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Emulation

Emulation refers to the process of mimicking, in software, a piece of hardware or software so that other processes think the original equipment/function is still available in its original form. Emulation is essentially a way of preserving the functionality of and access to digital information which might otherwise be lost due to technological obsolescence.

Because it is impossible for any organisation to retain working examples of every computer and every piece of software, and because the cost of any attempts to do so would be prohibitive, emulation may offer a viable alternative strategy to ensure access to digital information in the future.

One of the benefits of the emulation strategy compared with migration is that the original data need not be altered in any way. It is the emulation of the computer environment that will change with time. This should help maintain the integrity and "look and feel" of the material.

Another advantage of implementing emulation is its possible efficiency. Once the data is archived with appropriate metadata and software, no other action is required apart from media refreshing until access is desired. One emulator can also be used as a solution for several data objects requiring the same operating environment.

Research Overview

Both Jeff Rothenberg and Steve Gilheany promote variations of how emulation may be implemented as a solution to digital preservation. However, others dispute that emulation is the panacea, and propose that it may be only a small part of a functional preservation strategy. The need for more practical studies in this area is commonly agreed.

Jeff Rothenberg describes an emulation strategy which entails developing techniques to:

  • specify the requirements to build emulators,
  • save in human-readable form the metadata required for providing access and
  • encapsulate and save the original digital item plus its contemporary software, metadata and emulator specifications together.

Therefore the emulator will only be constructed when access is required to the original item.

The method described by Steve Gilheany involves saving the original item and creating an emulator that will run on any standard model computer instruction set (see Turing Machines) and which will be preserved in binary code with the original item. This means any future computer given a Turing Machine emulator will be able to support the original item's emulator. Therefore the required components to access any item are the original emulator that runs on a Turing Machine created when the item is archived, and a Turing Machine emulator run on a future computer which is created when access is required.

The above versions rely on the archiving body to preserve the data object, metadata and the software components required for the system to access the data object being preserved.

The Koninklijke Bibliotheek (National Library of the Netherlands) and Jeff Rothenberg have embarked on experiments to evaluate emulation as a preservation strategy in May 1999. These experiments will be based on Rothenberg's hypothesis. More detail is available in the D-Lib Magazine article "Long-term Preservation of Electronic Publications" by Titia van der Werf-Davelaar. Practical studies are planned as part of a collaborative effort involving the CEDARS project team and researchers at the University of Michigan with funding through the Joint NSF/JISC International Digital Libraries Initiative.

