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Technological obsolescence

Technological obsolescence is the result of the evolution of technology: as newer technologies appear, older ones cease to be used. For example, new media for storing digital information rapidly replace older media and reading devices for these older media become no longer available. Newer versions of software constantly render older versions obsolete and the hardware required by this software also changes over time. Consequently, information which relies on obsolete technologies becomes inaccessible. Currently, it seems that the lifetime of digital storage media generally exceeds the life of the technology that supports it.

Strategies for dealing with technological obsolescence include: migration of digital information to technologies from which they are accessible, the emulation of obsolete systems, and the preservation of obsolete technologies.

While maintaining obsolete technologies might be the only option in limited circumstances, because of the associated need to keep every version of every piece of software and hardware, operating systems and manuals as well as personnel with relevant skills, it is not generally considered to be a feasible alternative. Emulation shows considerable promise: however, it is largely untested in the context of digital preservation. While migration is generally regarded as being the most promising digital preservation strategy currently, the difficulty in predicting the timing, nature and costs of this approach match the unpredictable nature of technological obsolescence itself.

Migrating digital information to standard formats, which are expected to be less volatile than the wide array of formats in which digital material may originally be accessible, will assist in mitigating the effects of technological obsolescence as well as in facilitating the transfer of information between hardware and software platforms as technologies evolve. Also, the creation and storage of metadata which includes information about technology dependencies will assist in managing and preserving access to this information.

Articles | Books | Events | Organisations and Websites | Online tutorial | Policies, Strategies & Guidelines | Projects and Case Studies | Bibliographies | Glossaries | Journals & Newsletters | Discussion Lists | Surveys | Tools | Evaluations

