworkshop.org/dpm-eng/timeline/index.html

Computer Storage Media History * (*not complete)

Floppy disks8 “ (1971) , 5.25” (1978) 3.5” (1981)

http://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/?category=storhttp://www.dpworkshop.org/dpm-eng/timeline/viewall.html http://www.ricomputermuseum.org/Home/collections-gallery/

the-history-of-computer-data-storage

Hard disk drives For microcomputers (1980)

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_a-cYR4s788c/SrurVIxREJI/AAAAAAAAF3g/-

grHF521RHg/s320/Optical+disk.gif

Optical Media: CD-Rom (1983)

DVD (1995)

Iomega Products ZIP (1994) , JAZ

(1995)

Others…jump/thumb/etc.

drives (~2000)

Magnetic Disk Geometry

http://www.mtsac.edu/~rpatters/CISB11/Chapters/Chapter_03/Figures/Fig04-05.jpg

Institutional Context

University Library– Campus-wide

network of libraries

– Largest public university research library in U.S.

• thirteen million volumes

• 24 million items and materials

Main Library building, East Entrancehttp://www.library.illinois.edu/bis/images/uiucmainlib.jpg

Digital Preservation Coordinator’s Role

• Manage the Born Digital Content Preservation service

• Born Digital Content Reformatting lab

Stabilizing content stored on physical media by migrating it from obsolete or obsolescent storage to a more contemporary, managed and replicated medium (e.g. networked-based storage)

Cache of external drives

Untitled (Hidden Track)

• Digital forensics techniques and tools

Hardware and software tools– Write blockers– Variety of adapters

and technology bridges/interfaces

– Disk imaging • recovers all of the bits on a disk • captures hidden content

Kryoflux floppy controller diagram

http://www.kryoflux.com/

Digital Forensics Tools

Hardware

Forensics workstation (FRED – Forensics Recovery of Evidence Device)

– Has write-blocking unit installed• Write blocker has adapters for a number

of interfaces– IDE\SATA hard drives– USB 3.5”\5.25”

floppy drive interface (using FC5025)

– Provides a solid working platform – less of a need to maintain “computer museum”

– Still need “Rosetta” computers

http://www.digitalintelligence.com/preview.php?pic=/products/fred/images/fred_front_med.jpg&title=FRED

ExampleSousa Archives - Manion Laptop

Challenges

Other Digital Preservation Activities

Medusa Digital Preservation ServiceRepository and Collection Registry

• Already over 15TB of content• Bit-level preservation • fixity checking• file verification with FITS• Data redundancy

File/Content Plans• Working on migration case study• Emulation also in the works

Medusa by Caravaggio

Thank You!

Tracy Popp

Digital Preservation CoordinatorUniversity Library

tpopp2@illinois.edu