Digital Preservation Policies Study Part 1
Digital Preservation Policies Study Part 1
Article Type: Professional resources From: Records Management Journal, Volume 19, Issue 2
Final Report, October 2008Neil Beagrie, Najla Semple, Peter Williams and Richard Wright,A study funded by JISC,2008,Available at: www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmes/preservation/jiscpolicy_p1finalreport.pdf
Keywords: Information management, Records management,Archiving, Archiving documents, Archives management
This report into digital preservation policies in third level universities and colleges in the UK was commissioned and funded by the JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) and carried out by consultancy firm Charles Beagrie Ltd. Prompted by the growth in digital content, the JISC wanted to find out if there was a need to develop workable strategies to ensure the preservation and long-term access to digital content, in order to ensure accessibility, usability and fulfil legal and corporate requirements.
Charles Beagrie Ltd is an independent management consultancy company specialising in the management of digital archives, libraries, science and research sectors, and scholarly communication within the higher education sectors. They have a number of associates and partners from which to form project teams. They have conducted research and formed partnerships with a wide range of companies across the public and private sectors, for example The National Archives (UK), European Commission, JISC, Rand Europe and US National Science Foundation.
In a rapidly growing and changing technology environment which has seen the growth in the use of e-business, digital media and more recently the adoption of Web 2.0 tools such as wikis, blogs and social networking for use in business, it is estimated that 90 per cent of an organisation’s information in now held in a digital or electronic format (Willis, 2005). While offering new ways of working and doing business it also provides huge issues with regard to the management, long-term storage and preservation of their content into the future.
Until now the focus has been on the adoption and use of information communications technology (ICT) to develop and provide electronic services more efficiently and effectively across all business sectors. During this growth period very little serious attention has been given to future proofing electronic information in order to ensure its preservation and long term access. This along with new and expanding technologies now makes it necessary for organisations and businesses to tackle the issue of putting into place policies and strategies for managing and preserving their digital content.
This report comes in two parts. The first part is the overall final report,which is reviewed here, and Part 2, the Appendices, comprised of an examination and aggregation of key policy strategies used for developing institutional strategy mappings. The final report is divided into two parts and deals with specifically developing and implementing a strategic digital preservation policy for the UK third level sector. The first few chapters set out the operating background of the sector, what is digital preservation, along with the aims and objectives of the research and methodology used, which was primarily desk research. It is very comprehensively researched and uses examples and case studies of existing preservation policies and guidance on policy frameworks. It also includes information from outside of the UK higher and further education sector, which is the focus of the JISC, thus making it a workable framework for strategy development for many organisations across a range of business sectors.
It rightly sets the tone and links the development of a Digital Preservation Strategy (DPS) to core institutional drivers and current strategies and emphasises that such a policy or any policy for that matter cannot exist in“splendid isolation” and needs a top down commitment for approval and support in its development and implementation from senior management.
The main body of the report is covered in sections 7 and 8. In section 7 the authors have developed a model or framework for developing a digital preservation policy. This is in two parts, part one deals with “policy”and part two “implementation”. The report refers to these as clauses,accompanied by a description and further elaborated on with notes and guidance with examples and useful references to policies and standards from national and international organisations and initiatives such as The National Archives,DRAMBORA and Cornell University, to name but a few. In part two, “implementation”,clauses are set out the same way. The framework is designed to be used as a tool where some or all of the “clauses” may be applicable to a particular third level organisation or function within. What makes this such a useful and comprehensive tool, is that it includes for consideration issues such as intellectual property or copyright, quality control, distributed services,responsibility, review and certification. These are issues or topics which get very little coverage in the literature on digital preservation and could be overlooked.
In keeping with developing a strategy, the key stakeholders are identified who have a main requirement for a digital preservation strategy, these are research, learning and teaching, information, libraries, records management. Section 8 develops a framework for mapping policies and guidance for these areas. The impact of organisational issues such as finance, staffing issues are clearly identified along with pointers to be examined in the course of developing a strategy. The report goes on to identify the likely challenges to be faced by each stakeholder and how they may or may not impact on the development of a digital preservation strategy. The “clauses”identified in the framework concur with, for example, Findlay’s (2002) list of Future Proof guidelines issued by the government of New South Wales, and includes a few additional ones for consideration as well.
According to Willis (2005) information and records management is “an important feature of corporate governance and that corporate governance is a vital ingredient to the survival of political institutions and economic entities alike”. The provision of access to accurate and complete information is essential for accountability and transparency, which is the corner stone of corporate governance and also encompasses information governance. While most policies implicitly cover records management this report finds that it is rare for its relationship and role to other organisational policies within IT,Libraries and Archives explicitly stated, along with the specific challenges facing electronic records in particular.
Overall this report identifies that there is a need for a digital preservation policy within third level institutions, universities and colleges in the UK. This need is dictated in as much by the growth in digital and electronic information and the need for a coherent policy and strategy to manage it, as well as by the organisational operating environment, brought on by organisational structure, legal and regulatory environment and good corporate and information governance. It provides an excellent framework that gives practical and relevant guidance on areas and issues to be examined before embarking on developing a digital preservation strategy, a kind of SWOT analysis for digital policy development. What makes it such a workable framework or tool is the examples cited and links to institutions that have already either developed policies in relation to specific areas or components of the framework. It identifies a number of areas for consideration before developing a digital preservation strategy, but apart from the obvious inclusions for a strategy,this asks you to identify what can be done within existing systems and processes, and what cannot be done without investing in new systems.
It has been kept as generic as possible so that it can be adapted and tailored to suit specific organisational functions in the UK higher/further education sector, but could quite easily be used by any organisation new or established embarking on developing a coherent digital preservation policy.
Marie KilcullenInstitute of Public Administration, Dublin, Ireland