Articles

AONS II: Continuing the Trend Towards Preservation "software" nirvana
Pearson, David (Date Created: Oct 2007) (Australia)
This paper presented at IPRES 2007, reports on the AONS II project undertaken by the National Library of Australia in conjunction with the Australian Partnership for Sustainable Repositories.The AONS software tool allows users to automatically monitor the status of file formats in their repositories and receive notification of obsolescence risks.
http://ipres.las.ac.cn/pdf/David%20Pearson-AONS%20II_%20continuing%20t
he%20trend%20towards%20preservation%20software%20'Nirvana'%20-%20.pdf
Screenshots of presentation and paper available from the the IPRES2007 website. http://ipres.las.ac.cn/
AONS II: Continuing the Trend Towards Preservation Software 'Nirvana'
Pearson, David In: iPRES2007 - Special issue (Date Created: 25 Jan 2008) (Australia)
This paper was originally presented at iPRES 2007 in Beijing China. It reports on the AONS II project undertaken by the National Library of Australia in conjunction with the Australian Partnership for Sustainable Repositories. The AONS software tool allows users to automatically monitor the status of file formats in their repositories and receive notification of obsolescence risks.
http://www.infotech.ac.cn/qikan/manage/wenzhang/2008-0229.pdf
New Technology for Library and Information Service, iPres2007 Special Issue, Vol1, 25 Jan 2008.
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Historical The Archive as an Ecosystem
Coleman, David; Martin, Julia In: JEP - The Journal of Electronic Publishing (Date Created: Apr 2002)
This article introduces a new metaphor for the processes in managing the preservation of digital archives, that of the ecosystem, and likens the survival of data against technological change to the processes of evolutionary adaptation - "an ongoing process of selection -- of media platforms, of preservation structures, of migratory patterns " to avoid "data extinction".
http://www.press.umich.edu/jep/07-03/martin.html
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Assessing the Durability of Formats in a Digital Preservation Environment : the INFORM Methodology
Stanescu, Andreas In: D-Lib magazine (Date Created: Nov 2004)
INFORM (INvestigation of FOrmats based on Risk Management) was developed at the OCLC (Online Compter Library Center) as a methodology to measure the durability of various digital formats. The methodology includes six classes of risk, including software, hardware, digital object formats, migration processes, digital archive and associated organisations. Specific risk factors are identified in each of these classes. The article also describes the methodology of the measuring process, and how formats may be compared or evaluated with respect to risks affecting their preservation.
10.1045/november2004-stanescu
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/november04/stanescu/11stanescu.html
Historical Building A Digital Library Of Television News
Breeding, Marshall (Date Created: Jun 2003) (United States of America)
This article is a brief overview of the processes involved in establishing a digital archive of television news videotapes at the Vanderbilt Television News Archives in the USA. The author examines some technical apects of converting and preserving the videotape into a digital format; explains the different phases of the project, such as the creation of metadata and the establishment of the digitisation process; and provides an overview of the costs and challenges facing the project.
http://www.librarytechnology.org/ltg-displaytext.pl?RC=10346
Also available in PDF version, Computers in Libraries, June 2003, Vol 23, Issue 6, ISSN 1041-7915 and by subscription online at www.ebscohost.com/
CAMiLEON : BBC Domesday
CAMILEON (Creative Archiving at Michigan and leeds: Emulating the Old on the New)
This articles provides an overview of CAMiLEON's Domesday Project, which uses the BBC's 1986 Domesday Project as a test case for the implementation and development of emulation strategies for the preservation of digital material. The Domesday Project is a multimedia digital project originally produced on 12" video discs. It was intended that future generations would view this resource. It as chosen as a prime test case because it is in danger of loss through technological obsolescence, and represents challenges in terms of scale, complexity and intellectual property rights. The article includes FAQ's, technical and property rights issues and screenshots of the emulator in action.
http://www.si.umich.edu/CAMILEON/domesday/domesday.html
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Historical CAMiLEON : Emulation and BBC Domesday
Mellor, Phil In: RLG DigiNews (Date Created: 15 Apr 2003) (United Kingdom)
This article reports on a meeting in December 2002 at the University of Leeds to demonstrate and discuss CAMiLEON's (Creative Archiving at Michigan and Leeds Emulating the Old on the New) work in preserving the BBC Domesday Project. The article provides some background information on the original Project, including examples of content. The CAMiLEON Project has spent 3 years developing strategies for digital preservation and testing them with materials such as the BBC Domesday system. The article describes some of the issues and problems encountered during this process such as videodisc damage, hardware unreliability, development of emulation software and the ongoing issues of Intellectual Property Rights for the many individual and institutional contributors to the Project.
http://digitalarchive.oclc.org/da/ViewObjectMain.jsp?fileid=0000070511
:000006284166&reqid=683#feature3
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Historical Collection-Based Persistent Digital Archives - Part 1
Baru, Chaitan; Gupta, Amarnath; Ludaescher, Bertram; Marciano, Richard; Moore, Reagan; Rajasekar, Arcot; San Diego Supercomputer Center; Schroeder, Wayne; Wan, Michael In: D-Lib magazine (Date Created: Mar 2000)
