This book is a welcome contribution to the digital preservation body of knowledge. It represents the first compilation to address the challenges of making sure complex digital artefacts such as games, digital art and simulations can be preserved so that they are accessible in the future. As the preface makes clear, by 2010 there was a feeling in the digital preservation community that the challenges associated with bit level preservation of simple digital objects had been addressed, so attention was turned to the complex. Accordingly, a JISC-funded collaborative project, the Preservation of Complex Objects Symposia (POCOS), was launched. The papers presented at the POCOS meetings form the basis of this book, which is edited by co-leaders of the Future Proof Computing Group at the University of Portsmouth in the UK.
The complexity of these digital artefacts cannot be overstated; use of the word “object” fails to do justice to the sheer size and scale of games such as World of Warcraft. Accordingly, the chapters in this book are rich and full of very useful technical detail. The book is divided into six parts, each drawing together synergies and points of comparison from the three domains of games, digital art and simulations. The first part considers why and what to preserve, a key and critical issue. The second part explores how our memory institutions currently are tackling preservation issues. The third and fourth parts of the book provide a wealth of practical detail, including the technical “how-to” and a rich selection of case studies. These parts are followed by chapters considering preservation issues from legal perspectives, including European copyright legislation. The final part consists of just one chapter, where the editors provide concluding statements and a roadmap of future actions for each of the three domains.
This book is an essential resource for anyone engaged in digital preservation activities. It becomes increasingly difficult to focus purely on the preservation of simple digital objects, and we must engage with the complex because developing ICT capabilities provides us with the means to incorporate more and more complexity in the artefacts and genres we create and use. Keeping up to date with advances in digital preservation know-how is challenge enough in itself; bringing together these outputs from the POCOS meetings in a single print resource provides much-needed practical assistance.
