Digital Preservation Cluster (WP6)

Throughout its four years the Digital Preservation Cluster of the DELOS Network of Excellence in Digital Libraries focused on enhancing preservation methods, tools and functions within the context of digital libraries. The Cluster had broad goals to enable partners to collaborate on innovative new research in digital preservation, to create synergy between those doing research in the area of digital preservation and digital libraries, to promote the adoption of preservation technologies in digital library development designs, to raise the profile of digital preservation issues within the Digital Library Community, and to increase our collaboration with other international researchers conducting research in the domains of digital libraries and preservation.

More specifically, building on the progress of the Cluster in earlier years, for JPA4 the Digital Preservation Cluster (DPC) set itself the goals in its final twelve-month period up to the end of December 2007 of:

* contributing to integrating the preservation concepts that were developed by the Cluster into the digital library reference model being constructed as part of WP1;

* defining a model for workflow in the semi-automation of the processes of ingesting material into preservation environments so as to improve the construction of digital libraries (Task 6.7 and Deliverable 6.81);

* putting in place the preliminary model for an Open Testbed Document Corpus: Preliminary Design (D6.11.1), through the release of a Participatory Metadata Extraction Testbed Corpus (http://www.mycorpus.eu/users/login). PMETC enables DELOS-DPC to take forward its development of a consistent corpus for use by researchers in the preservation research community. We have established plans to populate this corpus and to manage and track how it is used. We have made it available to other projects and they have begun to populate it also;

* completing work to investigate the possibilities of automating appraisal and re-appraisal (Task 6.8). This investigation built on research carried out in Tasks 6.6 and 6.7 in earlier phases (JPA2 and JPA3) resulting in the release of Automated re-Appraisal: Managing Archives in Digital Libraries (D6.10.1). This study provides us with direction for developing prototypes for automated tools to validate appraisal/re-appraisal approaches;

* organising an international workshop (Rome, 15-17 November 2007) on appraisal in the context of digital libraries. This workshop, which brought together 22 speakers from nine countries (Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Norway, United Kingdom, USA), provided a dynamic platform for discussion and stimulated new ideas. Proceedings from the workshop are in preparation and will include the papers and a summary of the conclusions reached during the workshop; and

* beginning, and completing, work on examining the application of the DRAMBORA toolkit to the context of digital libraries to support the assessment of the repository aspects of digital libraries. We conducted four audits (MBooks Michigan-Google Digitization Project in the US, CERN Document Server in Switzerland, National Library of Sweden, and Gallica of the National Library of France), and are publishing the results. We began work to raise awareness of the importance of measuring the preservation capabilities of digital libraries, and to identify through effective testing what modifications need to be made to DRAMBORA to ensure that it responds effectively to the particular requirements of the digital library environment.

Among our other core activities is the summer school on Digital Preservation in Digital Libraries; the summer 2007 event in Pisa, which focused on the available practical solutions, was a success. Details of the summer school are available on the Cluster website (http://www.dpc.delos.info) including a report entitled 'Participant Feedback on DELOS SS07: Summer School on Digital Preservation in Digital Libraries'.

Throughout its life, the DELOS-DPC acted as a collaborative incubator for the research environment. The outcomes of our research have been integrated as components of larger research projects (e.g. Planets and CASPAR), have enabled us to make plans for further research projects, and have provided us with new directions for future research in the area of digital preservation and digital libraries.

For full details of this work see our report

The DELOS Preservation Cluster focuses on enhancing preservation methods, tools and functions in the context of digital libraries. The Cluster has broad goals to promote the adoption of preservation technologies in digital library development designs, to raise the profile of digital preservation issues within the Digital Library Community, and to increase our collaboration with other international researchers conducting research within the digital libraries and preservation communities.

More specifically, building on the progress of work during 2004 and 2005, up to the end of 2006 the Preservation Cluster set itself the goals of:

*integrating the preservation concepts that were developed by the Cluster with the DELOS Digital Library Reference Model that is being constructed as part of WP1;

* making progress with the semi-automation of the processes of ingesting material into preservation environments so as to improve the construction of digital libraries;

* examining how best to deliver a substantial corpus of documents that will support measurable research in the area of automated metadata extraction; and

* completing the delivery of tools to support the application of utility analysis to the selection of preservation approaches.

