Above and beyond the file: Preserving digital environments
Loading...
Date
2020
Authors
Webster, Andrew
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
Digital Record formats have various dependencies tied to hardware and software that must be fulfilled if a record is to be rendered and therefore accessible. This relationship has proven difficult to preserve due to the fragility and obsolescence of digital records, media, and environments. In response to this challenge a consensus has formed within the digital preservation community around format management through format migration. To remain ahead of obsolescence and move away these dependencies digital records are often migrated to more open formats that are more platform independent. Format migration often does not preserve the original functionality of formats, which can also present difficulties rendering data, and removes the migrated record from the original context in which it was created. This raises two questions, which will be answered in this thesis: first, what are the effects of failing to preserve digital environments; and second, how might we go about preserving them?
This thesis will examine, in addition to format managements, several alternative methods of preservation aimed at preserving digital environments and communicating original record-environment relationships to users. These include: preservation of legacy environments; emulation, including efforts to modern combine cloud computing power with the “as-a-service” model to enable widespread adoption of emulation; and, expanding upon existing archival descriptions by including existing data and materials and supplementary documentation. This thesis will conclude with a case study of the William O. Pruitt Jr. fonds at the University of Manitoba Archives and Special Collections (UMASC). This fonds was selected as a case study as it contains digital records from the early era of desktop computing. This offers a good example of what is gained and lost when preserving these records through format management, which is the approach to digital preservation followed by UMASC, or if preserved through environment-based methods such as emulation. Interviews were conducted via questionnaire with the University of Manitoba’s Libraries Research Services & Digital Strategies team (RSDS), so that they could explain their chosen mode of digital preservation and the specific strategies that they follow, including their use of Archivematica.
Description
Keywords
Archiving, Digital preservation, Retrocomputing, Emulation, Archival description, Legacycomputing, Digital Forensics, OAIS, PREMIS, Emulation-as-a-Service, EaaS