"Digital Preservation is about making the best use of your resources to mitigate the most pressing preservation threats and risks." (Guiding Digital Preservation Axiom #9) Trevor Owens, The Theory and Craft of Digital Preservation (©2018)
Begun in 2019 this project for the most part has been superseded by the work of the Digital Preservation & Access work-group (go.osu.edu/libraries-dpa). This project page will be updated occasionally as necessary.
Link to this site: http://go.osu.edu/DigiPresEthos-EnviroScan
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Starting with the Digital Preservation Policy Framework, minted in 2013, there are several principal documents listed in the aforementioned "Documentation" that needed to be reviewed for currency, as well as to benchmark progress and levels of success of the various recommendations made within the reports. While, a lot of the content of these documents go beyond just digital preservation practices, it is their intersectionality with digital preservation that is important. The following exploration reviews these key documents, identifying their importance to a digital preservation ethos, providing an analysis as to where we have been effective, as well as less than successful, and proposes recommended action items.The action items are listed as:
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- See "Foundational Action Items"
Digital Initiatives Guiding Principles (2013)
Developed as the Digital Preservation Policy Framework Task Force was wrapping up its work, another group was drafting the Digital Initiatives Guiding Principles (DIGP). It notes:
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- DP&A Review and potential grounding document: The Digital Strategy Advisory Group should collectively review this document from the point-of-view as a guiding document for their activities.
- Assign to: Digital Strategy Advisory Group
Implementation of a Modern Digital Library (2014)
The following April, the Strategic Digital Initiatives Working Group, published this report, couched in the DIGP, that evaluated "...the Libraries’ existing digital libraries environment and [developed] a set of guidelines to enable the Libraries to adopt a more modernized digital library environment." The document in general reinforces the need for a holistic approach to digital preservation:
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- Identify and link to collection development and access policies
- Assign to: DP&A
- Born digital accessioning and processing workflows: With the influx of born digital content, the University Libraries needs to develop workflows and best practices for accession and processing born digital content.
- Assign to: Digital Preservation Librarian, Metadata Initiatives Librarian and Head of Archival Description and Access
Master Objects Repository Task Force Report (2014)
As part of the Charge to this group, we were asked to "Provide definitions of Master Objects and Derivative Objects in the OSUL digital environment." We accomplished this in the "Normalizing the Language" and "Types of Digital Assets" sections of the document.
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- Update "Types of Digital Objects" and definitions; integrate into Digital Content Documentation Portal
- Assign to: DP&A
- Define and develop Curation Dashboard
- Assign to: DP&A to discuss initially, eventually this will need to be a project turned over to AD&S
- Develop a metadata remediation feedback loop to ArchivistToolkit (AT) and its successors
Assign to: Metadata Initiatives Librarian and Head of Archival Description and Access
- Determine AT's role in born digital accessioning and processing. This is likely part of the aforementioned Born digital accessioning and processing workflows Suggested Action Item.
- Assign to: Digital Preservation Librarian, Metadata Initiatives Librarian and Head of Archival Description and Access
Digital Content Management Workflow Task Force Report (2015)
Building upon the Master Objects Repository Task Force Report, this group set out to develop "...a set of recommendations detailing how digital assets of various types will move into the Libraries’ various digital repositories.” While this group was successful in articulating this in a report to the Libraries' Executive Committee (Exec), it was not well socialized, nor made implementable.
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- The next steps in the larger project–Tasks #2 Repository Review and Task #3: Content Review–will help inform actions to be taken upon Recommendations 1, 4, 5, 6 and 7.
- Assigned to: Digital Preservation Librarian
- Assigned to: Digital Preservation Librarian
- Develop an expanded decision-making workflow(s) to account for other pertinent repository options. This will be dependent upon the outcome of the previous Action Item.
- Assigned to: Digital Preservation Librarian (in consultation with DP&A).
- Reboot the Digital Content Strategy Group (see Foundational Action Items) to oversee coordination of activity among Preservation and Digitization, Content and Access, and Distinctive Collections and Digital Programs partners.
Digital Preservation Disposition Task Force Report Draft (2016)
This Task Force was charged with conducting an environmental scan of the current preservation environment, noting where OSUL already has existing relationships and how those relationships impacted the Libraries’ long-term preservation activities. Furthermore, the Task Force proposed a set of recommendations related to the Libraries’ long-term preservation activities, its relationships with specific providers, and the continued development of the Libraries’ own internal preservation policy. While the report was provided to Exec, no formal feedback was received at the time.The report was constructed into the following four sections:
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- Key action items will be the completion of Tasks #2 and #3, Repository Review and Content Review respectively.
- Assigned to: Digital Preservation Librarian
- Distinctive Collections' collecting policies need to be reviewed for preservation intents, in conjunction with prior MOM priorities determinations, metadata readiness, and adherence to standards to guide further MOM actions and dispositions. Further, they need to be integrated into the Digital Content Documentation Portal.
- Assigned to: Digital Preservation Librarian for intial documentation review and recommendations for further action.
Digital Reformatting Guidelines for 2D Imaging (2016)
"The Ohio State University Libraries is committed to creating high-quality, high-value digital content that is made as widely accessible as rights permit and that is securely managed and preserved for the long term...The following guidelines are based on published standards and are recommended Libraries-wide for all digital reformatting, regardless of which unit or department within the Libraries performs the digitization or scanning [emphasis added] . Adherence to community standards for the creation of good digital collections helps the Libraries ensure that content can be efficiently and effectively managed, preserved and made accessible over the long-term. This document was created in response to the need for a policy around Content Standards identified in the White Paper entitled “Implementation of a Modern Digital Library at the Ohio State University Libraries”, produced by the Strategic Digital Initiatives Working Group. These guidelines apply to scanning and still digital imaging of 2- and 3-dimensional works; guidelines will be developed in the future for reformatting of time-based, dynamic and multimedia collections, and for 3-dimensional scanning and modeling...Standards for digital reformatting are numerous and, of necessity, complex. A digital file is a multipart construction whose encoding fixes decisions about access and long-term preservation into the file itself. The appropriate standards to employee can vary from one project to the next, and from one object to the next. These guidelines address some of the most common factors affecting the accessibility, usability, and long-term viability of digital objects..."
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