CAwannabe CA Exam Study Wiki/Jones and Beagrie

=Preservation Management of Digital Materials: A Handbook, 2001= By Maggie Jones and Neil Beagrie

Introduction

 * Purpose of book
 * This handbook is aimed at a broad audience
 * Intended to provide guidance to institutions who are involved in creation and/or acquisition of digital materials
 * Aimed at administrators, practitioners, service providers, funding agencies, and data creators
 * supports lifecycle approach to digital preservation
 * Designed as a handbook for broad audience so different chapters important to different constituents
 * Intro ends with several definitions
 * life-cycle management: pro-active concept of preservation; “at each phase of the cycle, electronic records need to be actively managed, according to established procedures, to ensure that they retain qualities of integrity, authenticity, and reliability.”

Digital Preservation

 * Strategic Overview
 * What is it necessary to take action?
 * To assure continued access to materials
 * How are digital materials different [from paper documents]?
 * Digital materials require specific hardware and software to access them.
 * Rapid changes in technology requires more speedy action.
 * Digital media is more fragile than paper and deterioration isn’t always outwardly visible.
 * Digital materials are easily changed.
 * Nature of technology requires life-cycle management
 * What digital materials are being produced?
 * Digital materials range from text-based files to web-based resources
 * Increasingly born-digital materials are being created that have no analog equivalent
 * Who needs to be involved?
 * Wide range of stakeholders (digital content creators, repositories, public institutions whose employees are skilled in preservation)
 * How much does it cost?
 * Difficult to measure – while concerns about cost of preservation are understandable, it is equally important to consider the costs of not preserving digital materials
 * Preservation Issues
 * Technological Issues
 * Digital materials are vulnerable to loss and destruction b/c they are stored on fragile magnetic and optical media – to reduce danger of loss, store media in stable, controlled environment, implement regular refreshment cycles, make preservation copies, implement appropriate handling procedures, transfer to “standard” storage media
 * Organizational Issues
 * Challenges relating to ability of organizations to integrate management of digital materials into organization structure include costs, expertise of staff, organizational structures, and selection of materials
 * Legal Issues
 * Copyright
 * Other statutory requirements (retention of electronic records subject to requirements of laws such as the Public Records Act)
 * Privacy and confidentiality

Institutional Strategies

 * This chapter is intended for senior administrators and managers
 * Outlines strategies used by institutions in developing approaches to digital preservation
 * Types of strategies discussed include collaboration, outreach, outsourcing, rights management, staff training and development, and best practices guidelines

Organizational Activities

 * This chapter is intended for creators and publishers of digital resources, management and staff with responsibility for implementing institutional activities of relevance to digital preservation
 * Provides advice for achieving and maintaining good practice in creating and managing digital materials
 * Focuses on creation of digital surrogates through digitization and also on the creation of electronic records