4 Jun 2013

Trust and Digital Preservation, 4th - 5th June -- Day 1

Today I went along to the first installment of a two-day workshop revolving around the idea of the importance of creating trust and authenticity within the domain of archival and preservation practices around digital content information. What follows below is a selective recapture of today's activities and some relevant resources.

The day started off with an introduction to APARSEN, which is an alliance of institutions in the business of enabling long-term accessibility and usability to digital information and data through a shared and sustainable infrastructure. Consider in particular their knowledge base, which contains resources on technologies and preservation tools. David Giaretta's half-hour lecture on the difficulties of digital preservation is well worth checking out in this context.

Next up was an overview of the Digital Repository of Ireland, which is about preserving contemporary and historical, social and cultural data held by Irish institutions. Consider their reports section to find out more about activities of digital archiving within the Humanities and Social Sciences in Ireland.

Mariella Guercio of CINI/APARSEN presented an overview of her input on formulating an authenticity management model for specific types of digital resources (APARSEN WP24). Essentially, authenticity in content information (digital records) requires intentional action or intervention by trusted entities imbued with accountability. This is done through performing controls and collecting authenticity evidence in connection to the DR life-cycle. The digital preservation glossary comes in handy at this point...

Ingrid Dillo from DANS/APARSEN gave an interesting overview about evaluation levels and guidelines for IRs. The idea here is that digital repository operators submit themselves to rigorous checking for the purpose of getting an official seal of 'trust' approval. 

Three levels apply:
1) Data Seal of Approval (DSA) = based on self-assessment
2) DIN31644 = 34 criteria that IRs should meet (Kriterien für vertrauenswürdige digitale Langzeitarchive)
3) ISO16363 = based on OAIS and a pretty dense testing regime consisting of over 100 metrics

Drillo emphasized that IR operators should be cognisant with regards to their ability in achieving certification status. Depending on individual operational contexts, certification might not be necessary or desirable.

Also consider the report "Insight into Digital Preservation of Research Output in Europe", which describes the results of the surveys conducted by PARSE.Insight to gain insight into research in Europe.

Let's see what tomorrow will bring along...

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