Digital Preservation in State & Territorial Archives: Current State and Prospects for Improvement

A presentation on Lori Ashley and Charles Dollar's Digital Preservation Capability Maturity Model. A survey for this model was taken by all state archives. Three archives at varying levels of capacity talk about what steps they are taking to improve, and how they have used the survey's results.

Transcript

1. Digital Preservation in
   State & Territorial Archives:
   Current State and
   Prospects for Improvement
   SESSION 505
   2:45 – 3:45 p.m.
   August 16, 2013
   1
   

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2. Session Objectives
   Present high level summary of the CoSA
   self-assessment initiative
   Validate self-assessments of three State
   Archives with different levels of digital
   preservation capability
   Engage audience on how to develop a
   digital preservation improvement roadmap to
   advance capabilities over time as resources
   become available
   2
   

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3. Participants
   Charles Dollar, Chair
   Lori Ashley, Consultant
   Michael Strom, State Archivist
   – State of Wyoming
   Christine Garrett, Electronic Records Archivist
   – Alabama Department of Archives and History
   Walker Sampson, Electronic Records Archivist
   – Mississippi Department of Archives and History
   3
   

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4. Overview of CoSA
   Digital Preservation
   Capability Self-Assessment
   Lori Ashley
   4
   

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5. Digital Preservation Capability
   Maturity Model
   5
   Click to edit Master text styles
   Second level
   Third level
   Fourth level
   Fifth level
   

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6. DPCMM Overview
   Based on functional specifications of ISO 14721,
   ISO 16363, and good practices from operational
   digital repositories
   Systems-based tool for charting evolutionary
   path towards increasingly mature stages of
   digital preservation capability
   Assessment methodology “scores” organizations
   on current state capabilities
   Helps establish priorities and communicate with
   stakeholders
   

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7. 15 & 5
   Infrastructure Components
   Policy
   Strategy
   Governance
   Collaborative Engagement
   Technical Expertise
   OS/TN File Formats
   Designated Community
   Electronic Records Survey
   Services Components
   Ingest
   Archival Storage
   Media/Device Renewal
   Integrity
   Security
   Preservation Metadata
   Access
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8. Stages of Digital Preservation
   Capability Maturity
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9. 2. Digital Preservation Strategy
   Description
    Stipulates processes and activities
   that will be executed to implement the
   digital preservation policy
    Ensure integrity, usability and
   reliability of long-term electronic
   records
    Addresses collaboration, how to deal
   with technology obsolescence,
   integrity protections and access
   requirements
   Thresholds
    Describes how Archives/RM unit
   will acquire and preserve
   collections of digital records for
   its current and future users
    Describes approaches to:
   – File format obsolescence
   – Storage device obsolescence
   – Media obsolescence
   

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10. Performance Metrics: Strategy
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11. Digital Preservation Capability
    Score Card
    

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12. Adaptation of Model for CoSA
    Solicited information on surrogate services
    and repositories
    Established thresholds for conformance to
    all fifteen DPCMM components
    Developed self-assessment statements and
    scoring logic mapped to capability levels
    12
    

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13. Conformance with ISO 14721/ISO 16363
    Does your digital archival repository conform to the
    functional specifications of the ISO 14721 standard
    on open archival information systems (OAIS)?
    Yes No
    Does your digital archival repository conform to
    the certification and audit criteria of the ISO
    16363 standard? Yes No
    

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14. CoSA Baseline
    Digital Preservation Capability
    Surveys initially completed June/July 2012
    Minor revisions by Consultants and SERI
    Steering Committee
    Committee worked with web host to
    integrate revised text and scoring logic
    CoSA issued corrected DPC
    Self-Assessment scores June 2013
    Established 4 quartiles based on score
    ranges
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15. NHPRC Grant
    Electronic Records Training, Tools, and
    Standards (PERTTS)
    – New Portal for Electronic Records Training, Tools, and
    Standard
    – Curriculum development and delivery of training
    – Creation of a State Electronic Records Program
    (SERP) Framework that will provide a foundation for
    both the portal and training, designed to become a
    recognized source of best practices for state electronic
    records programs
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16. Digital Preservation at the
    Wyoming State Archives
    Mike Strom
    

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17. Wyoming State Archives
    Background
    Records management is one of our
    responsibilities
    Digital records not managed or preserved
    In 2012, the State Legislature approved
    funding for a digital records project
    – Records Management Application (RMA) software
    – Records retention schedules
    – Digital preservation policy framework
    

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18. Environmental Scan
    No policies in place regarding born digital
    records
    State statutes mandate that we operate a
    microfilm division
    Approaching digital preservation from the
    records management perspective first
    

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19. Nominal
    (0)
    Minimal
    (1)
    Intermediate
    (2)
    Advanced
    (3)
    Optimal
    (4)
    Wyoming State Archives
    State Parks and Cultural Resources July
    2013
    Composite
    Capability Score of
    2 out of 60 =
    Stage 1 Minimal
    Digital Preservation
    Capability
    