This article, from the San Diego Supercomputer Center, "defines an approach for maintaining digital data for hundreds of years through development of an environment that supports migration of collections onto new software systems." "The ultimate goal is to preserve not only the bits associated with the original data, but also the context that permits the data to be interpreted." See also Part 2 of this article which describes the creation of a one million message persistent email collection.
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march00/moore/03moore-pt1.html
Historical Data Extinction
Tristram, Claire (Date Created: Oct 2002)
The author briefly describes migration, encapsulation and emulation as preservation strategies. The concept of a Universal Virtual Computer (UVC) is also discussed. The UVC would comprise of a program of simple instruction sets which would allow software programs to become interoperable between various types of hardware.
http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/12975/?a=f
Available in Technology Review, Vol. 105, issue 8 (October 2002) 1099-274X,
Digging Up Bits of the Past: Hands-on With Obsolescence
Buckley, Ellie; Entlich, Richard In: RLG DigiNews (Date Created: 15 Oct 2006) (United States of America)
This article provides an overview of Tthe File Format and Media Migration Service established by Cornell University Library.
http://digitalarchive.oclc.org/da/ViewObjectMain.jsp?fileid=0000070513
:000006282602&reqid=8139#article1
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Historical Digital Preservation : a Time Bomb for Digital Libraries
Hedstrom, Margaret (Last Updated: 16 Oct 1995)
This paper discusses the challenges and requirements of digital preservation, some current preservation strategies and their limitations and four areas for research and development: storage media, migration, conversion, and management tools.
http://www.uky.edu/%7Ekiernan/DL/hedstrom.html
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Historical Digital Preservation Strategy
Davis, Simon (Date Created: Nov 2002) (Australia)
This presentation looks at the National Archives of Australia (NAA) Digital Preservation Policy, devised from its Agency to Researcher Digital Preservation Project. As well as touching on digital preservation problems such as obolesence and restriction on the use of proprietary technology, the article explores data formats used by the NAA as a means of providing digital preservation solutions. These include data formats developed by the NAA, such as dataset, emailmessage, webpackage and XML and Java-based tools, as well as dataformats already in existence, such as XHTML, Portable Network Graphics (PNG) and Open Office.
http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/49635/20050510-0000/www.naa.gov.au/recor
dkeeping/rkpubs/fora/02nov/digital_preservation.pdf
Digital Preservation: Illuminating the Past, Guiding the Future
National Archives of Australia (Date Created: Jun 2006) (Australia)
This publication describes the challenges of digital preservation and the approach of the National Archives of Australia to preserving Commonwealth Government electronic records. It briefly introduces the Xena software.
ISBN: 1920807454
http://www.naa.gov.au/Images/XENA_brochure%5B1%5D_tcm2-918.pdf
Available online as PDF.
Digitization As A Preservation Practice: Look Before You Leap
Maroso, Amy Lynn (Date Created: Dec 2003)
The author stresses that although a collection may be digitised, it does not automatically mean it has been preserved. Obsolescence and file migration are major issues that librarians need to consider if future generations are to have access to digital collections.
http://www.haworthpress.com/store/ArticleAbstract.asp?sid=33C431RA3SVK
9P4T0Q2H8H0D95U958J8&ID=37319
Available in The Serials Librarian, Vol. 45, No 2, December 2003, pp. 27-37, ISSN 0361-526X or online at http://haworthpress.com/store/E-Text/ViewLibraryEText.asp
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Digitizing the World's Largest Collection of Natural Sounds : Key Factors to Consider when Transferring Analog-Based Audio Materials to Digital Formats
Grotke, Robert W In: RLG DigiNews (Date Created: 15 Feb 2004) (United States of America)
This article provides an overview of the steps undertaken by the Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at Cornell University (USA) in converting its analog tape-based sound collection to digital storage. The article describes the Library's choices regarding digital media and data format selection, quality standards for data creation, monitoring of the archive and long-term storage.
http://www.rlg.org/en/page.php?Page_ID=13201#article0
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Historical DPC Forum with Industry: Future R & D for Digital Asset Preservation
Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) (Date Created: Jun 2002) (United Kingdom)
This web page provides links to a summary meeting report and presentations by speakers from both the public and private sectors, as presented at the Digital Preservation Coalition forum with industry, held at Prospect House, London on 5th June, 2002. Topics covered long-term trends and research and development issues for preservation and access to digital material in both government and industry.
http://www.dpconline.org/graphics/events/rdfuture.html
End of History
Arthur, Charles (Date Created: 30 Jun 2003)
This article briefly discusses the issues and future implications in preserving both government and personal emails. It briefly discusses both hardware and software obsolescence and emulation and features quotes from Michael Day from UKOLN and the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC).
http://news.independent.co.uk/digital/features/story.jsp?story=420334
The full text of this article is available by subscription at http://www.independent.co.uk/portfolio/
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Historical Ensuring the Longevity of Digital Information
Rothenberg, Jeff (Last Updated: 22 Feb 1999)