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Articles

Historical Audio Archiving for 100 Years & Longer : Once We Decide What to Save, How Should We Do It?
Gladney, Henry (Date Created: Jul 2001)
Gladney's 10 page letter to the editor of the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society places the issues of audio preservation within the frame and concerns of digital preservation generally. It also provides a critique of current digital preservation approaches. He argues that low cost technology has encouraged the use of digital systems for audio by many libraries and archives but that little attention has been paid to the long term preservation of audio documents. These "incompletely solved challenges", he further states, avail themselves of technical solutions, but that the greatest issues will be economic and political.
http://www.aes.org/journal/suppmat/gladney_2001_7.pdf
Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, vol. 49, no. 7/8, July/August 2001
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Historical Avoiding Technological Quicksand : Finding a Viable Technical Foundation for Digital Preservation
Rothenberg, Jeff In: CLIR Reports (Date Created: 15 Jan 1998) Reviewed by: Reality and Chimeras in the Preservation of Electronic Records
This report to the Council on Library and Information Resources discusses digital preservation strategies and recommends emulation as the best possible solution to the digital preservation challenge. Rothenberg advocates the development of specifications to build an emulator for a digital document and its associated software, which are stored with the document. The work of building the emulator is not done until the document needs to be accessed.
http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/rothenberg/contents.html
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Historical Blueprint for Representation Information in the OAIS model
Holdsworth, David; Sergeant, Derek In: Cedars : Curl Exemplars in Digital Archives Project
This paper describes the current scheme for representation information employed in the CEDARS project.
http://www.personal.leeds.ac.uk/~ecldh/cedars/nasa2000/nasa2000.html
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Historical C-ing Ahead for Digital Longevity
CAMiLEON Project; Holdsworth, David (Date Created: Aug 2001)
This is the second draft of Emulation C-ing Ahead. This paper proposes the use of a subset of the C programming language as the most cost-effective technique for implementing emulation for long-term preservation.
http://www.si.umich.edu/CAMILEON/reports/cingahd.html
Historical 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://worldcat.org/arcviewer/1/OCC/2007/08/08/0000070513/viewer/file1
651.html#feature3
Historical CAMiLEON Project : Legal Issues Arising From the Work Aiming to Preserve Elements of the Interactive Multimedia Work Entitled "The BBC Domesday Project"
Charlesworth, Andrew (Date Created: 2002) (United Kingdom)
CAMiLEON is using the BBC's 1986 Domesday Project as a test case for the implementation and development of strategies for the preservation of digital material. The Domesday Project is a multimedia digital project originally produced on 12-inch video discs. It was intended that future generations would view this resource. However, the software and hardware required for viewing has a finite lifetime. The article discusses the intellectual property rights management issues associated with emulating the resource, the software required to use it and the professional and non-professional content.
http://www.si.umich.edu/CAMILEON/reports/IPRreport.doc
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Historical Carrying Authentic, Understandable and Usable Digital Records Through Time
Bikson, T.; RAND-Europe; Rothenberg, J. (Date Created: 6 Aug 1999)
This report to the Dutch National Archives and Ministry of the Interior presents the results of a study to define a strategy and framework for the long-term management and preservation of digital governmental records. A "testbed" in which specific digital preservation techniques can be prototyped and evaluated is proposed.
http://www.digitaleduurzaamheid.nl/bibliotheek/docs/final-report_4.pdf
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Historical CEDARS Project Report: April 1998 - March 2001
CEDARS Project Team (Date Created: Jun 2001) (United Kingdom)
The report of the first three years of the CEDARS project, a focussed investigation into digital preservation issues. The report comprises an overview of the CEDARS demonstrator archive established across the CEDARS partners, the universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Leeds, and contains case studies for a variety of deposited digital materials and basic recommendations for use of migration and emulation as preservation strategies. The report also provides guidance and recommendations on organisational and management issues. The full report is available for download as PostScript or PDF.
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/cedars/OurPublications/cedarsrepmar01exec.html
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Historical CEDARS: Long-term Access and Usability of Digital Resources: The Digital Preservation Conundrum
Russell, Kelly (Date Created: Dec 1998) (United Kingdom)
This article examines the meaning of the task of digital preservation, some strategies for preserving digital material, and provides background to the Cedars project.
