Area 51 » Professional

The Digital Preservation site didn't have enough activity during the beta, and has been closed. You can download the data dump of all questions here.

225

followers

Announcements

<Comments removed> If you have questions or comments about this proposal, please click 'create new discussion' below. – Robert Cartaino♦ Apr 24 '12 at 19:17

56 Example Questions

active oldest votes

up vote 31 down vote

added by Trevor Owens Apr 11 '12 at 12:43

up vote 23 down vote

added by Jefferson Bailey Apr 11 '12 at 13:43

up vote 22 down vote

added by warren Apr 10 '12 at 12:52

up vote 19 down vote

added by Trevor Owens Apr 9 '12 at 19:10

up vote 19 down vote

added by Bill Lefurgy Apr 17 '12 at 20:37

up vote 16 down vote

added by Trevor Owens Apr 9 '12 at 19:16

up vote 16 down vote

added by Micah Beck Apr 11 '12 at 1:40

up vote 14 down vote

added by anarchivist Apr 9 '12 at 21:04

up vote 14 down vote

added by user56044 Apr 11 '12 at 2:05

up vote 14 down vote

added by Jefferson Bailey Apr 11 '12 at 20:56

up vote 13 down vote

added by Micah Beck Apr 11 '12 at 1:55

up vote 12 down vote

added by David Lowe Apr 20 '12 at 17:57

I would think that, in general, you need to track, at a minimum, who the copyright holder is (or is the object public domain), how to contact the copyright holder, and what rights you have to preserve, use, or to allow use of the object. – Ari Davidow Apr 21 '12 at 1:47

up vote 12 down vote

added by Ari Davidow, edited by WikiSpeedia hang-around Apr 21 '12 at 9:15

up vote 11 down vote

added by Micah Beck Apr 9 '12 at 20:42

up vote 11 down vote

added by anarchivist Apr 9 '12 at 20:58

up vote 11 down vote

added by user56044 Apr 11 '12 at 2:12

Anther related question would be: Who (in an organization) ideally should be making these decisions? Also: What political/hierarchical situations typically influence the selection of items slated for digitization? – Anonymous Apr 20 '12 at 20:18

up vote 11 down vote

added by walker Apr 20 '12 at 20:42

up vote 11 down vote

added by l'Archivista Apr 23 '12 at 5:28

up vote 10 down vote

added by Mat, edited by warren Apr 18 '12 at 13:30

up vote 10 down vote

added by anarchivist Apr 9 '12 at 21:01

up vote 10 down vote

added by warren Apr 10 '12 at 12:52

Can you make this more specific? Its very hard to give a general answer. How about something like "I stored some files on DECtape in 1975 from a PDP-11/20 running DOS-11 and haven't touched it since. How do I recover them with the least chance of information loss?" – Micah Beck Apr 11 '12 at 2:07

@Micah Beck - in the live site, this would be specified, in the definition stages, we're trying to narrow down the type of question .. and this covers a type :) – warren Apr 11 '12 at 16:34

up vote 10 down vote

added by user56044 Apr 11 '12 at 1:58

up vote 10 down vote

added by Micah Beck Apr 11 '12 at 2:02

And, "does it matter?" .. are those corporate secrets really going to be that valuable in 20, 50, or 100 years? – warren Apr 18 '12 at 13:32

I do think there needs to be some standard set for an information creator to designate when to "release" information for historical use vs. keeping it secret in the short term for whatever reason (financial, confidentiality, embarrassment). – Kat Pew Apr 21 '12 at 19:07

up vote 10 down vote

added by Jefferson Bailey Apr 11 '12 at 13:08

up vote 10 down vote

added by Trevor Owens Apr 11 '12 at 17:35

up vote 10 down vote

added by ObsessiveSSOℲ Apr 12 '12 at 20:12

If I answered this question, I think I'd answer it more as, "What current practices are being used to keep access copies from obsolescing?" Because most likely a format like PDF or ASCII will not be particularly usable when we're all receiving info-holos through our bio-plants. – Nada Apr 18 '12 at 15:22

I disagree. There is a real difference between the likelyhood of ASCII being readable in 400 years and PDF. ASCII can be described in a one-page document that is already reproduced in hardcopy widely enough to have a good chance of surviving. PDF is much more complex, and most of the documentation is electronic. In fact, I think there is a whole category of "Which format should I use for [type] documents." or "Is [format A] or [format B] more likely to be survivable in [time frame]." – Micah Beck Apr 23 '12 at 16:00

@micah I think that's a good point--I didn't realize that they are on different levels at first. – ObsessiveSSOℲ Apr 23 '12 at 23:25

up vote 10 down vote

added by sheepeeh Apr 13 '12 at 16:41

up vote 10 down vote

added by Trevor Owens Apr 16 '12 at 12:57

up vote 10 down vote

added by benfinoradin, edited by WikiSpeedia hang-around Apr 21 '12 at 9:11

up vote 10 down vote

added by Micah Beck Apr 17 '12 at 21:17

	Is this really cloud-specific? My initial response, which isn't intended to be sarcastic, would be: “the same as you'd use for any other storage system, including your own”. Basically I don't trust anything long-term unless you regularly audit it and have contingency plans, so I'd probably rephrase it to make the last point the primary: “How should I verify a storage system for preservation?” and possibly “How do I efficiently do this regularly across all of my systems?” – Chris Adams Apr 22 '12 at 19:10
	There might be challenges specific to cloud storage service, due to the fact that (by design) users may not have direct access to the storage facilities or any knowledge or control over them. Thus, characteristics which are commonly assumed (for better or for worse) in conventional storage facilities may need to be made explicit in the case of cloud services. A related question is "Are cloud storage services ever appropriate for use as a resource for digital preservation?" – Micah Beck Apr 23 '12 at 11:18
	I would argue for the "worse" side of that assumption but this does support this question being a good one – Chris Adams Apr 23 '12 at 18:43