James Smithies Academic Earthquake Research

The panel discussion at Future Perfect 2012 focused on digital preservation by design. The panelists represented several national archives and discussed the need for (1) common standards and frameworks to guide digital preservation efforts, (2) improved tools and cost models, and (3) greater collaboration across organizations through information sharing and an international preservation body. The discussion emphasized taking a purposeful, long-term approach to digital preservation planning and ensuring access to preserved materials.

The document discusses three challenges related to digital preservation: 1) determining what digital materials to keep, 2) integrating database systems and streamlining workflows, and 3) the limited lifespan of some optical disc formats according to a 2007 study. The study tested 7 disc brands and found the top 5 were predicted to have 5% with uncorrectable errors within 45 years while the other 2 were predicted to have 100% failures between 30-45 years under certain storage conditions.

This document summarizes lessons learned from archiving the New Zealand web domain. It discusses the legal requirements to archive internet documents, two approaches used - selective and domain harvesting. Challenges include defining a national domain, harvest scope and shape, policies, infrastructure needs, assessing quality, sustainability and being responsive. Final thoughts are on New Zealand facing similar challenges to peers and benefits of collaboration between institutions.

The Australian Data Archive (ADA) is a national data service that preserves and provides access to social science data. It was established in 1981 and now includes several sub-archives covering different domains. The ADA holds over 2400 datasets and is working to improve data access, visualization, and integration across content types and domains. Future plans include expanding capabilities for audio-visual, qualitative, geospatial, and linked administrative data.

Collaborating for Success – the New Zealand Government Digital Archive experience Alison Fleming Michael Upton

This document discusses business systems and records. It defines business systems as automated systems that manage an organization's activities, such as CRM or case management systems. These systems often hold important records. The document outlines two scenarios for how records can be managed in business systems: 1) the system manages records itself or 2) the system creates records that are then transferred to a separate records management system. It also discusses challenges around preserving records from business systems when a system is decommissioned or replaced.

The document discusses ensuring data integrity in the LDS Church's digital preservation archive (DRPS). It describes the DRPS system architecture which uses multiple copies across locations, automatic replication, and various integrity checks like fixity values and cyclic redundancy checks to ensure data integrity from ingest to permanent tape storage. It highlights how tape storage provides better long-term preservation than disk, though it presents some access challenges, and discusses ongoing efforts to verify archive integrity through periodic reading and drive-level error checking of tapes.

The document discusses challenges with preserving data from databases for long-term use as records. It defines key concepts like records, metadata, databases, and data warehouses. The document recommends creating a policy to identify which records and metadata must be retained long-term. It also suggests using application layers to export identified records and metadata to a recordkeeping system like a data warehouse or ERMDS. This would help ensure usable records are available over time even after source systems are decommissioned.

The document discusses file formats, rendering applications, and digital preservation. It summarizes research comparing the rendering of files on older software running on old hardware versus newer software. The research found that Microsoft Office 2007 was a better rendering tool for old files than LibreOffice or WordPerfect Office. Maintaining original rendering environments is important for digital preservation as different applications may render files inconsistently. This can be done through emulators, software archives, and workflows to ingest and provide access to files within their original environments.