http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue18/cedars/
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Historical Challenge of Preserving Digital Maps
Stenvall, Jani (Date Created: 2003) (Finland)
This article discusses the revision of the Finnish legal deposit legislation to include digital publications. It also discusses strategies in the preservation of digital maps at the Helsinki University Library, which is the National Library.
http://liber.library.uu.nl/publish/articles/000007/index.html
Also available in PDF version and in LIBER Quarterly, 13(2003)1-4, pp. 57-63, ISSN 1435-5205
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Comparison Between Migration and Emulation in Terms of Costs
Kol, Nada; Oltmans, Erik In: RLG DigiNews (Date Created: 15 Apr 2005) (Netherlands)
This extensive article discusses the major digital preservation strategies of emulation and migration and how they relate to lifecycle management issues and costs. Cost calculation formulae and cost components for both migration and emulation are canvassed. The example of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek's e-Depot is used to contexualise these issues.
http://worldcat.org/arcviewer/1/OCC/2007/08/08/0000070519/viewer/file9
59.html#article0
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Historical Database Preservation Issues
Verdegem, Remco (Date Created: 2003) (Netherlands)
This paper, based on the the work of the Digital Preservation Testbed, was presented at the ERPANET workshop on Long-term preservation of databases in Bern, Switzerland in April 2003. The progress in developing strategies for database preservation is discussed within the context of migration, emulation and in particular, XML conversions. XML, identified as an approach in its own right, is compared to alternate strategies. The Digital Preservation Testbed's XML conversion tool and schema is considered.
http://www.digitaleduurzaamheid.nl/bibliotheek/docs/longterm_preservat
ion_of_databases.pdf
Development of a Universal Virtual Computer (UVC) for Long-Term Preservation of Digital Objects
van Diessen, R. J.; van der Hoeven, J. R.; van der Meer, K. (Date Created: Jun 2005) (Netherlands)
"Emulation has been proposed as a preservation strategy for longevity of digital objects. An advantage of emulation is the relative platform independency. Emulation with a high degree of platform independency requires a Universal Virtual Computer (UVC), as described by Lorie. This paper describes the realization of the enhanced UVC developed for the National Library of the Netherlands. The preservation method of the UVC at preservation time and at retrieval time (in the future) is concisely described, the conceptual model of the UVC is given, and the object design and the logical data viewer of the UVC are presented. The UVC has been realized and proven to work for image types using the JPEG and GIF87a formats, although performance of the present UVC can still can be improved..." (Description from abstract)
http://jis.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/31/3/196
Journal of Information Science, Volume 31, Number 3 (June 2005), pp. 196-208 and by subscription online at http://www.sagepub.com/
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Digital Preservation & Emulation: From Theory to Practice
Granger, Stewart (Date Created: 2001)
To be presented at the September 2001 ICHIM Conference, this paper examines emulation as a digital preservation strategy. As well as drawing on mathematical theory, the author analyses the practical role of emulation in the preservation of digital materials.
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/cedars/pubconf/papers/ichim01SG.html
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Historical Digital Preservation : A Report From the Roundtable Held in Munich, 10-11 October 1999
Beagrie, Neil; Elkington, Nancy In: RLG DigiNews (Date Created: 15 Dec 1999) (Germany)
This report about the Roundtable meeting held in Munich in October 1999, hosted by the Bavarian State Library and the German National Library, provides a brief summary of current research and programmes for digital preservation and an overview of the situation within Germany itself.
http://worldcat.org/arcviewer/1/OCC/2007/08/08/0000070513/viewer/file3
27.html#confrep
Historical Digital Preservation : an Introduction to the Standards Issues Surrounding the Deposit of Non-Print Publications
Bide, M., Potter, E. J. , Watkinson, A. (Date Created: Sep 1999) (United Kingdom)
This study aims to focus attention on the issues surrounding legal deposit of electronic publications in the United Kingdom. The report defines electronic publications, how they should be selected for legal deposit and provides an outline of digital preservation strategies. The study provides a good summary of relevant digital preservation issues, focussing on legal deposit.
ISBN: 1873671253
http://www.bic.org.uk/files/pdfs/digpres.pdf
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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
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Historical Digital Preservation Testbed White Paper : Emulation : Context and Current Status
Digital Preservation Testbed (Date Created: Jun 2003)
