Digital Archives: Who Keeps Them and Who Pays?
Response on behalf of PADI Working Group to the study commissioned by
the United Kingdom's National Preservation Office, August 1997.
We welcome the opportunity to comment on the proposed model and it's
good to see this issue taking on major importance worldwide. We would also like
to establish contact between Preserving Access to Digital Information (PADI)
and the Digital Archiving Working Group to share our combined experience and
expertise. In Australia there has been much activity in recent years first in
isolating the issues and then working out practical means to implement a
reliable archiving strategy. Who controls and who pays are certainly critical
and it's useful to focus debate on these elementary considerations initially.
The study invited comments on specific aspects of the model but we have also
prepared comments against each of the headings in the Operating Model as these
seemed to us to contain key issues which merited further debate. Comments below
are grouped under each of the headings of the Operating Model.
Distributed Archive
There are a number of issues which need clarification here. Does the
model assume all digital data? It is widely acknowledged that many of the
boundaries which exist for print blur in the digital environment, and the PADI
Working Group was consciously created with cross sectoral membership in
recognition of that. However in practice some distinctions remain as different
strategies tend to be appropriate for, say spatial data, or for electronic
records originating as part of the business records of an agency as opposed to
digital publications which may be created by a much wider range of authors and
in a wider range of formats.
On what basis would responsibilities be allocated? We assume there would
need to be more evidence than interest shown by the parties taking on
responsibility for archiving. What powers would NODA be expected to have? Would
it play a role in certifying the archives (as in the RLG/CPA Report model)?
Would NODA also be expected to have the power to remove responsibility for
archiving from an agency if performance proved to be unsatisfactory? Is it
anticipated that there will be formal monitoring of performance? In Australia,
we are still working on the assumption of a distributed model though it is not
yet formally in place. The PADI Working Group has surveyed some stakeholders
and we are identifying and communicating with key players, through PADI and
also through the work of the National Library of Australia
(NLA), for example through Preserving and
Accessing Networked Documentary Resources in Australia (PANDORA) and also
other NLA initiatives. A meeting at the NLA this October will focus on a
national strategy to preserve physical format digital publications and will
bring together representatives from State and National libraries and
publishers.
Extension of Legal Deposit Legislation
We agree with this in principle. It also reflects the approach in
Australia in which the Australian
Council of Libraries and Information Services (ACLIS) and the NLA have made
submissions to the Copyright Law Review Committee
(CLRC) making a strong case for the extension of legal deposit to include
digital publications. The NLA is also pursuing other alternatives, pending
legal deposit legislation, such as voluntary deposit. Given the apparently
broad definition of digital data in the proposed model, it would be useful to
clarify what digital objects are included here as there is much digital data
which is not "published".
Specialist Agencies
We agree that there needs to be a more sophisticated model than for
print and one which needs to accommodate varying levels of participation, which
is what this seems to be advocating. Do we assume that each of these specialist
agencies will develop different strategies according to the medium/subject they
archive? Will it be the responsibility of each agency to develop their own
preservation paths? Would NODA be expected to play a role in accrediting these
strategies?
Permanent Retention
We agree that it is important to ensure a commitment to keeping material
for longer than current use alone dictates but forever is a major undertaking
and may lead to a more restricted approach to selection than might otherwise
occur, because of the resource implications of such a commitment. In Australia,
the NLA Statement of Principles for
the Preservation of and Long-Term Access to Australian Digital Objects was
that Access to digital objects should be preserved only for as long as they
are judged to have continuing value and significance. This assumes that
professional judgement will need to be applied, balancing costs and benefits as
well as the anticipated needs and interests of future generations. This does
introduce a more complex approach than a blanket permanent retention but we
believe that one of the advantages of attaching this responsibility to cultural
institutions like libraries and archives is that they have well developed
concepts of permanent retention and of managing long-term accessibility even if
material does not necessarily need to be retained permanently.
Selectivity
We agree that it is important to establish guidelines on selection
criteria and these need to be public documents. This is especially important in
a digital environment where the implications of not selecting for archiving
will generally be more severe than for paper. It may be of interest to look at
the NLA's Selection Committee
on Online Australian Publications (SCOAP) guidelines which illustrate the
attempt to retain similar principles for selecting digital publications as for
print while at the same time acknowledging the important differences.
National Archives of Australia [formerly
Australian Archives] have also done much work in this area and
How
Long Should Records Be Kept? an extract from their publication
Keeping
Electronic Records, provides advice to agencies in appraising their
records.
Standard Formats for Preservation
The statement As far as possible store in standard formats does
not seem to take account of the speed of change in this area. For example, even
where standards do exist (such as HTML) there are varying generations, not all
of which can be easily read by the same browsers. There are also an increasing
number of documents which combine a number of formats (including embedded
software) as well as a wide array of standards, or at least de facto standards.