This paper is an expanded version of the article "Ensuring the Longevity of Digital Documents" that appeared in the January 1995 edition of Scientific American (Vol. 272, No. 1. pp 42-7). It discusses the fragility of digital material and strategies for preserving access.
http://www.clir.org/pubs/archives/ensuring.pdf
Historical Fading Bits of History
James, Michael S. (Date Created: 9 Jul 2001)
In this news article for US ABCNEWS.com, Michael S. James brings the risks to digital information of instability of data storage media and hardware and software obsolescence into the wider public view. The article includes quotes from Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive.
http://www.thearchivecompany.com/Forms/Fading%20bits%20of%20history.ht
m
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Il Retaggio Multimediale fra Hardware, Software e Politiche Culturali
Ridi, Riccardo
In this article, Riccardo Ridi highlights the risks of media degradation and technological obsolescence of both software and hardware for digital material on physical media, and the risk of continuous change for networked material. Seven principles for dealing with these risks are proposed, including adoption of standard languages and software, creation of software, hardware and emulator libraries, preference for network distribution of digital publications and institution of a distributed digital archive for networked digital publications.
http://www.aib.it/aib/sezioni/veneto/ridi.htm
Historical Invest to Save: Report and Recommendations of the NSF-DELOS Working Group on Digital Archiving and Preservation
Hedstrom, Margaret; Ross, Seamus (Date Created: 2003)
This report identifies research challenges, development opportunities and solutions for problems associated with the preservation of digital information. Consisting of six main areas, the report presents digital preservation challenges; looks at the benefits of long-term preservation; summarises a set of principles and assumptions to guide the research agenda; highlights the work to date within this field; discusses a research agenda, including emerging research; and addresses the need for additional areas of support.
http://eprints.erpanet.org/archive/00000048/01/Digitalarchiving.pdf
Long-Term Accessibility of Packaged Digital Publications (NDL Research Report No. 6)
National Diet Library (Date Created: Mar 2006) (Japan)
This report details studies undertaken in 2003 and 2004 at the National Diet Library to investigate long term access and usability of CD Roms. The later study evaluated emulation and migration tests.
http://www.ndl.go.jp/en/aboutus/preservation_02_01_2006.html
Historical Lost in Cyberspace : the BBC Domesday Project and the Challenge of Digital Preservation
Brown, Douglas (Date Created: Jun 2003) (United Kingdom)
This article gives as overview of the Domesday project. Key concepts and terms are linked to a glossary and key citations are linked to abstracts and web sites.
http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/cyber/overview.php
Cambridge Scientific Abstracts Hot Topics series
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Historical Magnetic Tape Deterioration : Tidal Wave at Our Shores
Lindner, Jim (Date Created: 1998)
This article, which originally appeared in Video Magazine, examines some of the major threats to the provision of long-term access to magnetic media, such as the obsolescence of many magnetic formats and sub-formats. For materials recorded on magnetic carriers, the author recommends the making of both analogue and digital copies as a strategy to help overcome some of the difficulties associated with the evolution of technology.
http://www.vidipax.com/articles/tidal.html
Originally published in Video Magazine, February 1996
Myth of Doomed Data
Garfinkel, Simson (Date Created: Dec 2003)
This article attempts to debunk the idea that digital files and formats are in danger of becoming inaccessible. The author maintains that the digital files created today will be available in the long term because the technology already exists and as long as it distributed widely throughout society, access will be enabled. The author also argues that optical storage media has become a more stable format and that backwards media compatibility will need to be built into new generation machines for commercial viability. He also predicts that PDF and JPEG will be decipherable in the future because these formats are "well defined and widely understood", as well as noting the concept of a 'digital lock box', which would store and retrieve data in obsolete formats, as being worthy of government and industry support.
http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/13419/?a=f
in Technology Review, December 3, 2003 (Registration required for access)
Overcoming the Dangers of Technological Obsolescence : Rescuing the BBC Domesday Project
Abbott, Daisy In: DigiCULT.Info Newsletter (Date Created: Aug 2003)
This article briefly describes the original 1986 BBC Domesday Project and the efforts to rescue it from technological obsolescence. Two rescue projects are noted, using the alternative strategies of emulation, as investigated by the CAMiLEON Project, and the construction of a new application. There is also an interview with Paul Wheatley from the CAMiLEON Project on the techniques and challenges of emulating obsolete software, using Domesday to illustrate the issues.
http://www.digicult.info/downloads/digicult_newsletter_issue4_lowres.p
df
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Historical Planning for Obsolescence
Findlay, Cassie (Date Created: Aug 2002) (Australia)
This short article features quotes from the Curator of Information and Communications Technology at the Powerhouse Museum and briefly describes the online guidelines produced by State Records New South Wales which offer a range of strategies to help combat obsolescence.
http://www.records.nsw.gov.au/staterecords/docs/Vital%20Signs%20Issue%
202%20-%20Planning%20for%20Obsolescence.pdf
in Vital Signs, Issue 2, August 2002
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Historical Preserving Digital Information : Final Report and Recommendations
