Wellcome Library Preservation Policy for Materials Held in ... · security of all the collections. 3.4 IT infrastructure The Wellcome Trust IT department is responsible for the management

Wellcome Library Preservation Policy for Materials Held in Collections

Second Edition Prepared by

Gillian Boal, Conservation and Collections Care Manager Dave Thompson, Digital Curator

2014

Wellcome Library Preservation Policy, 2014

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Contents 1. The Wellcome Library .....................................................................................................4

1.1 Overview ..................................................................................................................4 1.2 Rationale ..................................................................................................................4 1.3 Benefits ....................................................................................................................4 1.4 Intended audience ....................................................................................................4

2. The context of the Wellcome Library Collection ...............................................................5 2.1 Library audiences .....................................................................................................5 2.2 Selection and Acquisition .........................................................................................5 2.3 Digital Collections .....................................................................................................5

3. Roles and responsibilities ................................................................................................6 3.1 Systems administration ............................................................................................6 3.2 Care of physical collections ......................................................................................6 3.3 Environmental administration ...................................................................................6 3.4 IT infrastructure ........................................................................................................6

4. Library systems ...............................................................................................................7 4.1 Metadata ..................................................................................................................7 4.2 Workflow tracking system .........................................................................................7 4.3 Digital object repository ............................................................................................7 4.4 Data backup .............................................................................................................7

5. General principles of preservation ...................................................................................8 5.1 Retention ..................................................................................................................8 5.2 Access .....................................................................................................................8 5.3 Intellectual property rights ........................................................................................8 5.4 Exhibitions and loans for exhibitions .........................................................................8 5.5 Disaster preparedness .............................................................................................8 5.6 Financial policy .........................................................................................................8 5.7 Relationships – national and international ................................................................9 5.8 Standards .................................................................................................................9 5.9 Monitoring and review of policy ................................................................................9

6. Preservation Policy for Physical Resources................................................................... 10 6.1 Principles for physical materials ............................................................................. 10 6.2 Handling and transportation ................................................................................... 10 6.3 Storage .................................................................................................................. 10 6.4 Collections preservation ......................................................................................... 10 6.5 Preservation treatments ......................................................................................... 11 6.6 Preservation research ............................................................................................ 11

7. Preservation Policy for Digital Resources ...................................................................... 12 7.1 Principles for digital materials ................................................................................. 12 7.2 Digital material preservation ................................................................................... 12 7.3 Administrative metadata ......................................................................................... 13 7.4 Emulation ............................................................................................................... 13 7.5 Trusted Digital Repository Status ........................................................................... 13

8. Digital surrogate material ............................................................................................... 14 8.1 Handling and transportation of digital material ........................................................ 14 8.2 Preferred formats ................................................................................................... 14

9. Born digital archival material ......................................................................................... 15 9.1 Acquisition of born digital archival material ............................................................. 15 9.2 Preferred formats ................................................................................................... 15 9.3 Obsolescence ........................................................................................................ 16 9.4 Born digital research .............................................................................................. 16

10. Annexes .................................................................................................................... 17 Annex 1 – Long term storage of digital materials .............................................................. 17 Annex 2 - Library Systems relevant to the life cycle of digital material .............................. 18 Annex 3 - Sources ............................................................................................................ 22


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Annex 4 – Standards relevant to digital and physical materials ......................................... 22 Annex 5 – Related internal Library and Wellcome Trust documents ................................. 23 Annex 6 – Relevant organisations..................................................................................... 23 Annex 7 – Glossary .......................................................................................................... 24


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1. The Wellcome Library

The Wellcome Library is one of the world’s great cultural treasures: a unique and ever-growing collection of archives, manuscripts, books, journals, art and ephemera that document the place of health and medicine across cultures and over time. We are part of Wellcome Collection, one of London’s fastest-growing and most innovative visitor destinations.

Like all libraries, we face the challenge of moving from an environment dominated by physical content to one in which we also serve a global audience for online content. Our multi-year plan for transforming the Wellcome Library from a physical resource into a ground-breaking digital library will enable access to our collections from anywhere, and will allow new audiences to engage with our collections.