This paper provides a detailed analysis of emulation as a means of digital preservation. It includes information about the background, context and use of emulation in digital preservation as well as a summary of current knowledge and research. The analysis concludes that "emulation is the only solution to digital preservation proposed so far that offers a way of preserving a digital record in its original form". While recognising the need to resolve some significant issues, the analysis identifies the potential low cost of emulation, its universality and ability to preserve the inherent aspects of digital originals as factors recommending the pursuit of emulation as a preservation strategy.
http://www.digitaleduurzaamheid.nl/bibliotheek/docs/White_paper_emulat
ion_UK.pdf
Historical Digital Reality II: Preserving our Electronic Heritage
NELINET (Date Created: 05 Jun 2000) (United States of America)
This page contains links to conference papers from a seminar held on Monday June 5, 2000 at John F. Kennedy Library, Boston MA which was co-sponsored by NELINET Preservation Advisory Center, John F. Kennedy Library and the Northeast Documentation Center.
http://www.nelinet.net/edserv/conf/digital/dr_2000/digital.htm
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Historical Digital Rosetta Stone: A Conceptual Model for Maintaining Long-term Access to Digital Documents
Heminger, Alan R.; Robertson, Steven B. (Date Created: 17 Jun 1998)
This document describes a method for digital preservation relying on keeping a "meta-knowledge archive" of how to interpret media formats and file formats to support data recovery and document reconstruction processes.
http://www.ercim.org/publication/ws-proceedings/DELOS6/rosetta.pdf
Dioscuri: Emulator for Digital Preservation
van der Hoeven, Jeffery (Date Created: Dec 2007) (Netherlands)
This article in International Preservation News, briefly describes Dioscuri, a portable and flexible modular emulator developed jointly by the Koninklijke Bibliotheek and National Archief of the Netherlands which is available as open source software from http://dioscuri.sourceforge.net.
http://archive.ifla.org/VI/4/news/ipnn43.pdf
International Preservation News No. 43 December 2007
Historical Echoes of Art : Emulation as a Preservation Strategy
Variable Media Network (Date Created: 08 May 2004)
This is the transcript of the conference held at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum on May 8, 2004.
http://www.variablemedia.net/e/echoes/index.html
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Historical Emulation : C-ing Ahead
CAMiLEON Project; Holdsworth, David (Date Created: Dec 2000)
An initial draft paper by David Holdsworth advocating the use of widely available programming languages, such as C, in the implementation of emulation as a digital preservation technique.
http://web.archive.org/web/20030415142659/129.11.152.25/CAMiLEON/dh/ol
dcing.html
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Historical Emulation as a Digital Preservation Strategy
Granger, Stewart In: D-Lib magazine (Date Created: Oct 2000)
An article focusing on the logistics of using emulation as a digital preservation strategy when contrasted against other possible approaches and user requirements. Extensive analysis is undertaken of Jeff Rothenberg's advocacy of emulation over other preservation strategies. It discusses the potential advantages of emulation, such as elegance and recreation of " look and feel ", and the possible disadvantages including that emulation may be problematic due to the undefined nature of technological change and the complexity of creating emulator specifications. The conclusion is that emulation is not a complete digital preservation solution, rather a partial one.
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/october00/granger/10granger.html
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Historical Emulation vs. Migration: Do Users Care?
Hedstrom, Margaret; Lampe, Clifford In: RLG DigiNews (Date Created: Dec 2001)
This article describes the findings of a user needs analysis investigating emulation and migration as digital preservation strategies. Performed as part of the CAMiLEON project, users were asked to evaluate a game running on its original platform, in emulation and as a migrated version rewritten for a later platform. The findings suggest little difference between the approaches from a user perspective, but draw attention to user sensitivity and the usefulness of user needs analysis.
http://worldcat.org/arcviewer/1/OCC/2007/08/08/0000070513/viewer/file1
628.html#feature1
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Historical Emulation, Preservation and Abstraction
CAMiLEON Project; Holdsworth, David; Wheatley, Paul (Date Created: 2000)
An article by David Holdsworth and Paul Wheatley outlining the advantages of emulation as a digital preservation strategy. The issues of longevity and affordability are stressed, and an example of emulation as applied to the George3 operating system is provided.
http://web.archive.org/web/20030608193653/129.11.152.25/CAMiLEON/dh/ep
5.html
Shorter version of paper available in RLG DigiNews, August 15, 2001: http://worldcat.org/arcviewer/1/OCC/2007/08/08/0000070513/viewer/file1396.html#feature2
Historical Emulation: RISC's Secret Weapon
BYTE.com; Halfhill, Tom R. (Date Created: 15 Apr 1994)