Garrett, John (co-chair); Task Force on Archiving of Digital Information; Waters, Donald (chair) (Date Created: 20 May 1996)
This report arose from a decision at the end of 1994 by the Commission on Preservation and Access (CPA) and the Research Libraries Group (RLG) to create a Task Force charged with investigating and recommending means to ensure "continued access indefinitely into the future of records stored in digital electronic form." This was a watershed exercise which generated thoughtful discussion on this topic worldwide.
http://www.oclc.org/programs/ourwork/past/digpresstudy/final-report.pd
f
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Historical Preserving Europe's Memory: PRESTO shows how to preserve Multi-media in the most cost-effective fashion
Richard Wright In: Cultivate Interactive (Last Updated: 06 Jan 2003)
This article outlines the PRESTO project which is looking at multimedia preservation issues for both analogue and digital media. The project is developing cost-effective and collaborative technologies and workflows for preserving multimedia.
http://www.cultivate-int.org/issue7/presto/
Historical Preserving Software: Why and How
Zabolitzky, John G (Date Created: 13 Sep 2002)
In this article the author highlights the importance of preserving both hardware and software developments so that future generations have a greater knowledge and understanding of computer history. As well as providing an overview of why it is necessary to preserve software and how such preservation can be achieved, the author stresses that the preservation of source code format software should be an immediate goal of organizations and suggests ways for this to be achieved such as the creation of a list of national heritage software.
http://www.cbi.umn.edu/iterations/zabolitzky.html
Available in Iterations: An Interdesciplinary Journal of Software History., 1, 13 September 2002, pp. 1-8, ISSN 1541-843X. Also available in PDF version
Historical Prowling The Ruins Of Ancient Software
Williams, Sam (Date Created: 30 Jun 2003) (United States of America)
This article looks at the growing concerns related to the obsolescence of software programs. Many software specialists are claiming that losing software history can be referred to as the “digital dark age” and liken the roles of software preservation specialists as archaeologists. In order to overcome these concerns, a seminar on software archaeology and preservation at the newly reopened Computer History Museum in California, USA is discussed. The Museum seeks to preserve the artefacts and interview the developers of software programs for the benefit of future generations.
http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/07/30/software_archaeology/
index_np.html
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Historical Reality and Chimeras in the Preservation of Electronic Records
Bearman, David In: D-Lib magazine (Date Created: 15 Apr 1999)
This magazine column is a response to the report to CLIR by Jeff Rothenberg "Avoiding Technological Quicksand". Bearman gives a critique of the solution described by Rothenberg and suggests that migration is still the preferred solution for the preservation of electronic records.
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/april99/bearman/04bearman.html
Safe keeping
The Economist Newspaper Limited (Date Created: 20 Sep 2001)
A brief article appearing in the Economist, focussing on the threat to the digital historical record, the efforts being put towards the design of digital archive repositories and the building of the Stanford Archival Vault (SAV).
http://www.economist.com/
This article is available from the website of The Economist at: http://www.economist.com/printedition/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=779564
Historical Software Archaeology
Hunt, Andrew; Thomas, David (Date Created: Mar 2002)
A short article describing the problems of understanding software code with little or no documentation. It ends with some suggestions as to how current developers could make code easier to work with in the future.
http://media.pragprog.com/articles/mar_02_archeology.pdf
IEEE Software, Volume 19, Number 2 (March/April 2002), ISSN 0740-7459.
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Survey and Assessment of Sources of Information on File Formats and Software Documentation : Final Report
Representation and Rendering Project, University of Leeds (Date Created: 2003) (United Kingdom)
This report was published by the UK Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) as part of their Digital Preservation and Records Management programme. The report canvasses issues of rendering, migration and obsolescence; identifies sources of information for file format and software documentation; and lists a series of recommendations to combat software and hardware obsolescence.
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/FileFormatsreport.pdf
Uncertain Fate of Scholarly Artifacts in a Digital Age
Carlson, Scott (Date Created: 30 Jan 2000) (United States of America)
This article looks at the challenges facing scholars in preserving digital objects for future generations. With a growing number of research materials such as novels, poems, letters, notes and artwork being produced electronically, there is an increasing concern amongst scholars that much of this information will become obsolete. The article debates whether society is entering a “digital dark age” or whether these technological changes will mean a new era for scholarship.
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v50/i21/21a02501.htm
Volume 50, Issue 21. Available by subscription.
Windows Desktop Product Life Cycle Support and Availability Policies for Businesses
Microsoft corporation (Regularly Updated) (United States of America)
An article outlining Microsoft's policy for ongoing support for its desktop business products with timeliness and details on specific products.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/lifecycle/default.mspx