1.1 Overview The purpose of this Preservation Policy is to provide a comprehensive statement on the preservation and conservation of the Library’s collections and covers material in all formats. It provides guidance on the preservation and life cycle management of material in the Library’s collections to help ensure the authenticity, reliability and long-term accessibility of that material. The policy does not include material acquired for or developed through Wellcome Collection’s public programmes or to the outputs of Trust-funded research except where these are chosen for accession by the Wellcome Library. It sets out a broad framework within which consistent and replicable activities can be applied with the aim of providing an audited record that supports the validity and authenticity of the material. This policy also sets out the Library’s commitment to the life cycle management of the materials in its collections. Specific guidelines and procedures for each stage will be developed and reviewed, as technology changes or other needs arise.

1.2 Rationale

The Preservation Policy provides an agreed framework that will inform preservation decision-making.

1.3 Benefits The policy provides a public statement on how the Library will preserve material in its collections. This policy:

Supports decision-making and prioritisation when allocating resources for the maintenance of materials in our collections.

Assists and supports the development of preservation approaches and methodologies for both physical and digital material.

Supports collective decision-making about collection items.

Allows the development of coherent preservation programmes and workflows.

Reinforces accountability.

Acts as a basis, and provides a framework for, collaborative activities.

1.4 Intended audience This document is intended for users of the Library, for all staff that manages and works with the collections, and for those who donate or create material for the Wellcome Library.


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2. The context of the Wellcome Library Collection The Wellcome Trust is a global charitable foundation dedicated to achieving extraordinary improvements in human and animal health. In pursuit of this, we support the brightest minds in biomedical research and the medical humanities. Our funding focuses on supporting outstanding researchers, accelerating the application of research and exploring medicine in historical and cultural contexts. The Wellcome Library’s unique contribution to the Trust’s mission lies in its ability to support these activities, especially with regard to the exploration of medicine in context.

2.1 Library audiences The Library’s collections are used by a varied international audience, with diverse research interests. The Library’s key users come from the following sectors:

Educational (academics, researchers, higher & secondary education students)

Professional (medical, health, research professionals and writers)

Commercial (broadcast media, journalists, publishers)

Cultural (gallery browsers, tourists, local workers and residents) In addition, the Library offers specific information services and resources to the Wellcome Trust employees.

Our users access the Library in two ways:

In-person

Remotely (online)

2.2 Selection and Acquisition We continue to add to the Library’s collections in line with our Library Collection Development Policy.1 In selecting material for acquisition we take into account:

Subject/content

Research value

Physical condition

Sustainability. The Library acquires materials through purchase, donations, bequests, deposits, and in the case of digital resources, directly from online resources and through internal and external digitisation.

2.3 Digital Collections The Library is actively developing its collection of digital and born digital materials. There are broadly three types of digital materials held or available from the Library:

1. Linked: Resources that are kept elsewhere, e.g., online commercially available electronic publications to which the Library acquires access, but over which it does not have any rights other than access. This material is excluded from this policy.

2. Digital Material: Digital versions of analogue materials held by the Library or material held by external organisations and digitised for the Library.

3. Born digital Material: Digital resources without an analogue equivalent such as personal or organisational archives. These can be acquired singly, as part of a

1 http://wellcomelibrary.org/about-us/library-strategy-and-policy/collection-development-policy/


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collection of born-digital materials, or as part of a hybrid collection including both paper and born-digital materials.

3. Roles and responsibilities

3.1 Systems administration Systems for the management of born digital and digital materials will be administered by Library Systems Support staff with support from system vendors and IT. All IT hardware, infrastructure and its environment are managed by the Trust’s IT department. See Annex 2 for a list of Library systems, the data they hold, and the management responsibilities for the systems directly involved in preservation management

3.2 Care of physical collections A duty of care for the safe use of the Library’s physical collection rests with all Library staff. The Conservation and Collection Care team has overall responsibility for the care of physical materials held by the Wellcome Library.

3.3 Environmental administration The Facilities department are responsible for maintaining the environmental conditions and security of all the collections.

3.4 IT infrastructure The Wellcome Trust IT department is responsible for the management of the infrastructure that stores and provides access to the Library’s digital content. This includes the provision of servers on which Library systems run, managed access to those servers and to network resources that allow servers to work together; including the provision of remote access for the vendors of Library systems to perform maintenance. The IT department maintains the storage for digital records and manages access to that storage, providing back-up and data recovery management. IT also provides a managed network environment within which content can be made available, managed and securely stored.


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4. Library systems

4.1 Metadata Descriptive, contextual and resource discovery metadata for all Library resources: physical, digital and born digital, will be stored and managed within the Library’s Management Systems (or their successors). Currently these systems are:

CALM – archival descriptive metadata and accessions/donor and Library enquiries databases

Encore - Discovery tool for searching across Library systems

Sierra – bibliographic metadata

Miro (Wellcome Images) – objects & descriptive metadata Whilst other systems may hold descriptive metadata the systems listed above are considered the authoritative source for descriptive metadata.

