Digital Preservation:Setting the Course for a Decade

of Change

Neil BeagrieBritish Library

Keynote to Belgian Association of Documentation (BDA) 60th Anniversary Conference

Bibliotheque royale de Belgique, BrusselsNovember 2007

Focus of this lecture

• Trends: past (paper)→ current (hybrid) → future (more paper + much more digital)

• Licensed e-journals• e-science / e-research• e-special collections and personal archives• European Initiatives• Conclusions

Trends

Predicted Growth of Serials Publications (after EPS for e-legal deposit)

0

2,000

4,000

6,000

8,000

10,000

12,000

14,000

16,000

All serials (print + e-)

Dual form

e-only serials

Computer Processing Power and Storage

0.00010.001

0.010.1

110

1001000

100001950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

$/MB

Growth of Scientific Data and Data Curation

• In next 5 years e-Science will produce more data than has been collected in the whole of human history

• Data growth – Protein Data Bank (1972- 07/2005)

e-Journals and preservation

Archiving E- Publications• 2006 ARL/CLIR study E-Journal Archiving

Metes and Bounds: A Survey of the Landscape available from <http://www.clir.org/pubs/abstract/pub138abst.html>

• 2003/4 JISC e-journal archiving study by Maggie Jones available from:

<http:// www. jisc. ac. uk/ index. cfm? name= project_epub_ archiving>

Issues Identified• Few journals are solely in digital form at this stage

but parallel print/ e- access can only be regarded either as interim or partial equivalents

• Perpetual access and archiving concerns • What guarantees do libraries have when they

licence access to digital material they don’t own (and it is served from outside national boundaries)?

• Concerns about continued access following termination of a licence are a major inhibiting factor for libraries wishing to move to e- only access

Emerging Services

• Publishers negotiating dark archives for their back files (eg Elsevier)

• E-legal deposit laws in several countries and national libraries establishing e-journal archiving programs (eg BL, KB, DB);

• Third-party and consortial services (eg Portico, LOCKSS,OCLC digital archive);

• Research Funders creating open-access archives of funded research articles (eg NIH, Wellcome Trust)

Principles?I suggest we need to identify some core principles and aims for

funders/publishers/customers:• Support diversity of solutions/services - why?

• State of knowledge and different approaches adopted: risks in single preservation or business model approach

• Diversity of content included in different services: risks from gaps in content coverage

• Support multi-node and multi-national instances –why? • not just backup/recovery – long-term geographical/political/cultural risks

need to be addressed• Scholarly communication is international and intellectual

capital/content/publishing of e-journals is international

• Support professional “trusted” preservation repositories and services

e-Research and preservation

(UK Science and Innovation Investment Framework 2004 – 2014)

Information Infrastructure• 2.23 The growing UK research base must have ready

and efficient access to information of all kinds – such as experimental data sets, journals, theses, conference proceedings and patents….

• 2.24 It is clear that the research community needs access to information mechanisms which: systematically collect, preserve and make available digital information;….

• 2.25 The Government [via DTI] will therefore work with interested funders and stakeholders to consider the national e-infrastructure (hardware, networks, communications technology) necessary to deliver an effective system.

Preservation & Curation WG

• There will be dramatic growth in digital research data and publications over the next decade

• Requirement to transform information provision so that UK researchers can benefit from the new research opportunities it will create

• There are major challenges in the preservation and curation of digital information

• Where disciplinary data centres and services exist they represent approx 1.4-1.5% of total research expenditure

• Outlined preservation components of infrastructure

Libraries, e-research, and preservation

Some issues to consider:• Different staffing/support structures for

publications/data• Disciplinary differences in e-research• “80:20 rule” and implications for cataloguing

or digital preservation

Digital Special Collectionsand preservation

British Library – Personal Archives

• Relevant (digital) special collections in BL:– Literary papers and correspondence– History of science– Web-archiving (blogs)– Oral history

• “Digital Lives” research theme– Synergies between different projects and

collecting areas: inter-action with digital preservation or access research

Literary lettersNew York Times Essay 4 September 2005

Web-archiving - blogs

POLITICS: web-archiving

Digital Lives Research Project• Partners: British Library, UCL(SLAIS), Bristol (IT and Law).• Funded by Arts and Humanities Research Council from Sept 07-

March 09

• Website and blog www.bl.uk/digital-lives

Digital Lives: Preservation Challenges

• Digital memory over a human lifetime and beyond for individuals

• Challenges-– Software and hardware obsolescence – Media life and data loss– Ephemeral data eg web-pages, email– Dispersal – multiple email/storage/publishing systems– More pro-active preservation strategies needed

• Libraries need to engage in research for future digital special collections

European Initiatives

• Libraries: e-depot (KB); Kopal (DB and partners); DOM (British Library)

• Archives: PRONOM and Digital Archive (TNA); Swiss National Archives; Dutch National Archive

• EU FP7 – PLANETS; CASPAR; Digital Preservation Europe; Alliance Permanent Access to Records of Science.

• Europe leading the world –currently ahead of US and emerging economies? – but see iPRES 2008…

Conclusions

Evolution or Revolution?• Evolution

– Print/Digital inter-dependencies – collective print storage and digitisation

– Ongoing care of existing collections - lifecycle approaches to collection care and digital preservation

• Revolution– New digital preservation networks and services

• Professional networks eg Digital Preservation Coalition cross professional boundaries linking archives/libraries/data centres (national developments + international?)

• New types of service and organisations eg File Format Registries, LOCKSS, PORTICO

– New (or more significance for) Digital Objects – e-journals, e-research, e-special collections

– Acceleration of Scale and Automation for print and digital – Reaching “tipping points” in print/digital mix over next decade

Future of Preservation

Digital will begin to dominate