This paper is a discussion of emulation technology in a commercial rather than a preservation context. The first section contains a general technical background about how emulation works. The article continues with a detailed discussion of emulation products available at the time (1994), mainly for emulation of contemporary machines on opposing platforms. The opinion is expressed that there are problematic issues associated with emulation such as slow speed but that it also has potential for future use.
http://web.archive.org/web/20040215150435/http://www.byte.com/art/9404
/sec8/art3.htm
Byte Special Report, April 1994
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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
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Historical Experiment in Using Emulation to Preserve Digital Publications
Rothenberg, Jeff (Date Created: Apr 2000) (Netherlands)
This report presents the results of a preliminary investigation by the National Library of the Netherlands into the feasibility of using emulation as a means of preserving digital publications in accessible, authentic, and usable form within a deposit library.
http://nedlib.kb.nl/results/emulationpreservationreport.pdf
Historical Joint NSF/JISC International Digital Libraries Initiative
Chris Rusbridge; Griffin, Stephen; Wiseman, Norman In: D-Lib magazine (Date Created: Jun 1999)
This article describes the joint JISC (UK) and National Science Foundation (US) international digital libraries initiative. "The overall goals of the JISC/NSF program are to foster common approaches to shared problems, promote common standards, share expertise and experience and build on complementary organisational strengths and approaches in digital library research." Practical studies of the emulation strategy for digital preservation are planned as part of a collaborative effort involving the CEDARS project team and researchers at the University of Michigan with funding through the Joint NSF/JISC International Digital Libraries Initiative.
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/june99/06wiseman.html
Long Term Digital Preservation - An End User's Perspective
Doyle, Julie; Paquet, Eric; Viktor, Herna L. (Date Created: Oct 2007)
This paper given at ICDM'07 (The IEEE and ACM Second International Conference on Digital Information Management ,Lyon, France, October 28-31 2007) discusses the requirements of future end users of preserved digital documents. It presents a case study of an emulation framework to preserve 2D and 3D anthropometric data, testing of the emulation environment and evaluation using usability and authenticity criteria.
http://iit-iti.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/iit-publications-iti/docs/NRC-49840.pdf
NRC 49840, paper given at The IEEE and ACM Second International Conference on Digital Information Management (ICDM’07). Lyon, France, October 28-31, 2007.
Long Term Digital Preservation - Preserving the Authenticity and Usability of 3D Data
Doyle, Julie; Paquet, Eric; Viktor, Herna L. (Date Created: 2008)
This article presents a framework for the long term preservation of 3D data which uses emulation as a preservation strategy with a metadata framework to ensure future users can access and use the preserved 3D objects.
http://iit-iti.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/iit-publications-iti/docs/NRC-50420.pdf
NRC 50420, Manuscript for International Journal of Digital Libraries, 2008.
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 2004 study evaluated emulation and migration tests.
http://www.ndl.go.jp/en/aboutus/preservation_02_01_2006.html
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Historical Long-Term Preservation of Electronic Publications: the NEDLIB Project
Titia van der Werf-Davelaar, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The National Library of the Netherlands In: D-Lib magazine (Date Created: Sep 1999)
This article describes the NEDLIB project and explains how it is developing a deposit system for electronic publications (DSEP) on the basis of the OAIS model. Metadata for preservation and emulation experiments are also discussed.
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/september99/vanderwerf/09vanderwerf.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 an overview of the BBC 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 Metadata for Digital Preservation : An Update
Day, Michael In: Ariadne (Date Created: 21 Dec 1999)
In this article, Michael Day reviews recent activities related to the development of metadata schemes for digital preservation. He outlines the emulation and migration-based strategies for digital preservation and the role that preservation metadata is poised to play in both these approaches. He reviews both library and archives-based initiatives in this area. He describes the OAIS model and its implications for the development of preservation metadata.
http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue22/metadata/
In Ariadne, Issue 22
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Historical Metadata to Support Data Quality and Longevity
Rothenberg, Jeff (Last Updated: 3 Jun 1996)
This paper discusses two key needs for metadata: to support data quality and to ensure the longevity of data. In the latter category, the need for encapsulation with metadata which will enable future emulation is discussed.
http://web.archive.org/web/20040727082521/http://www.computer.org/conf
erences/meta96/rothenberg_paper/ieee.data-quality.html
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Historical Migration : a CAMiLEON discussion paper