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Books

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Historical Digital Archaeology : Rescuing Neglected and Damaged Data Resources
Ann Gow; Seamus Ross In: JISC/Publishers Association Working Party Papers and Reports (Date Created: Feb 1999) (United Kingdom)
A JISC/NPO funded report within the eLib Programme on the Preservation of Electronic Materials. The report looks at approaches to accessing digital materials where the media has become damaged or where the hardware or software is unknown or no longer available. It has a comprehensive bibliography of printed resources, a webography and several rescue case studies dealing with rescue techniques.
ISBN: 1 900508 51 6
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/services/elib/papers/supporting/pdf/p2.pdf
Historical Directory of Information Sources On Scientific Research Related to the Preservation of Sound Recordings, Still And Moving Images, and Magnetic Tape
Child, Margaret (Date Created: Sep 1993)
This directory focuses on two areas of concern: how to prolong the usable life of information on current physical carriers through safe environmental storage and correct handling and use; and how to ensure access to information when technology is changing.
ISBN: 1-887334-27-0
http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/child/child.html
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Historical Preserving and Sharing Statistical Material
Royal Statistical Society; UK Data Archive (Date Created: 2002) (United Kingdom)
This booklet is aimed at promoting the preservation and sharing of electronic data. it also discusses what should be preserved and includes the RSS Code of Best Practice on the Preservation and Sharing of Statistical Material.
ISBN: 0-906805-02-3
http://www.data-archive.ac.uk/news/publications/PreservingSharing.pdf