4.2 Workflow tracking system The Library uses a workflow system, currently Goobi, to track and manage the production of digitised content. This workflow tracking system provides the means to automate the processing of content for the Library, quality assurance, any necessary image conversion, the automated ingest of material into – Preservica - , and the creation of METS files on which access is provided.

4.3 Digital object repository Digital and born digital material, and its associated administrative metadata, will be created and stored in Preservica. The digital object repository is designed to support the long term preservation of born digital and digital material. It enables material ingested into the Library’s digital archive to be managed throughout its lifecycle. Content held in Preservica makes use of the Wellcome Trust’s networked storage solution. The repository will automatically create administrative metadata describing technical properties of digital material at the point of ingest. This metadata will be managed and stored in the repository. Administrative metadata will form the basis for life cycle management planning. The repository provides support for life cycle management in the form of automated validation of objects and the ability to report on formats held. The Library’s digital object repository represents a framework which will make active and on-going digital preservation possible. It will be possible for most digital materials to be preserved in this way, subject to the constraints of resourcing, technology and expertise.

4.4 Data backup The Library has plans and processes in place to ensure that data held by Library systems is secure and can be recovered in the event of a disaster. See Appendix 2a for a list of Library systems, the data each system holds and its backup process. Data in Library systems is replicated across three nodes – one at 183 Euston Road, one at 215 Euston Road and one at the Trust’s Disaster Recovery centre. . Data is backed up on a daily basis. The last daily back up of each month is retained for 12 months. See Appendix 2 for a model of the backup process.


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5. General principles of preservation

5.1 Retention Material added to the Library’s collections is normally acquired with the intention that it will be retained in perpetuity. This preservation policy is part of the framework which makes this possible. In some cases collections of material may be acquired with a view to later appraisal.

5.2 Access The Library recognises that the use of, and access to, its collections is the prime purpose of its existence. The purpose of preservation and conservation is to facilitate access, ensuring that material is fit for use. All material within its collections will be maintained for research, reprography and exhibition, whilst ensuring that risk to the material is minimised. Access will be granted subject to the Library’s Conditions of Use2 and relevant legislation such Copyright or the Data Protection Act, which may mean that in some cases material is embargoed from public use for some years after acquisition.

5.3 Intellectual property rights The Library will respect intellectual property (IP) and other rights in materials in commercial and private digital materials in its collections. However, issues of IP and rights in material are not part of the preservation policy. Further it is assumed that those issues have been addressed prior to material preservation treatment.

5.4 Exhibitions and loans for exhibitions The Library includes preservation considerations in helping to determine the selection of material and the frequency and duration of their use for exhibition purpose. This applies to objects displayed internally and when loaned for exhibition to other institutions. Material will be prepared for both internal and external exhibitions and displayed in accordance with accepted national and international standards. Borrowing institutions are required to comply with the Library’s guidelines for exhibitions through the signing of a Condition of Loan agreement with the Library.

5.5 Disaster preparedness The Library Business Continuity Team is responsible for ensuring that contingency policies and procedures are in place to prevent and if necessary respond to and recover from emergency situations that may have an adverse effect on the Library collections. More specifically, with regard to the Library’s physical collections this responsibility is with the Conservation and Collection Care team. Details of Disaster Preparedness, Asset Recovery and Prevention Procedures can be found in the Wellcome Trust’s Business Continuity Policy.3 These procedures cover the recovery of both digital and physical collections. The Wellcome Trust IT Department (IT) is involved in Disaster Preparedness for IT systems and infrastructure that support digital collection materials.

5.6 Financial policy The Library allocates a proportion of its annual budget to support activities to ensure that the preservation policy can be implemented. This includes an on-going preservation and

2 http://wellcomelibrary.org/about-us/library-strategy-and-policy/conditions-of-use/

3 These documents are not publicly available.


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conservation program for the physical collections and the provision of maintenance and support for the workflow tracking system and digital object repository.

5.7 Relationships – national and international The Library is one of many institutions with an interest in ensuring the preservation of the history of medical and allied sciences and to ensure that it remains accessible. It establishes working relationships with other institutions and organisations in order to address its preservation needs. Co-operative preservation projects, and the sharing of preservation activities and information, are two means of achieving this. Library staff work with curators, librarians and archivists as well as related institutions and organisations including the British Library, the National Archives, Online Computer Library Center (OCLC), the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Institute of Conservation (ICON), the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA), and the Digital Preservation Coalition. See Appendix 6 for a list of relevant conservation/preservation bodies.