CAMiLEON Project; Wheatley, Paul In: Ariadne (Date Created: 02 Oct 2000)
A paper by Paul Wheatley considering the different options for migration as a digital preservation technique.
http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue29/camileon/
Also available from University of Leeds website: http://www.personal.leeds.ac.uk/~issprw/camileon/migration.htm
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Historical Migration On Request : A Practical Technique for Preservation
Mellor, Phil; Sergeant, Derek; Wheatley, Paul (Date Created: Sep 2002)
This paper proposes "Migration On Request" as an alternative to the traditional view of format migration. The concept shifts the burden of preservation to a single tool, which must be preserved over time. The paper discusses the design, construction and testing of a software tool for On-Request migration of a digital drawing format.
http://www.si.umich.edu/CAMILEON/reports/migreq.pdf
Modular Emulation as a Long-term Preservation Strategy for Digital Objects
Van Wijngaarden, H.; Van der Hoeven, J (Date Created: 2005)
This paper describes the modular emulation model, which extends the concept of the Universal Virtual Computer (UVC) and involves emulating specific hardware components in software as separate modules, which can then be combined in a number of ways to emulate various target systems and configurations. The modules would be loaded and managed by a 'controller' and would run within a Universal Virtual Machine environment.
http://www.iwaw.net/05/papers/iwaw05-hoeven.pdf
Paper presented at the 5th International Web Archving Workshop (IWAW05)
Modular Emulation as a Viable Preservation Strategy
van Wijngaarden, Hilde; van der Hoeven, Jeffrey (Date Created: Oct 2005) (Netherlands)
Description from abstract - Emulation is the only strategy to ensure long-term access to digital objects in their original environment. The National Library of the Netherlands (KB) and the Nationaal Archief of the Netherlands believe that emulation-based preservation is worth developing and has to be tested. This short paper proposes a new model for emulation called modular emulation that will allow us to develop a working prototype for the rendering of digital objects in the future.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/1xclv3dvf9petwrm/?p=e1c8121c09dc47
46a51b164866bd9e10&pi=46
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 3652/2005 - Research and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries: 9th European Conference, ECDL 2005, Vienna, Austria, Sept 18-23. Proceedings. Full text via
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Historical National Archives Green Paper : An Approach to the Preservation of Digital Records
Davis, Simon; Heslop, Helen; Wilson, Andrew (Date Created: Dec 2002) (Australia)
This paper discusses the National Archives approach to digital preservation, specifically in relation to the Agency to Researcher Digital Preservation Project. Areas covered include the fundamental nature of digital records, problems of digital preservation, approaches to preservation such as migration and emulation and XML as an archival data format.
http://www.naa.gov.au/Images/An-approach-Green-Paper_tcm2-888.pdf
Available as PDF from this URL
Historical 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 Part of Our Culture is Born Digital : On Efforts to Preserve it for Future Generations
Aschenbrenner, Andreas ; Rauber, Andreas (Date Created: Jun 2001) (Austria)
This English version of a paper presented at the 'Knowledge Networking in Cultural Studies' conference in May 2001, examines the challenges for the long-term preservation of digital cultural heritage. The authors discuss some of the main technical issues involved in archiving the Internet, and evaluate possible solutions such as emulation and migration of data. The paper concludes with a report on the AOLA pilot project to create an Austrian On-Line Archive.
http://www.ifs.tuwien.ac.at/%7Eaola/publications/trans10.html
Published in Trans - Internet-Zeitschrift für Kulturwissenschaften, 10. Nr. / Juni 2001
Historical Perils of Digital Preservation
Ford, Piers (Date Created: 10 Jan 2003)
In this news article the author uses the example of the BBC's Domesday Project to illustrate the costs, software and hardware issues and rights management problems of a digital preservation project. He suggests that it is problematic and inefficient to preserve retrospectively and that digital preservation planning and strategies should be incorporated into the overall management of the data from its creation onwards.
http://www.vnunet.com/features/1137956
Historical Pixel Rosetta Stone: Packings and Colorspaces
Pirazzi, Chris (Last Updated: 6 Aug 1998)
This site is an example of how bytes and pixels can be described to provide a method of interpreting a bit stream of video on Silicon Graphics machines.
http://www.lurkertech.com/lg/packings/
Available from the SGI Lurkers Guide to video.
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Historical Preservation 2000: Review
Michael Day In: Ariadne (Date Created: Dec 2000)
This paper is a review of the Preservation 2000 conference and the Information Infrastructures for Digital Information workshop held in York, UK in December 2000.
http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue26/metadata/
Historical Preservation of the Times
Rothenberg, Jeff (Date Created: Mar 2002)
