Reporting live from a Digital Preservation Institute hosted by POWRR (Preserving Digital Objects With Restricted Resources) to share what I've learned on my first day! I'm here in Honolulu, at the University of Hawai'i, Mānoa, as a representative for T.A.P.E., generously funded by the National Institute for the Humanities.
I learned about Digital POWRR when researching digital preservation tools for home movies as part of my MLIS coursework. I was inspired by their grounded, material plans and tools and how they were committed to education. Earlier this year, I applied to attend one of their institutes and was delighted to not only be accepted but to receive financial support that could cover my travel and lodging.
In my education, I've wanted more from digital preservation - more practical plans, open-source tools, and support, particularly for personal archiving and orgs with limited resources. Digital preservation can be daunting, frustrating, and endless, but after today, I feel much more connected to the material ways to empower myself and T.A.P.E.
Introduction to Digital Preservation
We started by defining some key terms, namely what is digital preservation?
I like the idea that it is the relationship between yesterday, today, and tomorrow with a digital object, whereby we can accurately store, provide access to, and sustainability check the fixity of a digital file over time. We want to create a system and process to hand off the digital file to future, so they can transform into the next sustainable container, with the best information and tools to do so.
Digital preservation is also a risk mitigation process, thinking about how to prevent the total loss of a digital object as the result of media or file format obsolescence, disaster, failure, or decay.
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having fun with my new toy digital camera! |
Some best practices?
1. Important and overlooked - know what you have! An inventory of the items and their formats and where they are stored is such an impactful step.
2. Keep more than one copy across different storage mediums
3. Have a plan for migration and storage media transfers
4. Use open formats that are more resilient against obsolescence and corporate enclosure i.e. a PDF is open whereas a Microsoft Word document is owned by a company and requires paid software to properly decode it
5. Use data fixity tools and practices
Fixity is ensuring that the item you have is actually the item you had and want to have. That it is the same as before. This is clearly important because you don't want your file to change, as one bit of changing can dramatically alter or corrupt the content, especially for visual information.
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Fascinating & scary slide - script created by the instructor that would change one bit in a digital photo, showing the visual results from significant changes to complete corruption.
We use checksums to mathematically process this. A checksum is a string of numbers and letters that corresponds to a snapshot of your file, ideally as you create it or before you move it. If your file changes, the string of numbers and letters changes too, alerting you that something has changed. An ~okay~ analogy is like taping a piece of hair over a door as a security system - if the hair breaks, you know something happened, but you don't know what it is exactly. But you can look around the room and replace anything that was lost. At TAPE we run frameMD5s, a checksum part of the digitization tool vrecord, that assigns a string of letters and numbers to each frame of a video, allowing us to know the exact frame where the change ocurred, rather than only having a checksum for the file.
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| Notice how each iteration with an incorrect spelling changes the checksum, alterting us that something has changed |
Assessment
The next presentation was on tools, rubrics, and processes for assessing your organization's digital preservation practices. This is a great tool for figuring out what you do well and some tangible steps for getting to the place you want to be. We also talked about how to adapt some of these frameworks to decouple corporate productivity from our work, instead building sustaining models rooted in the value of preservation. We looked at two assessments in depth, although we recieved a long list of options! The key is to pick one and start, and any work is meaningful.
The National Digital Stewardship Alliance created the Levels of Digital Preservation Assessment to provide multiple axes for conversation and action.
We also looked at the Digital Preservation Coalition's Rapid Assessment Model.
There were a couple of things I'm excited to talk more about with T.A.P.E. members:
- Our first priority is to secure funding for more copies of our digitized files and to create a plan for migrating these files using digital fixity tools.
- A big inventory of our digital files is needed & coming soon, as well as a plan for regular inventories and audits
- I'm also excited to write documentation on the types of formats we have and an assessment of the hardware and software needed to sustain the files we create.
- I'm more urgent about tapping into networks of watchdogs who look out for file, hardware, and software obsolescence related to our work, including proactive planning and collaboration. (I'm cynical about these things for sure!)
- We are invested in the preservation of TAPE-produced content (print, still photo, and moving image) to preserve our own work, on our own terms.
- We also talked about resource sharing and building powerful constoriums and relationships to pool resources for digital preservation
A big takeaway, there are very few tools for personal archiving, bringing things down to the individual, the family, kin and friend networks. Building relationships with artists who work with us to empower their preservation through knowledge and resource sharing is key. Not only in making the best practices accessible broadly, but in sustained plans for implementing them over time. A great starting point for T.A.P.E. is a new resource I learned about a personal archiving guide and worksheet from the State Library of North Carolina. We are going to build on these tools to create zines and information on personal digital archiving as part of the archival practices people are already doing.
Digital Preservation Policies
In the next session, we narrowed in on writing a digital preservation policy, using existing models and templates. This written policy facilitates greater clarity, awareness, and committment to digital preservation goals, ensuring that the things we create today have a pathway for access tomorrow. A policy promotes digital preservation as part of a living ecosystem of creating and saving, so that it sits alosngside other conversations we are having, it has a seat at the table. It outlines goals, committments, and current actions.
One exciting digital preservation policy I looked at was from the Door County Public Library, which does a great job at defining purpose and methods of preservation. The Wisconsin Historical Society also hosts a number of student-made digital preservation policies with smaller organizations, as well as other digital preservation guides. The College of Menominee Nation has an excellent policy that not only demonstrates clear commitments, but also outlines their workflows, increasing transparency and knowledge sharing.
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| The College of Menominee Nation's Digital Preservation Policy |
A New Working Group?
One of the most empowering takeaways is the knowledge that as a collective, there is a group of passionate and smart TAPE members who are similarly invested in this work. Whereas many archives must confront buracracy and co-workers who may not support their passion, I know I have so much support and power from my peers. It's a really empowering feeling, inspiring action rather than defeat in the face of so many steps that need to happen. I'm delighted to work collectively to move forward with these much needed tools!
From this, I'm laying the groundwork for Digital Preservation Working Group, a sub-committee of the AV Working Group and Collections, to collaborate on the policy writing and assessment process, as well as grant-writing, zine making, and public workshops. This is an exciting new chapter!