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Events

NARA : 18th Annual Preservation Conference : Preservation Reformatting : Digital Technology vs. Analog Technology
27 Mar 2003 , National Archives at College Park, Maryland
U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. (NARA)
(United States of America)
Contains links to conference proceedings. These papers all tend to debate the choices associated with making digital copies of analogue materials and relate the difficulties associated with maintaining the digital duplicates.
http://www.archives.gov/preservation/conferences/2003/index.html
PICNIC 06 : Avoiding the Digital Memory Loss
27 Sep 2006 , Westergasfabriek, Amsterdam (Netherlands)
A half day seminar held in conjunction with PICNIC 06.
http://www.europarchive.org/picnic06.php

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Organisations and Websites

Dioscuri - the Modular Emulator for Digital Preservation
(Date Created: 2006) (Netherlands)
Dioscuri is durable and flexible x86 computer hardware emulator written in Java. Dioscuri is being developed jointly by the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, Nationaal Archief of the Netherlands and PLANETS. News about the the project and documentation is available from this web site.
http://dioscuri.sourceforge.net/
NARA : 18th Annual Preservation Conference : Preservation Reformatting : Digital Technology vs. Analog Technology
27 Mar 2003 , National Archives at College Park, Maryland
U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. (NARA)
(United States of America)
Contains links to conference proceedings. These papers all tend to debate the choices associated with making digital copies of analogue materials and relate the difficulties associated with maintaining the digital duplicates.
http://www.archives.gov/preservation/conferences/2003/index.html
Historical Time and Bits : Discussion and Proceedings
(Last Updated: Apr 2000) (United States of America)
Although somewhat dated now, this website includes links to background papers, discussion and articles arising out of the Time and Bits: Managing Digital Continuity conference sponsored by the Getty Conservation Institute and Getty Information Institute, in collaboration with the Long Now Foundation in February 1998.
http://www.longnow.org/projects/conferences/time-and-bits/
Video Preservation Website
Messier, Paul; Vitale, Timothy (Date Created: 2007) (United States of America)
This website encourages preservation of historic video using digital capture to create individual video files, which would be stored on mass storage media such as hard drives (HDD) or data tape (DT). The site includes images and documentation for historic videotape equipment.
http://videopreservation.stanford.edu/index.html

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Policies, Strategies & Guidelines

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Cedars Guide To: Digital Preservation Strategies
University of Leeds (Last Updated: 02 Apr 2002) (United Kingdom)
This guide includes recommendations about technical approaches to digital preservation based on the Cedars experience.
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/cedars/guideto/dpstrategies/
Digital Preservation Guidance Note 2: Selecting Storage Media for Long-Term Preservation
Brown, Adrian (Date Created: 19 Jun 2003) (United Kingdom)
Produced by the Digital Preservation Department of the National Archives (UK) as part of its series of guidance notes on the preservation of electronic records, this document concentrates on selecting storage media for long-term preservation. Focusing on removable storage media, the document lists various criteria that need to be considered. Also included in the document is a media selection scorecard which compares different types of media and evaluates them against the selection criteria.
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/selecting_storage_media.p
df
This document is the second in a series of guidance notes developed by the Digital Preservation Department, National Archives, UK. It is also available as an RTF document.
Digital Preservation: Illuminating the Past, Guiding the Future
National Archives of Australia (Date Created: Jun 2006) (Australia)
This publication describes the challenges of digital preservation and the approach of the National Archives of Australia to preserving Commonwealth Government electronic records. It briefly introduces the Xena software.
ISBN: 1920807454
http://www.naa.gov.au/Images/XENA_brochure%5B1%5D_tcm2-918.pdf
Available online as PDF.
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Historical Preserving and Sharing Statistical Material
Royal Statistical Society; UK Data Archive (Date Created: 2002) (United Kingdom)
This booklet is aimed at promoting the preservation and sharing of electronic data. it also discusses what should be preserved and includes the RSS Code of Best Practice on the Preservation and Sharing of Statistical Material.
ISBN: 0-906805-02-3
http://www.data-archive.ac.uk/news/publications/PreservingSharing.pdf

