Long-Term Preservation of Digital Documents : Principles and Practices

Key to our culture is that we can disseminate information, and then maintain and access it over time. While we are rapidly advancing from vulnerable physical solutions to superior, digital media, preserving and using data over the long term involves complicated research challenges and organization efforts. Uwe Borghoff and his coauthors address the problem of storing, reading, and using digital data for periods longer than 50 years. They briefly describe several markup and document description languages like TIFF, PDF, HTML, and XML, explain the most important techniques such as migration and emulation, and present the OAIS (Open Archival Information System) Reference Model. To complement this background information on the technology issues the authors present the most relevant international preservation projects, such as the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative, and experiences from sample projects run by the Cornell University Library and the National Library of the Netherlands. A rated survey list of available systems and tools completes the book. With this broad overview, the authors address librarians who preserve our digital heritage, computer scientists who develop technologies that access data, and information managers engaged with the social and methodological requirements of long-term information access.

Key to our culture is that we can disseminate information, and then maintain and access it over time. While we are rapidly advancing from vulnerable physical solutions to superior, digital media, preserving and using data over the long term involves complicated research challenges and organization efforts.

Uwe Borghoff and his coauthors address the problem of storing, reading, and using digital data for periods longer than 50 years. They briefly describe several markup and document description languages like TIFF, PDF, HTML, and XML, explain the most important techniques such as migration and emulation, and present the OAIS (Open Archival Information System) Reference Model. To complement this background information on the technology issues the authors present the most relevant international preservation projects, such as the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative, and experiences from sample projects run by the Cornell University Library and the National Library of the Netherlands. A rated survey list of available systems and tools completes the book.

With this broad overview, the authors address librarians who preserve our digital heritage, computer scientists who develop technologies that access data, and information managers engaged with the social and methodological requirements of long-term information access.

Front Matter....Pages I-XV Front Matter....Pages 1-1 Long-Term Preservation of Digital Documents....Pages 3-20 OAIS and DSEP Organizational Models....Pages 21-30 Migration....Pages 31-56 Emulation....Pages 57-78 Document Markup....Pages 79-98 Standard Markup Languages....Pages 99-122 Discussion....Pages 123-132 Front Matter....Pages 134-134 Markup: Current Research and Development....Pages 135-169 Migration: Current Research and Development....Pages 171-206 Emulation: Current Research and Development....Pages 207-219 Software Systems for Archiving....Pages 221-255 Back Matter....Pages 257-274 Briefly describes several markup and document formats like TIFF, PDF, HTML, and XML; explains migration and emulation; describes the OAIS (Open Archival Information System) Reference Model; presents the most relevant international preservation projects, such as the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative, Victorian Electronic Records Strategy, and sample projects run by the Cornell University Library and National Library of the Netherlands; includes a rated survey list of available systems and tools such as MIT's DSpace, IBM's DIAS, and Ex Libris' DigiTool OAIS implementation Human culture depends on our ability to disseminate information, and then maintain and access it over time. This book addresses the problems of storing, reading, and using digital data for periods longer than 50 years. They offer concise descriptions of markup and document description languages like TIFF, PDF, HTML, and XML, explain important techniques such as migration and emulation, and present the OAIS (Open Archival Information System) Reference Model. The purpose of libraries, archives, and similar institutions is to preserve documents with lasting scientific, artistic, or social value, so that future generations can access them just as we do today.