Among our other core activities is the summer school on Digital Preservation in Digital Libraries; this year’s event in San Miniato (2006) was a success, and a report has been published in the journal Archivi e Computer.

For full details of this work see our report

As part of workpackage 6 in the DELOS Network of Excellence, the work presented here covers Task 4, the ?Documentation of Functionality and Behaviour Metrics?. Therefore a framework was designed for documenting appearance, behaviour and functionality of an electronic document by adapting the ?Utility Analysis? and its ?Objective tree? for preservation scenarios. Based on this theoretical model a workflow is presented, which can be applied to create an objective tree and to identify the criteria, which need to be represented. To proof the usability of this concept, it is applied to two different case studies, first to a law-journal consisting of MS-DOS documents and second to the audio-files of the ?Austrian Phonogrammarchiv?.

Based on the objective tree this paper introduces a metric for testing and evaluating digital preservation strategies, which is part of the research done in Task 1 ?Digital Preservation Testbed Forum?. Since the metric is very much related to the objective tree and since it is also based on the ?Utility Analysis?, it is also published in this report.

Carl Rauch, Stephan Strodl and Andreas Rauber
27 June 2005

Task Leader and Contact Person: Andreas Rauber, TUW(29)
Participants: TUW (29), UNIURB (30), UofGlasgow (9), OEAW (37), UKOLN (4)

At present, preservation aspects of digital libraries are usually discussed as a specialised topic, which is frequently addressed only after a digital library system has been implemented as a whole. On the other hand, we assume that preservation considerations should be an integral part of the process that leads to the establishment of a digital library from the outset.

This can only be guaranteed if preservation becomes part of the standard design process of digital libraries. This, in turn, is made difficult by the fact that digital libraries and repositories, as practically implemented software systems, can evolve in a variety of situations and working processes. Indeed, while most authors would agree that digital libraries are examples of very complex information systems, their scope is sufficiently broad for most people to agree that no really precise definition exists of which components are absolutely necessary to make a system a digital library rather than a similar but different or deficient information system.

To guarantee that preservation aspects are taken care of during the creation of a digital library it is therefore not sufficient, or rather impossible, to add requirements to one clearly defined construct. We have to make sure, that - independent of the concrete concept chosen during the creation of a digital library - the procedural steps taken in implementing that concept will automatically lead towards the preservation field. This in turn is only possible if we discuss preservation aspects as part of the fundamental design process for each and every information system.

The most general approach we found for this is to look at the current standard approaches of system design. As the most common tool for the design of information systems is currently the family of graphic design methods built around the Unified Modelling Language, we find that the only sufficiently general solution for ensuring that preservation aspects are taken care of in the design of every digital library consists of defining a design method that expresses preservation requirements as a basic problem to be addressed in UML-based system design. This allows us, in the future, to evaluate fairly precisely whether the design of a DL system handles preservation aspects consistently and adequately.

This design method is developed in the following text in a three-stage process: We start by translating two concepts of digital libraries into UML diagrams, covering one rather pragmatic model and the one model that so far can claim to provide a complete formal model of digital libraries, namely Fox's 5S model. We continue by giving a complete design for the persistency modules that need to be included in the design process of any DL and we finally show that these modules fit both of our base models, the pragmatic as well as the formal one, and are therefore presumably general enough to fit all current planning activities in the DL area.

For the purpose of clarification, in particular for the user without a formal background in software technology/systems design matters, we add as an appendix an abbreviated version of an earlier document, which compares various candidates for 'very general design methodologies' and describes in detail why we have chosen the approach described above.

