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The Digital Commonwealth and Digital Preservation

While the Digital Commonwealth (DC) actively promotes creation of digital resources, its officers also acknowledge the remarkable fragility of digital data.  Many factors come to bear in this matter, including:

• Poor quality image capture
• Inadequate metadata
• Obsolescence of hardware and/or software platforms
• Hardware and/or software failure
• Insufficient infrastructure to support long-term storage
• Proprietary file formats, which can suddenly become unsupported
• Deficient back-up of data
• Poorly implemented migration strategies
• Human interference – accidental or deliberate

Frankly stated, institutions inattentive to such factors are at considerable risk of loss.  Preserving digital data, then, must be an ongoing concern for all cultural heritage institutions with digital resources, including members of the Digital Commonwealth. 

With this in mind, the Digital Commonwealth wishes to make it clear that preservation of digital data is not a service we provide.  Responsibility for digital preservation rests entirely with member institutions.  The Digital Commonwealth will, however, help facilitate effective digital preservation action by pointing its members to such reputable digital preservation resources as the following:

Berkeley Digital Library SunSITE – Preservation Resources

http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Preservation/

Collaborative Digitization Program

http://cdpheritage.org/digital/index.cfm

Columbia University

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/services/preservation/dlpolicy.html

http://www.columbia.edu/acis/dl/imagespec.html

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/libraries/digital/criteria.html

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/libraries/inside/projects/metadata/

Cornell University

http://www.library.cornell.edu/digital/pres-research.html

http://www.library.cornell.edu/digitalpreservatiaon/iris/tutorial/dpm/eng_index.html

Digital Preservation Coalition

http://www.dpconline.org/graphics/

http://www.dpconline.org/graphics/handbook/index.html

Harvard University

http://preserve.harvard.edu/resources/digital.html

Library of Congress – National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program

http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/

NEDCC – Handbook for Digital Projects: A Management Tool for Preservation and Access

http://www.nedcc.org/digital/dighome.htm

North Carolina Exploring Cultural Heritage Online

http://www.ncecho.org/Guide/toc.htm

Preserving Access to Digital Information (PADI)

http://www.nla.gov.au/padi/

RLG – Audit Checklist for Certifying Digital Repositories

http://www.rlg.org/en/page.php?Page_ID=20769

RLG-OCLC – Trusted Digital Repositories: Attributes and Responsibilities

http://www.rlg.org/legacy/longterm/repositories.pdf

The Digital Commonwealth maintains a Digital Preservation Sub-Committee, which is charged with monitoring developments in the digital preservation community that may be of interest and importance to our members.  Consequently, this resources page will be updated regularly.