Digital Preservation Review Gatz

Janet Gatz
LIS 713
09/24/2016
Practical Limits to the Scope of Digital Preservation
In this article, Mike Kastellec discusses the limitations that exist for institutions working on
digital preservation. Instead of focusing on the different technological difficulties, He surmises that
there currently exists enough technology available, to shift the focus to non-technological problems.
Kastellec proposes that ‘the aspects of digital preservation beyond purely technical considerations—
access, selection, laws, and finances—should gain greater relative importance than they have in the
past” 1.
Kastellec separates his argument based on each of the non-technical considerations; access, law,
selection, and finance. An archiving institution must be able to access data in order to preserve it, and
they must also be able to allow access to the users who will use that preserved data. While there are
programs that, for a fee, will harvest information from the web. However, most data are not part of the
open web, and many websites have a short lifespan and can change the content or become inaccessible
over time 2.
There is also the legal facet of digital preservation. Kastellec explains that copyright laws are still
murky about what rules govern information on web pages. This makes it difficult to know how to
proceed with securing permission to preserve the items online. Kastellec argues that large-scale digital
preservation efforts can be hampered by the need to secure permissions, and ‘even scholarly databases
and periodical archives may not hold full rights to all of their published content’ 3.
He also contends that even once you have all the permissions and access to preserve
information, there is still the difficulties of choosing what to secure. There are several modes available
to preserve digital content. Each piece of content can be analyzed individually to decide if it is worth
preservation, institutions can make agreements with publishers to preserve all of their content, they can
also focus on preserving digital content based on a topic or event, or preserve all content no matter how
important or insignificant 4.
Kastellec finally states that all of these difficulties are also limited by finances. Cost
considerations will limit how much time and effort can be spent on all other items including technology.
How much can be preserved is based on if an institution can afford to have a dedicated staff member
1
Mike Kastellec, "Practical Limits to the Scope of Digital Preservation." Information Technology & Libraries 31, no. 2 (June 2012): 63-71.
Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed September 16, 2016). PG. 65
https://dom.idm.oclc.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=83583527&site=ehost-live&scope=site
2
Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed September 16, 2016). PG. 65-66
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working on it. Legal permission to some items might only be allowed by paying certain fees or
subscriptions to gain access to the information, and the cost of these fees might limit how much content
an institution is willing to select to preserve. Kastellec states that even the technical model of digital
preservation that offers the least risk has to contend with costs to sustain it. 5 The author also goes over
several funding models to show how each has their own inherent limitations such as how rights holder
who digitally preserves their own content may stop due to lack of interest, or sites like Wikipedia
running due to volunteer funding. 6
Overall I found Kastellec’s article to be an informative look at the difficulties in digital