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Projects and Case Studies

CAMiLEON : BBC Domesday
CAMILEON (Creative Archiving at Michigan and leeds: Emulating the Old on the New)
This articles provides an overview of CAMiLEON's Domesday Project, which uses the BBC's 1986 Domesday Project as a test case for the implementation and development of emulation strategies for the preservation of digital material. The Domesday Project is a multimedia digital project originally produced on 12" video discs. It was intended that future generations would view this resource. It as chosen as a prime test case because it is in danger of loss through technological obsolescence, and represents challenges in terms of scale, complexity and intellectual property rights. The article includes FAQ's, technical and property rights issues and screenshots of the emulator in action.
http://www.si.umich.edu/CAMILEON/domesday/domesday.html
Historical Museum of Software
School of Computer Science, University of St. Andrews (Last Updated: 2004) (United Kingdom)
"Although still in development, it is envisaged that this Museum will collect and maintain out of date software. This involves obtaining a machine-readable copy of the software, translating any obscure coding to make it intelligible, and, once the software has been rendered readable, storing it. Once this has been achieved, it is planned to exhibit and use the software in a variety of ways. "
http://web.archive.org/web/20061214065156/http://mos.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/
Site reorganised Wayback URL provided for historical interest.
Report of the East of England Digital Preservation Regional Pilot Project
East of England Regional Archive Council (Date Created: Jun 2006) (United Kingdom)
This is the final report of the Digital Archive Regional Pilot (DARP). Participants included the UKDA (UK Data Archive) , MLA East of England, EERAC (East of England Regional Archive Council) and two county councils. The UKDA processed selected obsolete and near obsolete formats from the county councils digital records to ascertain the processes involved in creating and maintaining long term access to digital data. The information gleaned from this exercise has resulted in the development of costings and cost models and the creation of a business case on the preservation of digital material using the three scenarios of in-house processing, consortia and contracting the process out.
ISBN: 0955341000
http://www.data-archive.ac.uk/news/publications/darp2006.pdf

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Journals & Newsletters

About Legacy Coding: The E-Publication for Legacy IT professionals
The Progeni Corporation (Regularly Updated) (United States of America)
A bimonthly e-zine of information about and personal experiences with legacy system conversions with a particular emphasis on the COBOL computer language. There is an archive of back issues from December 1999 onwards.
http://www.aboutlegacycoding.com/
Upgrade and Archive : the Ongoing Threat of Data Extinction
Hook, Brian R. (Date Created: 28 Aug 2003)
This news article briefly discusses some of the issues and approaches to digital preservation, including conversion of file formats and archiving of hardware as well as software.
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/perl/story/31436.html
in E-Commerce Times, 28 August 2003

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Tools

AONS II: Continuing the Trend Towards Preservation "software" nirvana
Pearson, David (Date Created: Oct 2007) (Australia)
This paper presented at IPRES 2007, reports on the AONS II project undertaken by the National Library of Australia in conjunction with the Australian Partnership for Sustainable Repositories.The AONS software tool allows users to automatically monitor the status of file formats in their repositories and receive notification of obsolescence risks.
http://ipres.las.ac.cn/pdf/David%20Pearson-AONS%20II_%20continuing%20t
he%20trend%20towards%20preservation%20software%20'Nirvana'%20-%20.pdf
Screenshots of presentation and paper available from the the IPRES2007 website. http://ipres.las.ac.cn/
Dioscuri - the Modular Emulator for Digital Preservation
(Date Created: 2006) (Netherlands)
Dioscuri is durable and flexible x86 computer hardware emulator written in Java. Dioscuri is being developed jointly by the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, Nationaal Archief of the Netherlands and PLANETS. News about the the project and documentation is available from this web site.
http://dioscuri.sourceforge.net/

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Related Topics: Archiving | Authenticity | Costs | Roles and responsibilities | Selection | Storage

Broader Topic: Issues

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