5.8 Standards Standards are a vital element in developing reliable conservation and preservation procedures and in promoting collaboration. The Library will comply with relevant standards as far as possible and maintain a watching brief on relevant and appropriate standards as they emerge, with a view to adopting any that are appropriate and considered useful. Because of the evolving nature of practices related to digital materials not all practices have become formal standards. The Library will draw on ‘best practice’ as it emerges and review community activity for those practices as they emerge. See Appendix 4 for examples of standards referred to in this document.

5.9 Monitoring and review of policy This document is available to all Library users and Library staff. It will be reviewed on a regular basis – at least every three years - to ensure that it:

Addresses current internal strategic developments.

Meets the needs of the collections it serves.

Reflects appropriate national and international standards and changes in practice.

Supports library staff responsible for collection development.


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6. Preservation Policy for Physical Resources

6.1 Principles for physical materials The Library recognises that the use of, and access to, its collections is the prime purpose of its existence. The general aim of the policy is to preserve and maintain the physical and intellectual integrity of the material contained in the Wellcome Library to the highest professional standards. This includes the historical, textual, pictorial and physical content of the items and takes into account the rarity of the material, access requirements, and physical condition. The Library adheres to the principles of the National Preservation Office (NPO) and International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) with respect to the preservation and conservation of Library materials. Material in original format will be preserved for as long as possible and access will be provided to original and surrogate formats as appropriate.

6.2 Handling and transportation The Library encourages proper handling of collections by staff, outside contractors and users. The Conservation and Collections Care Team will provide training and advice on handling collection materials to all relevant staff and outside contractors and provides written and oral handling guidelines for users. Poor handling during copying can risk major damage to printed materials. Restrictions apply to the copying of materials at risk and guidelines have been developed to minimise this risk. Procedures have been developed to ensure that collection material in transit within or between its buildings, or on loan for exhibitions is well protected and carefully handled.

6.3 Storage The preservation of collections will be ensured through the use of appropriate storage facilities. This includes correct environmental conditions following the recommendations of BSI PD 5454:2012, where appropriate, and ensuring the correct housing and protection of individual items whilst in storage using materials of the highest conservation quality.

6.4 Collections preservation

The Library believes that on-going and routine collections maintenance will reduce the likelihood of serious damage to its collections. Collections maintenance includes:

Monitoring and maintaining the correct environmental conditions in which materials are stored.

Mitigating/minimising risk to collections.

Monitoring the condition of its collections on an ongoing basis and taking action to either replace or treat or reformat, as appropriate, individual items identified as being damaged.

Using appropriate containers – boxes, sleeves, wrappers and similar materials - to protect collections.

Maintaining cleanliness in the storage areas and endeavouring to clean collections on a systematic basis using appropriate methods.

Upholding the reputation of the Library by maintaining excellence in conservation practice.


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6.5 Preservation treatments Preservation treatments are undertaken to prolong the life of collection material when its condition is damaged or deteriorated or at risk from handling. All treatments are undertaken to recommended professional standards and all materials used in the preservation and conservation process will be of the highest conservation quality and will comply with, or exceed, British Standards recommendations. All conservation treatment is predicated on minimum intervention. It will be sympathetic, leaving the integrity and originality of the item as little changed as possible. Each item will be individually assessed and conservation limited to what is necessary for its long-term stability and expected use. A conservation record of all substantial treatments undertaken is maintained and is made available on request. The Conservation and Collections Care Team work to the European Confederation of Conservators Organisations (ECCO) Guidelines and abide by the ECCO code of ethics4.

6.6 Preservation research The Library applies preservation standards for materials and procedures where they already exist and actively supports research and development of new national and international standards. The Library supports scientific and technical research to address problems encountered in the preservation of Library and archive material.

4 http://www.ecco-eu.org/about-e.c.c.o./professional-guidelines.html


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7. Preservation Policy for Digital Resources

7.1 Principles for digital materials The Library is required to preserve three types of digital resources:

1. Digital resources created by the Library. 2. Digital resources created for the Library. 3. Digital resources acquired by the Library5.

Decisions about the retention, access and preservation of digital materials at the acquisition or creation stage will be made in accordance with collection development policies.

