Suggested Readings for Students
Baker, Mary, et al. Why Traditional Storage Systems Don’t Help Us Save Stuff Forever.
Lavoie, Brian. The Open Archival Information System Reference Model: Introductory Guide. DPC Technology Watch Report 04-01. London: Digital Preservation Coalition, 2004.
———, and Richard Gartner. Preservation Metadata. DPC Technology Watch Report 05-01. London: Digital Preservation Coalition, 2005.
A report written for the Digital Preservation Coalition in the UK that describes the various components of digital preservation metadata as it relates to the Open Archival Information System (OAIS) Reference Model and the PREMIS (Preservation Metadata: Implementation Strategies) metadata emerging standard. It discusses use of preservation metadata, relevant and applicable standards for the cultural heritage community, and reasoning behind and examples of metadata for digital objects and their preservation.
Rothenberg, Jeff. “Ensuring the Longevity of Digital Documents.” Scientific American 272 (January 1995): 42–47.
An interesting article written for the broader community that covers digital preservation issues.
Task Force on Archiving of Digital Information. Preserving Digital Information. Commission on Preservation and Access and the Research Libraries Group, 1996.
This seminal digital preservation report from the Commission on Preservation and Access and the Research Libraries Group (RLG) recommends specific actions that organizations could undertake to develop reliable systems for preserving access to digital information. A considerable portion of the report explores the nature of “information objects in the digital landscape.” The report defines the high-level categories of challenges to the digital preservation of cultural heritage materials — one that most projects and reports sought to address over the next seven to ten years. Finally, it proposes concepts still relevant today, such as the creation of a distributed structure for collecting digital information resources, certified digital archives, and protection of the integrity of digital resources over the long term and retaining them for future use.
Thibodeau, Kenneth. “Overview of Technological Approaches to Digital Preservation and the Challenges in Coming Years.” In The State of Digital Preservation: An International Perspective. Washington, D.C.: Council on Library and Information Resources, 2002.
A key paper that describes the technical and technological approaches that can be taken to preserve digital objects. It provides an easy-to-understand walk-through of preservation strategies that can be applied to a variety of digital objects and projects the challenges for understanding and applying them on a mass scale in the coming years.