In this article, the advantages of emulation are compared to other forms of digital preservation. The author concentrates on two emulation strategies, chained emulated and rehosted emulation. Also included is a brief description of some unresolved issues in using this form of digital preservation.
http://www.arma.org/bookstore/productdetail.cfm?ProductID=1238
in, Information Management Journal (ISSN 1535-2897), March/April, 2003 and .pdf version available free to ARMA members and for purchase by non-members
Historical Preserving Information Forever and a Call for Emulators
Gilheany, Steve (Date Created: 17 Mar 1998)
This paper reviews some of the issues associated with planning to store information indefinitely. Long-term preservation must include a plan for preserving metadata as well as data. This paper also discusses the need for emulators to permanently preserve the functionality of the computer.
http://www.archivebuilders.com/aba010.html
Presented at the Digital Libraries Conference and Exhibition The Digital Era: Implications, Challenges and Issues, 17-20 March 1998, Singapore
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Historical Project on Preservation of Digital Data
Lorie, Raymond A. In: RLG DigiNews (Date Created: Jun 2001)
This paper, by an IBM researcher, reviews the challenges of preserving access to digital information, and after discussing conversion and emulation approaches, proposes a new approach to archiving data and program behaviour. The approach relies on development of a Universal Virtual Computer (UVC), allowing either the writing of methods to interpret an archived data stream, or specification of the way a program's original operating computer functioned. The IBM Almaden Research Center is involved in a joint project with the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, the National Library of the Netherlands, to evaluate the feasibility of a UVC solution for some specific data formats.
http://worldcat.org/arcviewer/1/OCC/2007/08/08/0000070513/viewer/file2
118.html#feature2
Pushing the Boundaries of Traditional Heritage Policy: Maintaining Long-term Access to Multimedia Content by Introducing Emulation and Contextualization Instead of Accepting Inevitable Loss
Miura, Gregory (Date Created: 23 Nov 2006) (France)
This paper outlines the directions of the Audiovisual Department of the Biblioteque Nationale de France to maintain a collection multimedia material and electronic documents. Experimental technical solutions and emulation are discussed.
http://archive.ifla.org/IV/ifla72/papers/091-Miura-en.pdf
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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
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Historical Researching Long Term Digital Preservation Approaches in the Dutch Digital Preservation Testbed (Testbed Digitale Bewaring)
Potter, Maureen In: RLG DigiNews (Date Created: 15 Jun 2002) (Netherlands)
Maureen Potter describes the work and progress to date of the Digital Preservation Testbed (Testbed Digitale Bewaring) belonging to the Dutch government's Digitale Duurzaamheid (Digital Longevity) programme aimed at retaining long term accessibility to government information. The article describes the Testbed's focus on four document types (text documents, email, spreadsheets and databases) using three preservation approaches (migration, emulation, XML), outlines the experimental methodology and provides some preliminary findings for text documents and emails.
http://worldcat.org/arcviewer/1/OCC/2007/08/08/0000070511/viewer/file1
521.html#feature2
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Historical State of the Art and Practice in Digital Preservation
Lee, Kyong-Ho ; Lu, Richang ; McCrary, Victor ; Slattery, Oliver ; Tang, Xiao (Date Created: Jan 2002)
This paper published in the Journal of Research of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (vol. 107, no. 1, pp. 93-106, Jan-Feb 2002) is a survey of ideas and practice in digital preservation as of late 2001. It first elaborates the various proposed strategies for digital preservation (including emulation and migration) before introducing a number of projects from Australia, Europe and North America. A final section recommends the development of preservation standards based on XML, and outlines some critical issues that still need to be resolved.
http://nvl.nist.gov/pub/nistpubs/jres/107/1/j71lee.pdf
Historical Uppity Bits: Coming To Terms With Archiving Dynamic Electronic Journals
Baudoin, Patsy (Date Created: Mar 2003) (United States of America)
This article primarily focuses on the issues relating to the preservation of dynamic electronic journals. As well as providing a definition and highlighting the main characteristics of dynamic e-journals, the author argues that developments need to be made to ensure the long-term preservation of, not only the static elements, but also the dynamic elements of dynamic e-journals. The author briefly assesses the three main areas of digital preservation – migration, emulation and archaeological approaches – and states that more research is needed in the area of emulation, maintaining that this approach has the potential to preserve and capture the dynamic elements of electronic journals.
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a903992740~db=all~ord
er=page
In The Serials Librarian, ISSN 0361-526X , Vol. 43, No. 4, 2003, pp. 63-72