7.2 Digital material preservation The Library believes that no single approach is likely to guarantee the long term survival of its digital material, and consequently a mixed strategy – focusing on retention of the original bit stream, format migration and normalisation – is preferred. In practice this means,

Normalising formats for digitisation by the use of JPEG2000 for images, WAV for audio and MPEG for moving image.

Retention of original born digital formats in the digital object repository.

Where necessary migration of material to a like current format.

Where possible and necessary migration of material to the best available current format.

Tools for the migration and/or normalisation of data formats are constantly evolving. The choice of tools for migration or normalisation for any one collection will be made on consideration of the following criteria,

Availability of a tool, its cost and ease of use.

Ability to read data from the media on which it is stored.

Ability of a tool to be embedded in automated processes.

Volume of material requiring migration and/or normalisation.

Ability of a tool to accurately ‘read’ formats requiring migration or normalisation.

Ability of a tool to accurately read significant properties of a data format.

Ability of a tool to accurately render significant properties in a migrated format. The Library will hold the minimum number of manifestations of each object necessary for validation and authentication of the material. In practice this means that for digitised material dissemination formats, e.g. JPEG, will be created from JPEG2000 master images on the fly. Video will be made available in two dissemination formats; MP4 and WebM. For born digital material the Library will retain the original bitstream.

5 Note: There may be some digital resources that the Library creates or collects that it may not wish to preserve in perpetuity.

For example, no attempt will be made to preserve obsolete catalogue records, surrogates created solely for access, or digital files deemed outside our collection scope. Equally, digital resources that are created by Library staff in the course of their work may or may not be preserved as part of the Wellcome Trust records management strategy.


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7.3 Administrative metadata Essential to life cycle management is the generation/creation of administrative and descriptive metadata describing the material. The Library considers metadata (administrative as well as descriptive) to be essential for life cycle management and resource discovery. Metadata will be subject to similar life cycle management as the objects it describes. Metadata that support these activities will be permanently associated with the material it describes. Administrative metadata will be created to published standards where they exist, to recognised ‘best practice’ where no standards exist, and to ‘best effort’ as a last resort.

7.4 Emulation The use of an emulation based strategy requires a complex infrastructure and a rigorously thought out management plan. At this point in time emulation as a preservation strategy is considered inappropriate and beyond the Library’s means.

7.5 Trusted Digital Repository Status In developing systems and infrastructure to manage its digital collections, the Library will be guided by the principles of reliable digital repositories as defined by relevant international standards and best practices. In particular its practices and procedures will be developed in order to meet the commonly expected requirements of a Trusted Digital Repository as defined by certification systems such as the Trusted Repositories Audit & Certification (TRAC)6 or the Digital Repository Audit Method On Risk Assessment (DRAMBORA).7

6 http://www.dcc.ac.uk/resources/repository-audit-and-assessment/trustworthy-repositories

7 http://www.dcc.ac.uk/resources/repository-audit-and-assessment/drambora


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8. Digital surrogate material The Library either digitises material in-house, or has material digitised by an outside contractor working in-house or off-site.

8.1 Handling and transportation of digital material All incoming digital material delivered to the Library on portable media, e.g. USB hard drive, will be checked for viruses and malware using a standalone computer, then quarantined and checked a second time. If any virus infection is found material will be returned to the supplier who will be asked to clean the material and re-submit it. Large volumes of material digitised by external agencies may be transferred to the Library by ftp and automatically processed by the Library’s workflow tracking system (Goobi) and ingested into SDB. Material ftp’d onto Trust networks will be subject to a virus checking procedure. If any virus is found the material will be deleted and the supplier asked to clean the material and to re-submit it.

8.2 Preferred formats The preferred format for digitisation is JPEG2000 (Part 1). The Library provides a JPEG2000 profile at the time of digitisation. This profile will specify compression the ratio, the quality layers, image dimensions etc. The Library may accept TIFF images in agreement with digitisation suppliers but this format will be migrated to JPEG2000. The Library uses WAV as its master format for audio material and MPEG2 as the master format for video.