Further validation and development of this work will continue during 2006.
Volker Herrmann and Manfred Thaller
1 December 2005

Task Leader and Contact: Prof Manfred Thaller, UCO (39)
Participants: UNIURB (30), UG (9), UCO (39), TUW (29)

A Framework for a Digital Preservation Testbed

The digital preservation cluster of the DELOS project (www.dpc.delos.info) has published a report that provides description of a digital preservation testbed. As written in section 2.1 this is the first attempt to develop a generic framework for the evaluation of digital preservation strategies. As such this report describes the context of the research, the scope, the testbed environment with the sample objects and experiment and research databases, the metrics for testing, the preservation approach trials including an overview of the steps in an experiment, and finally the management of the results and products of the experiments. It is building upon the work and experiences of the Dutch Digitale Bewaring Testbed (see www.digitaleduurzaamheid.nl) and the OAIS reference model.

The framework will help organisations to establish reliable testbeds for research and for evaluating what the most suitable preservation strategy may be for their specific needs. The report is important, because it gives a comprehensive overview of and insight into the subject matter.

The bonus of the report is that the framework also can be used as a solid basis for a system environment in which the actual preservation activities, such as migration, will take place. In principle such an environment requires a similar kind of approach as a testbed for assessing preservation strategies. When one or more computer files have to be migrated the process will consist of the same steps as in carrying out an experiment for evaluating a preservation strategy. The actual preservation process will require a similar very structured and reliable process, including an evaluation mechanism to check the final result. Since there are no real preservation systems yet, this may be a first step for developing them. As such the report is innovative and describes the components of such a system, i.e. the objects, the processes (preparation, preservation, evaluation and documentation), as well as the context in which it may function.

Task Leader and Contact Person: Hans Hofman, NANETH (35)
Participants: TUW (29), UofK?ln (39), NANETH (35), UofGlasgow (9), UKOLN (4)

With the development of technology, file formats are increasing in both number and complexity. This is a critical issue for digital preservation. The aim of
digital preservation is ensuring that records are filed and made accessible throughout time, but as a result of progress in software and technology old formats soon become unreadable and unusable. Different research initiatives are focusing on this issue, trying to define preservation-friendly standard formats, as well as strategies for records to be made available over time and for their presentation and content to be preserved.

This report offers an overview of file formats presented in the relevant literature and of their characteristics. The fundamental requirements for file formats in a digital library environment are identified and discussed. In addition, the most important digital preservation strategies for managing file formats are presented. To complete the analysis of the relevant literature, the most significant projects dealing with file formats management are then illustrated.

Task Leader and Contact: Maria Guercio, UNIURB (30)
Participants: UNIURB (30), UG (9), OEAW (37), UKOLN (4), TUW (29)

Strodl, S; Rauber, A; Rauch, C; Hofman, H; Debole, F; and Amato, G, 2006, 'The DELOS Testbed for Choosing a Digital Preservation Strategy'
Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Asian Digital Libraries, ICADL 2006, Springer Verlag
27th - 30th November 2006, Kyoto, Japan
[view pdf]

Rauch C., Pavuza F., Strodl S. and Rauber A., 2005, 'Evaluating preservation strategies for audio and video files'
Proceedings of the DELOS Workshop on Digital Repositories: Interoperability and Common Services
May 11-13 2005, Heraklion, Greece
[view pdf]

Ross S., and Hedstrom M., 2005, 'Preservation Research and Sustainable Digital Libraries'
International Journal of Digital Libraries (Springer)
doi:10.1007/s00799-004-0099-3
[view pdf]

Rauch, C., Rauber, A., 2004, 'Preserving Digital Media: Towards a Preservation Solution Evaluation Metric'
Proceedings of the International Conference on Asian Digital Libraries (ICADL 2004). Springer LNCS 3334
December 13-17 2004, Shanghai, China
[view pdf]

Perla Innocenti, Andrew McHugh, Seamus Ross, Raivo Ruusalepp, 2007, 'Risk Management Foundations for DLs: DRAMBORA (Digital Repository Audit Method Based on Risk Assessment)'
Presentation at the "DELOS 2nd Workshop on Foundations of Digital Libraries"
20 September 2007, Budapest, Hungary
[view pdf]