While appealing, the suggestion that dependence on hardware and software can be
substantially reduced in this way seems to over simplify the magnitude of the
problem. To quote Jeff Rothenberg, The information revolution derives its
momentum precisely from the attraction of new capabilities ('Ensuring the
longevity of digital documents', Scientific American, vol. 272, no. 1, January
1995, pp. 24-29). Defining long term standards for digital documents may become
feasible when information science rests on a more formal foundation, but such
standards do not yet offer a solution. It should be noted here that the option
Rothenberg does offer, of emulating the operating systems of obsolescent
hardware and software is not one which is being actively considered in
Australia. Both the PADI Working group and the NLA are promoting and exploring
migration as a more feasible means of moving from one platform to another but
the general point about standards still applies. It does still make sense to
encourage the use of standards where they exist and also to raise awareness of
the inherent difficulties (and perhaps impossibility) of maintaining access to
digital objects originating in non standard formats. However it needs to be
recognised that there will still be significant challenges to be overcome in
maintaining the multiplicity of digital documents over time, even when they do
adhere to standards at any one time. There should also be an acknowledgment of
the dynamic nature of many digital documents, raising issues associated with
authenticity.
Look and feel issues. We respect the look and feel concerns of
publishers and users but we have not to date found a solution to this in
Australia. While it would generally be desirable to retain the look and feel of
documents, which in some cases form a crucial part of them, the reality is that
in many cases it may not be feasible. While we can envisage putting the
resources into a very few items of great worth, we also recognise that it will
correlate to page by page - even fibre by fibre - treatment of traditional book
materials and this simply will not be possible for depository libraries to
unequivocally commit to. It may be a more feasible prospect for some specialist
agencies.
Restricted Access to Electronic Publications
A standard retention time is administratively appealing but is likely to
encounter significant practical problems. The reality is that commercial
publications will vary markedly in the length of time they are considered to be
commercially viable so in practice it tends to be negotiation with the
publisher on a case by case basis - which of course adds much to the workload
but it is difficult to see how this can be avoided. There are also other
reasons, apart from commercial ones, why access might need to be restricted for
a defined period of time. To give two examples, certain electronic records and
some oral history interviews may have restricted access periods placed on them
for a whole range of reasons, none of which has anything to do with allowing
commercial exploitation. A standard retention time would be impossible in these
cases as, depending on the reason, the restriction on access may vary from a
few weeks to several decades.
Public Funding
It is not clear how the statement that Users should not be required to
pay at the point of access relates to the standard retention time referred to
above. This is surely not advocating that depository libraries make documents
deposited via legal deposit freely available immediately? For networked
publications especially this would impose severe economic penalties on the
publisher. The model does not at this stage adequately address the relationship
between legal deposit libraries and copyright owners.
Who Should be Responsible for Archiving Digital
Materials?
The NLA Statement of
Principles refers to creators having an initial, and in some cases a
continuing, role in preserving access to them. This is intended to convey the
complexities of a digital environment in which a whole range of
responsibilities need to emerge and intersect. These responsibilities are
likely to shift over time. If this question is asking only about the long term
then it is unlikely that there will be more than a few agencies with the
necessary infrastructure and ongoing resources to make such a commitment.
Depository libraries seem the logical choice to play a role in preserving
"published" digital documents. Larger academic institutions who also create
digital documents should also play a role in ensuring their investment in
creating those important resources is maintained for future scholars. The
specialist agencies already referred to are also likely to play an important
role. The NLA is working on the assumption that the National and State
libraries who have responsibility for the collection and preservation of
Australian publications, will take responsibility for developing a national
model for the archiving of electronic publications, and for playing a
significant role in the maintenance of electronic archives. In fact many of the
issues raised in your paper are also being actively discussed by the committee
overseeing the PANDORA
project.
How Should this be Paid For?
Publicly funded institutions would be preferable, provided there was
acknowledgment that there would need to be additional funding provided for this
purpose. It could not reasonably be expected to be absorbed with other roles.
We assume there will continue to be an information provider role for libraries
as well as an information keeping role and there will inevitably be tensions
between these roles unless appropriate funding is provided. The idea of top
slicing research grants for research to cover the archiving costs of data
arising from the research is a good one, especially as it is preferable to plan
for these costs at the start. However there is as yet little empirical data on
exactly what costs are required. At the NLA, we are anticipating the PANDORA
project will shed light on the costs associated with archiving a selection of
networked publications.
NATIONAL LIBRARY OF AUSTRALIA, Canberra, ACT 2600, AUSTRALIA
Telephone + 61 2 6262 1111; Facsimile +61 2 6257 1703; Telephone Typewriter
Number: 1800 026 372
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