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9. Born digital archival material

9.1 Acquisition of born digital archival material Born digital material acquired by the Library will be managed in a way that supports maintenance of its integrity and authenticity. The Library prefers to use dedicated portable hard drives for the transportation of born digital material from donor/creators. Portable hard drives will be checked for viruses and malware, and re-formatted after each use. Non-rewritable CD-Roms are also acceptable. Where CD-ROMs are used the media will be retained for 12 months after which it may be disposed of, unless it has significant artifactual or cultural value, or by agreement returned to the donor/creator. All incoming digital material will be checked for viruses and malware using a standalone computer, then quarantined and checked a second time. Infected material will be excluded from use on Trust networks until it has been rendered safe. Donor/creators will be informed if any virus is detected and invited to re-submit material. The Digital Curator will work with archival staff to provide both documented procedures and training/advice on the acquisition of digital materials to all relevant staff. In addition usage guidelines for users will be provided. The Library will work with the Trust IT Department to ensure that incoming material will be managed in such a way that all potential threats to the network or IT infrastructure of the Wellcome Trust are minimised. The Library will also work with IT to provide the tools and hardware necessary to work with born digital archival material.

9.2 Preferred formats The Library has no preferred formats for the born digital material it acquires. The Library prefers to work with material in which it has a ‘high confidence’ of successful long term preservation.8 Where possible and practicable the Library will work with donor/creators in the acquisition of born digital material to ensure material is acquired in ‘high confidence’ formats. High confidence material is that which is in current or commonly used formats; this includes material created in Windows, Macintosh or Unix-like environments. ‘Current’ or ‘commonly used’ can be defined as formats created on contemporary hardware by contemporary applications that can be easily bought ‘over the counter’ and are in widespread usage by individuals and organisations. Current or commonly used formats are also more likely to have existing, and future, migration paths to alternative formats. Material that is transferred to the Library in a ‘low confidence’ format may be rejected by the Library. If material is accepted it may be subject to normalisation or migration, the loss of authenticity or functionality or to retention for a finite period in which it remains viable. In all cases the Library will make ad hoc decisions on whether to acquire material, and especially ‘low confidence’ material, based on the following criteria:

The level of confidence of successful long term preservation.

Alignment with collection policies.

8 Based on work carried out at the Florida Digital Archive, see - http: / / www.fcla.edu / digitalArchive / pdfs / recFormats.pdf


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Relationship to other material already in the collections.

Relative ‘value’ and/or uniqueness of the material.

Likelihood of recovering a meaningful, authentic and workable bitstream.

Cost associated with recovering a bitstream, especially from obsolete media.

Resources and effort required to create a bitstream that can be preserved and made available into the future.

This approach assumes that the decision to preserve, for the long term, certain material in a ‘low confidence’ format has been made in the full knowledge of the consequences of that decision.

9.3 Obsolescence Obsolescence can be defined as the process through which data formats, the media on which they reside, the hardware on which formats were created, or software used in creation, have been replaced to the extent that software, format, media or hardware can no longer be used in a current context. If unaddressed obsolescence can render digital material inaccessible or it can cause the loss of significant properties. The purpose of life cycle management (‘Preservation’.) is to minimise the effects of obsolescence. In this approach to the acquisition of born digital material an external event triggers a change in the level of confidence in preserving material that may lead to material being declared obsolete. An external event that might trigger a change in confidence levels might be:

Software vendor\creator withdrawing a piece of software used to create\render a specific format.

Software vendor\creator updating a piece of software used to create\render a specific format.

Hardware used to read certain media is no longer easily available.

Certain versions of software formats created in the past no longer being able to be rendered by tools used to migrate that format.

New formats being introduced that offer better\different\more flexible life cycle management options.

Change in the IT infrastructure used by the Wellcome Trust. The effect of this event would be to reduce the ability of the Library to migrate formats, to read certain media or to render certain data formats in a form that changes significant properties. At this point intervention and preservation treatments may be applied.

9.4 Born digital research The Library applies preservation standards for materials and procedures where they already exist and actively supports research and development of new national and international standards. The Library supports scientific and technical research to address problems encountered in the preservation of digital material.


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10. Annexes

Annex 1 – Long term storage of digital materials Born digital material will be stored using the Library’s digital object repository, Preservica. The Library recognises that most portable media are impermanent and represent a poor and inefficient choice for long term storage. . Therefore material will not be permanently stored on portable media. Inappropriate forms of portable media for long term storage are considered to be:

Magnetic disks, e.g., floppy disk, and other obsolete forms

Zip disks

Digital camera storage cards, e.g., SD, Multimedia, Compact Flash, etc.

Tape, especially obsolete forms

Optical disk, e.g., DVD, CD-Rom, including so-called ‘Gold’ CD-Roms

USB thumb or ‘stick’ drives

External hard drives, e.g. USB powered hard drives Obsolete hardware will not be preserved. The Library considers this approach to digital preservation to be technically challenging and economically unsustainable. The Library may make ad hoc use of hardware it already owns to facilitate the recovery of material from portable media. When and if necessary, the Library may use an external data recovery service.