preservation outside of the technology needed. I do not know if his assumption about the focus on
technological difficulties in digital preservation is true, but I found his article an interesting take on the
problem. I especially found the part on law quite interesting. I've known little information about the
difficulties of copyright law and digital content, but I never contemplated how it affected items beyond
songs, books, or videos that exist as both hard copies and digital. I also find his conclusion that cost is
the greatest limitation to both technological and non-technological considerations to be accurate.
However, I think that he could have reorganized his article to give it a bigger impact. I understand why
he separated all of the non-technological considerations, but I think that he could have shown how they
are all interconnected a little better. While discussing financial difficulties, Kastellec added a diagram
showing a nested model of all the limitations in digital preservation. Considering cost is the largest
limitation of that diagram, I think it would have been better if he had started with that topic and then
brought other difficulties in order of importance. I believe it would have given the paper a better flow
when reading. Otherwise, the logic seemed sound, and the author kept on message.
Bibliography
Kastellec, Mike. "Practical Limits to the Scope of Digital Preservation." Information Technology &
Libraries 31, no. 2 (June 2012): 63-71. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed September 16,
2016).
https://dom.idm.oclc.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=
83583527&site=ehost-live&scope=site
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6
Good Enough for Now: Digital Preservation at Small and Medium-Sized Universities
This article by Dr. Jeffery Hancks presents the research and conclusions of a grant project
conducted by the joint efforts of Northern Illinois University Libraries, Chicago State University, Illinois
State University, Illinois Wesleyan University, and Western Illinois University, partnered under the name
the Preserving Objects with Restricted Resource (POWRR). Its goal was to study the problems that small
and medium-sized universities had with finding and implementing a digital preservation. They were
charged with analyzing the digital preservation landscape and find a recommendation on how
institutions of small and medium size could best become active in the preservation movement 7.
Each university began their research by writing a detailed analysis of their current digital
preservation environments along with procedures for preserving digital information that each institution
preferred to follow 8. The conclusion of this analysis provided two things. First, it showed each
institution that their campuses contained more unsecured digital information that they initially
believed 9. Second, the process of compiling these analyses helped change the philosophies of the group
members. While they had initially believed that digital preservation should be vigorously instituted or
not at all, they discovered early on that any type of preservation was preferred to doing nothing 10. This
change in philosophy seems to be a very important part of Hancks conclusion, and I would have
preferred if he had gone into more detail about these university analyses' and how the group’s new
philosophy came about.
Once each university knew the status of their digital preservation environments, the group
began to research the different digital preservation tools on the market. They developed a rubric,
named the Tool Grid, to compare and contrast the tools based on key areas; ingest, processing, access,
storage, and maintenance. 11 The second round of testing consisted of six of the initial seventy digital
preservation tools. Of the six, two were free and the other four were services available for services
costs ranging from $2000 per year to more than $4000. 12 The article gives general information about
each tool, along with an image of the rubric for each area the program contains colored in. Among the
six different programs, only the product Preservia having all aspects of the rubric.
7
Hancks, Jeffrey. "Good Enough For Now: Digital Preservation at Small and Medium Sized Universities." AIP Conference Proceedings 1644, no. 1
(February 9, 2015): 141-146. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed September 15, 2016). Pg. 142
8
9
10
Hancks, Jeffrey. "Good Enough For Now: Digital Preservation at Small and Medium Sized Universities." AIP Conference Proceedings 1644, no.
1 (February 9, 2015): 141-146. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed September 15, 2016). Pg. 142
11
12
1 (February 9, 2015): 141-146. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed September 15, 2016). Pg. 143-145
I found this article very easy to follow, but found the detail lacking, specifically in the first round
of testing. Hancks states that the phase where they tested different digital tools was the main part of
their research but the discussion of their initial tests and the results are completed in three sentences.
The explanation of how the research group came together, the university analysis, and the change in
philosophy was explained in much more detail than this essential part of their research. Since the article
contains only information about the digital preservation tools that were tested in depth, I would have
also liked to know how these six pieces of technology were chosen over the seventy different toolsets
they looked at. While the article mentions that the decision was made after talking with ‘a panel of
distinguished digital curation and preservation experts across the United States,’ I would like to know
what criteria was used to inform their decisions. 13 The article was quite good, but it left me wanting just
a page more of information.
Bibliography
Hancks, Jeffrey. "Good Enough For Now: Digital Preservation at Small and Medium Sized Universities."
AIP Conference Proceedings 1644, no. 1 (February 9, 2015): 141-146. Academic Search Complete,
EBSCOhost (accessed September 15, 2016).
13
The Future of History: Investigating the Preservation of Information in the Digital Age
This article shines a light on the role of digital preservation in the UK and attempts to determine
if a digital black hole exists. Lena Roland and David Bawden investigated the assumption that the
current difficulties facing digital preservation in the United Kingdom will result in a large gap in historical
