Hi Daniel,

I have been haunting this listserv for six years now, and this is one question that I can help answer!

I am the digital initiatives coordinator at a special collections library, and the field and theory of digital preservation is changing rapidly.

Terms you'll want to define and liberally use in your article include, but are not limited to:

Bitstream copying: this is what you do when you back up your files onto an external hard drive; bitstream copying is the most basic level of digital preservation, and although it is necessary, it misses a lot about information itself.

-Digital sustainability: incorporates a number of actions intended to preserve digital artifacts to be accessible to an nth year. The best rule of thumb I've heard someone use is 10 years: "If I create this JPEG now, will its format be sustainable and readable ten years from now?"

-Digital encapsulation: this refers to two things, the digital artifact itself and its descriptive information. For instance, what good is a JPEG image of a cuneiform tablet if there is no descriptive information--metadata--attached to it? Encapsulation is the idea that information must always accompany the item. (In addition encapsulation includes preservation metadata, which tracks file integrity information (like checksums).

-Migration: implies copying information from one technology to another; this copying includes both the digital artifact itself and any metadata attached to it.

-Emulation: If you have that doc file, and you need a system that reads it, you eventually will find an emulator to be useful. Emulation provides a simulacrum of a digital object's original software environment, which not only allows access to the file, but it also preserves the original digital experience. Emulation and migration are often discussed as oppositional ideas, but they both play an important role in digital preservation.

-Standards and normalization, consistency: Standards are key to good digital preservation strategy. Normalization is the dedicated adherence to those standards. Consistency is always key to digital repositories and their preservation.

This will get you started. I'd recommend taking a listen to the new(ish) Library of Congress digital preservation podcast series: http://www.loc.gov/podcasts/digitalpreservation/index.html

Best of luck. Best, Ana Krahmer

Dear Digital Medievalists and TEI members,

...

I have a question about preservation of digital content
especially medieval manuscripts. I am writing a small article on
the topic and I have consulted a lot sources (papers, handbooks)
but most of them do not say anything about the “life span” of the
data in specific formats. To clarify this – a .doc file crated in
1995. Will be most likely unreadable  in 2010.  What about other
formats? Has anyone done some research on “life span” of a
specific version of digital formats and when it becomes clear
that the new version and the old one are not compatible anymore?
And here I am talking about pdf, rtf, doc (and all office files),
djvu, tiff, jpg , mpg etc. (texts and images especially)

In my work I am also making a small remark on XML as a data
container since it is, in my opinion, the best way to go and the
standard will surely be around for years. But what kind of steps
do you make to ensure the preservation of documents that have
been encoded in xml

I would also like to hear if there are opposing views on xml.

I also have the same question about the media. I found some
research about the longevity of CDs and DVDs but I am also
interested in other media like older hard disks, zip drives and
magnetic media.

I am sorry to bother you with this, but I can use any help I can get

Thank you in advance

Daniel Mondekar

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Is this really the time for Donkey Kong?" ~~Buffy, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~