Annex 2 - Library Systems relevant to the life cycle of digital material

a. The following table sets out a list of Library systems that are relevant to the life cycle management of digital material, the data they hold, their respective responsible managerand their backup and Disaster Recovery schedule.

System System purpose Data held Management responsibility

Backup DR Readiness/Security

CALM Authoritative source for creation, management & storage of archival description and archival management information plus data about Library enquiries.

Archival description.

Accession data.

Depositors database.

Enquiries information.

Library Systems Manager.

Replication of data to two off-site nodes.

Daily backup of data.

Last days backup of each month is retained for 12 months.

Data & systems can be recovered in accordance with the IT Disaster recovery Plan.

Document Delivery System (DDS)

Provides access to digital content, storage & management for METS & ALTO files on which dissemination of content relies. Provides management for cached player content.

METS files.

Alto files.

Cached digital content.

DIP Cache files.

Dissemination PDFs.

Digital Curator. Replication of data to two off-site nodes.





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Encore Discovery tool for searching across Library systems; & for harvesting metadata from Sierra, CALM & Wellcome Images.

Encore data extracted from Sierra.


Externally hosted, data management is the responsibility of III. If data is lost from Encore it can be repopulated from Sierra database.

N\a

Goobi Manages & tracks the production of digitised content. Ingests content into digital object repository. Outputs METS files.

Access terms & licence conditions.

Database for creating METS files.





Preservica Enterprise

Digital object repository, providing storage and management for Library digital content that is to be preserved.

Digital objects.

Born digital objects.

Administrative metadata.






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Sierra Authoritative source for creation management & storage of bibliographic metadata. Also holds patron & circulation data.

Bibliographic records.

Patron records.

Circulation data.






V:\ share Provides secure managed storage for digital content awaiting processing.

Digital objects.

Born digital objects.





Wellcome Film Provides secure managed storage for Wellcome Film content.

Wellcome Film content.




Backup retained for 12 months.

N\a

b. Wellcome Library system data backup architecture.

Annex 3 - Sources British Standards. BSI PD 5454:2012 Recommendations for the storage and exhibition of archival documents. BSI. Available from http://www.bsi-global.com Consultative Committee for Space Data System Standards, Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System, Blue Book, January 2002. Available from http://public.ccsds.org/publications/archive/650x0m2.pdf DCC, Trustworthy Repositories. Available from, http://www.dcc.ac.uk/resources/repository-audit-and-assessment/trustworthy-repositories European Confederation of Conservators Organisations. E.C.C.O. Professional Guidelines. ECCO, 2002. Available from http://www.ecco-eu.org/about-e.c.c.o./professional-guidelines.html Florida Digital Archive, Recommended Data Formats for Preservation Purposes in the Florida Digital Archive, Available from, http://fclaweb.fcla.edu/uploads/Lydia%20Motyka/FDA_documentation/recFormats.pdf Paradigm Project, Workbook on Digital Private Papers, University of Oxford, Paradigm Project. 2006. Available from http://www.paradigm.ac.uk/workbook/index.html Research Libraries Group, Trusted Digital Repositories: attributes and responsibilities, RLG, May 2002 Available from http://www.oclc.org/programs/ourwork/past/trustedrep/repositories.pdf

Annex 4 – Standards relevant to digital and physical materials Relevant standards include: General standards:

Metadata Encoding Transmission Standard (METS).

ISAD(G) General International Standard Archival Description.

MARC (MAchine-Readable Cataloguing), and its sub-sets eg UKMARC.

Open Archival Information System Reference Model (OAIS) ISO 14721. Standards for working with physical material:

European Confederation of Conservators Organisations (ECCO)9 guidelines.

British Standards, BSI PD 5454:2012 Standards for working with digital material:

Data Dictionary for Metadata Preservation (PREMIS) a best practice, not yet an ISO standard.

Dublin Core Metadata Element Set ISO 15836.

Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System (OAIS)

9 See http: / / www.ecco-eu.info /


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Annex 5 – Related internal Library and Wellcome Trust documents

Collection Development Policy.