information for the future; referred in an introductory quote as a ‘digital black hole’. 14 Like many other
articles, the difficulties that are believed to be causing data loss are the alacrity of technology becoming
obsolete, the current legal framework in the UK making it difficult for institutions to capture and
preserved digital material, the social and cultural uncertainty about what and how much information
should be captured, and the confusion and indecision about exactly how historians will establish
provenance with mediums like web pages and social media that are constantly changing.
To discern the current state of digital preservation in the UK, the authors interviewed a total of
41 historians, librarians, and archivists on the current state of digital preservation and what they
thought could be done to ensure that future historians have access to as large a historical record as
possible. 15 These results of the interviews were separated into five topics; digital preservation,
awareness and engagement, the web, selection and curation, the historian’s craft, and a digital black
hole. The article itself is written from a historian’s perspective and has an emphasis on how digital
preservation will shape historical research rather than focusing on the work of librarians or archivists.
This article contains a lot of information designed to show the gaps in the UK’s digital
preservation system. All the interviewees knew what digital preservation is, but librarians and archivists
were the most active participants in the movement. 16 Similarly, historians’ main focus was the
digitization of analog data and did not consider it their job to focus on the future of history or the
preservation of digital material. 17 Roland and Bawden also found no consensus for how or if using a
digital ‘cloud’ to store information long-term should be considered a viable option. I was not surprised
that the concept of the digital cloud was mentioned in the interviews, but I was startled that its use was
even considered a viable long-term solution. Though this may be due to several articles published since
2012 showing that the digital cloud may not be as safe as originally believed. Many interviewees
considered the biggest challenge in preserving data from websites to be their short lifespan. However,
there was a consensus that items like blogs, status updates, YouTube Videos, and tweets should be
preserved as a unique insight into historical events. 18 The nature of websites to change or be deleted
quickly has also caused complications for historians attempting to establish provenance. The ease that
14
Lena Roland, and David Bawden. "The Future of History: Investigating the Preservation of Information in the Digital Age." Library &
Information History 28, no. 3 (September 2012): 220-236. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed September 23, 2016). Pg. 220
15
Information History 28, no. 3 (September 2012): 220-236. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed September 23, 2016). Pg. 220-221
16
17
18
digital information can be changed, deleted, or removed from historical record makes might make skills
such as data mining become more important in time, and. 19
The area of consensus for the individuals in the survey was on selection and curation of data.
Most, if not all agreed that archivists should have the ultimate responsibility for choosing what should
be preserved or not, but all three groups should improve their cooperation. 20 There was a heavy
emphasis on who should responsible for digital preservation based on who keeps the physical records.
Examples of this were businesses preserving their information for both historical and legal reasons, and
while government organizations curating in their own records. 21
Roland and Bawden acknowledge that technological change is a major threat to digital
preservation, but have found that many organizations use the same handful of case files to prove the
fragility of data and the perils of obsolete technology. During their interviews they were unable to find a
single individual who had experienced the massive data losses that are often feared. 22 They instead
discovered that small data gaps in historical documents were more likely. This is a concern, but the
authors explain that there have always been small gaps in historical data, and often these digital gaps
can be supplemented by data from analog sources. 23 While there isn’t a ‘black hole’ like some in the
digital preservation community are said to believe, Roland and Bawden did emphasize that the lack of a
set plan for digital preservation in the UK was a major concern and that the focus should be on the
planning and implementation of the program along with collaboration between historians, archivists,
and librarians. 24
I found the conclusions by Roland and Bawden to be intriguing. The authors spent several pages
showing how this great black hole of information theory was not true, but then concluded that there is
still a major digital preservation problem that needs to be addressed. It seems their worry is not that
there is going to be major gaps in data information, but that there is no country-wide plan to preserve
data in general. I do think that the information given throughout the article was useful in showing why a
national plan needs to be in effect, and why cooperation between historians, archivists, and librarians is
essential for it to succeed. The article made me think that the big blockage in this cooperation is on the
part of historians. I think they were successful in implying that historians like using the information that
is provided but does not want to be part of digital preservation for future historians.
19
20
21
22
Information History 28, no. 3 (September 2012): 220-236. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed September 23, 2016). Pg. 221, 231-
232 https://dom.idm.oclc.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=77733992&site=ehost-
live&scope=site
23
24
Bibliography
Roland, Lena, and David Bawden. "The Future of History: Investigating the Preservation of Information in
the Digital Age." Library & Information History 28, no. 3 (September 2012): 220-236. Academic Search
Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed September 23, 2016).

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Janet Gatz

Practical Limits to the Scope of Digital Preservation

Overall I found Kastellec’s article to be an informative look at the difficulties in digital

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