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20. Current Activities
    Revise records retention schedules
    Purchase, install, and conduct a pilot project
    using Records Management Application
    software
    Draft a Digital Preservation Policy
    Framework
    

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21. Nominal
    (0)
    Minimal
    (1)
    Intermediate
    (2)
    Advanced
    (3)
    Optimal
    (4)
    Wyoming State Archives
    State Parks and Cultural Resources July
    2016
    Composite
    Capability Score of
    26 out of 60 =
    Stage 2 Intermediate
    Digital Preservation
    Capability
    

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22. Nominal
    (0)
    Minimal
    (1)
    Intermediate
    (2)
    Advanced
    (3)
    Optimal
    (4)
    Wyoming State Archives
    July 2013 – July 2016
    From Minimal to
    Intermediate
    Capability in a
    three year period –
    our VISION for
    incremental
    progress
    

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23. Next Steps
    Implement the digital repository
    Establish a fee schedule that ensures the
    repository is financially sustainable
    Address the issues associated with long
    term preservation
    

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24. Lessons Learned
    Build a relationship with IT
    Engage records creators
    Communicate with others in the profession
    Develop different messages for different
    audiences
    Set realistic goals and be diligent but patient
    

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25. Digital Preservation at the
    Alabama Department of
    Archives and History
    Christine Garrett
    25
    

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26. ADAH Background
    Responsible for all historically valuable
    permanent records of state agencies
    (determined by RDA); assist local agencies
    Government Services Division staff
    Electronic records part of overall records
    program
    

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27. Survey Response
    Appraisal staff, Collections management
    staff, and IT staff went through each
    component to determine our answer
    

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30. Self-Assessment Results
    Original score 14, raised to 18 after follow
    up questions
    Strengths:
    – Collaborative engagement (Scored 3)
    – Open standard/tech neutral formats, designated
    community, e-records survey, ingest, security, and
    preservation metadata (Scored 2)
    Areas for improvement:
    – Digital preservation strategy, governance, device/media
    renewal, integrity, and access (Scored 0)
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31. Digital Preservation Road Map
    Appraisal, Collections Management, and IT
    went through each component, establishing
    a time line for meeting the individual
    benchmarks
    Some benchmarks we will never meet
    

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32. Two Things Emerged
    1st realized that there were some
    benchmarks we had already met though we
    did not indicate them on the survey
    2nd began to see the pieces of our
    electronic records system fall into place
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33. Next Steps
    Designated an electronic records archivist
    Team approach
    Unifying various electronic records
    initiatives into one program
    – Plan
    – Policies
    – Procedures
    – Trainings and leaflets
    33
    

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34. External Efforts
    Annual state agency liaison training
    Alabama established cabinet position of
    Information Technology Secretary in March
    – Brunson White started April 15
    Information Services Division – added to
    State Records Commission in 2012
    

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35. MDAH: Our Digital
    Preservation Road Map and
    Life After the DPCMM
    Self-Assessment
    Walker Sampson
    35
    

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36. MDAH Background
    Responsible only for permanent retention of
    digital records - does not manage temporary
    retention of digital records
    Records division part of the state archives
    State archives is allowed to have its own IT
    staff and structure
    36
    

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37. MDAH Background
    Early start: began in 1996 from NHPRC
    grant
    – Digital repository is composed only open-source
    software, and most processing and presentation
    technology is hand coded
    – The above framework can no longer scale to the
    workload
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38. Self-Assessment Results
    Index Score: 34 / 60
    Minimals:
    – Digital Preservation Policy
    – Device/Media Renewal
    – Integrity
    .Majority of our elements rated as
    Intermediate
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40. What are our takeaways?
    Key areas lack decisive policy:
    – Digital Preservation Policy
    – Governance
    – Designated Community
    – Device/Media Renewal
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41. What are our takeaways?
    Our present technical infrastructure cannot
    move beyond 'Intermediate' in most areas:
    – Integrity
    – Archival Storage
    – Preservation Metadata
    – Access
    41
    

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42. Roadmap: Policy and Governance
    Policy
    Drafting digital preservation policy
    – NDSA Levels of Preservation will inform scope
    Will reference Mississippi Digital Library's
    repository recommendation
    42
    

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43. Roadmap: Policy and Governance
    Governance - Re-engagement with state IT
    Attempting to build stronger ties to state
    ITS and CIO
    Previous efforts for redundancy assistance
    have not moved forward
    Pushing forward with email collaboration
    43
    

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44. Roadmap: Technical Infrastructure
    DSpace - Planning and testing stage
    Technical affordances allow better
    compliance to OAIS framework in:
    1) ingest
    2) preservation metadata
    3) archival storage
    4) access
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45. Summary
    DPCMM has highlighted two general and
    crucial areas for improvement: policy and
    technical infrastructure
    – Tighter collaboration and support within state is
    necessary - policy definition is a precursor
    – Current infrastructure cannot support ISO
    14721
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46. Discussion
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47. Digital Preservation in
    State & Territorial Archives:
    Current State and
    Prospects for Improvement
    Thank you for your interest and attention.
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