Transforming the Wellcome Library: 2009-2014

Conditions of use

Exhibition Loan Conditions Available from http://wellcomelibrary.org/about-us/library-strategy-and-policy/

Annex 6 – Relevant organisations

Canadian Heritage Information Network (CHIN) - http://www.chin.gc.ca

Digital Curation Centre – http://www.dcc.ac.uk

Digital Preservation Coalition - http://www.dpconline.org/

Digital Preservation Coalition – http://www.dcponline.org

European Confederation of Conservators Organisations - http://www.ecco-eu.org

Institute of Conservation - http://www.icon.org.uk

International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) - http://www.ifla.org

The National Archives / Public Record Office - http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk


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Annex 7 – Glossary The key terms appearing in the document are used in the sense defined below:

Access Ability of the staff and patrons of the Library or other institutions to use the materials in the Library’s collection.

Acquisition Obtaining possession of materials which then become a constituent part of the Library’s collection.

Appraisal The process whereby the long-term research value of material is assessed, and decisions made as to whether something is worthy of long-term preservation, shorter term retention followed by disposal, or immediate rejection. Appraisal may take place before or after material is acquired by the Wellcome Library.

Authenticity Assurance that after conservation or digital preservation an object retains its intellectual content in an uncompromised form. If the intellectual content has changed, then documentation and an audit trail provides authenticity.

Collection A designated set of materials in any format. The Library collection as a whole is comprised of various individual collections.

Conservation Hands-on interventative techniques applied to the physical materials and objects housed in the to achieve chemical and physical stabilisation, in order to extend their useful life and ensure their continued availability.

Digital As opposed to physical or ‘analogue’; pertaining to electronic media used to generate, store, display, manipulate and deliver textual, numerical and graphical data.

Digital Curation The life cycle management of digital materials – their acquisition, storage, management, digital preservation, dissemination etc. Activities designed to ensure long term access and authenticity.

Digital preservation The managed activities necessary to ensure continued access to digital materials over time to avoid issues of obsolescence

Digital resources Broad term covering all digital material held in, or accessible via, the Library, e.g., digitized library materials, digitised image collections, on-line subscription journals, web archives, on-line finding aids.

Digital technologies Any system for recording and reading information - images, sounds - in computer-based numerical codes rather than in ‘analogue’ systems where information is directly stored on film or tape, such that copies are inferior in quality to originals.

Emulation The replicating of the functionality of an obsolete system in a current system, e.g. running MS Windows 98SE in a modern virtualised environment. The purpose of emulation is to provide an environment in which obsolete software or files formats can be preserved in the context in which they were created.


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Format migration Process of converting data from an obsolete structure to a new structure to counter software obsolescence, e.g., conversion from Microsoft Word for DOS to Microsoft Word for Windows 7.

Life cycle management

The series of managed activities necessary to ensure continued access to materials over time to avoid issues of obsolescence.

Manifestation A distinct version of some object, retaining its intellectual content but presented in a different format; thus, a poster of the Mona Lisa is said to be a manifestation of the original painting. See also and cf. surrogate.

Metadata Structured information that describes, explains, locates, or otherwise facilitates retrieval, use, or management of an information resource10

Normalisation The process of creating a version (manifestation) of acquired material more conducive to access but retaining its intellectual content, e.g., converting a proprietary format MS word file to XML.

Preservation All managerial, financial and technical considerations applied so as to retard deterioration, prevent damage and extend the useful life of materials and objects. These considerations include: monitoring and controlling appropriate environmental conditions, providing adequate storage and physical protection, establishing exhibition and loan policies and proper handling procedures, providing for conservation treatment, emergency policies and the creation and use of surrogates In the context of this document it refers to activities that relate to the preservation of both physical & digital material.

Preservation formats Manifestations or versions of material that are less affected by issues of obsolescence and so are more reliable.

Preservation master Manifestation of an object held in a non-proprietary or open format and subjected to preservation actions, e.g., format migration, to ensure usability into the future.

Physical Refers to items in the collections such as books, manuscripts, paintings etc. Cf. ‘analogue’.

Reliable/ Reliability A reliable object is one that has undergone a set of managed activities designed to mitigate issues of obsolescence.

Retention Holding material for a specified period as part of a formally defined collection.

Sub-master Analogous to a preservation master when referring to film or video.

Surrogate Manifestation of an object in another format, e.g., a digital image of a painting, which can be made more widely available than the object it represents, but does not replace the original.

10 NISO, 2004,

Documents

Wellcome Library Preservation Policy for Materials Held in ... · security of all the collections. 3.4 IT infrastructure The Wellcome Trust IT department is responsible for the management