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Books

Historical Using Emulation to Preserve Digital Documents
Rothenberg, Jeff (Date Created: Jul 2000) (Netherlands)
This book considers the problem of how to preserve digital documents from the perspective of the deposit library community. It discusses the theoretical and practical issues involved in using emulation as the preferred preservation strategy. There is also a theoretical cost comparison of emulation and migration.
ISBN: 906259145-0
http://www.kb.nl/pr/publ/expertise-en.html
Koninklijke Bibliotheek, PO Box 90407, 2509 LK The Hague, email: info@kb.nl & in PDF from website

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Organisations and Websites

Dioscuri - the Modular Emulator for Digital Preservation
(Date Created: 2006) (Netherlands)
Dioscuri is a 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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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/
Historical A Strategic Policy Framework for Creating and Preserving Digital Collections (Version 4.0)
Beagrie, Neil; Greenstein, Daniel (Date Created: 14 Jul 1998) (United Kingdom)
This study presents thirteen recommendations in the areas of long-term digital preservation, standards, the policy framework, and future research. Six case studies highlight some of the real-life considerations concerning digital preservation. It was replaced by version 5 in 2001.
http://web.archive.org/web/20000816025312/ahds.ac.uk/manage/framework.
htm
Historical Strategic Policy Framework for Creating and Preserving Digital Collections (Version 5.0)
Beagrie, Neil; Greenstein, Daniel; Pressler, Christopher (Date Created: Jul 2001) (United Kingdom)
This study presents fourteen recommendations in the areas of long-term digital preservation, standards, the policy framework, and future research. Six case studies highlight some of the real-life considerations concerning digital preservation.
http://ahds.ac.uk/strategic.pdf

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Projects and Case Studies

Historical 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 : Creative Archiving at Michigan and Leeds : Emulating the Old on the New
Hedstrom, Margaret (Regularly Updated) (United Kingdom; United States of America) Has papers: CAMiLEON Project : Legal Issues Arising From the Work Aiming to Preserve Elements of the Interactive Multimedia Work Entitled "The BBC Domesday Project"
Project CAMiLEON (Creative Archiving at Michigan & Leeds : Emulating the Old on the New) examined issues relating to the implementation of technology emulation as a digital preservation strategy. The project recognised emulation's potential to retain the functionality and 'look and feel' of digital objects created on now obsolete systems. It hoped to develop tools, guidelines and costings for emulation as compared to other digital preservation options. The project ran until 2003.
http://www.si.umich.edu/CAMILEON/
Keeping Emulation Environments Portable (KEEP)
(Date Created: 01 Feb 2009)
This 3 year collaborative project which is funded under the Seventh Framework Program and is led by the Bibliotheque Natonale de France, aims to develop an Emulation Access Platform to enable accurate rendering of both static and dynamic digital objects: text, sound, and image files; multimedia documents, websites, databases, videogames etc.
http://cordis.europa.eu/fetch?CALLER=FP7_PROJ_EN&ACTION=D&DOC=14&CAT=P
ROJ&QUERY=011f6d8aa49a:9a36:4c327c02&RCN=89496
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Historical UPF (Universal Preservation Format) Home Page
UPF, WGBH (Last Updated: 1998) (United States of America)
Sponsored by the WGBH Educational Foundation and funded in part by a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission of the National Archives, the Universal Preservation Format initiative advocates a platform-independent format that will help make accessible a wide range of data types. The UPF is characterized as "self-described" because it includes, within its metadata, all the technical specifications required to build and rebuild appropriate media browsers to access contained materials throughout time. The project has produced a Recommended Practices document.
http://info.wgbh.org/upf/

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Tools

Dioscuri - the Modular Emulator for Digital Preservation
(Date Created: 2006) (Netherlands)
Dioscuri is a 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: Encapsulation | Migration | Universal Virtual Computer (UVC)

Broader Topic: Digital preservation strategies

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