Practical Digital Preservation: A How‐to Guide for Organizations of any Size

Citation

Sisk, B. (2013), "Practical Digital Preservation: A How‐to Guide for Organizations of any Size", Records Management Journal, Vol. 23 No. 2, pp. 149-151. https://doi.org/10.1108/RMJ-06-2013-0014

Surely all readers of this journal will, like me, want to keep reading a book that begins with an admission by the author that even though an expert in digital preservation he has experienced “a certain sense of despair at ever keeping up to date with the constant stream of reports, conferences, blogs, wikis, projects and tweets.” My expectations were high then that Adrian Brown would offer relief from this despair by sifting through the multiple streams of information and deliver practical guidance that readers really can use to tackle the seemingly impossible process of building digital preservation capabilities in institutions, often from ground up. Brown acknowledges that he has set himself an ambitious task, even more so since the book covers the topic from business case development through to access, and even a final chapter on trends. Does Brown strike a balance between giving sufficient detail to ensure that the guidance is relevant and keeping the book accessible to a non‐expert readership? Happily, I found that Brown gets it just right.

The book's structure underpins its value as a practical tool. Refreshingly, it is designed to be read chapter by chapter or is easily navigable topic by topic to suit the needs of the particular reader. There's a useful table of contents and a consistent layout of each chapter, comprising an introduction, bite‐sized sections, a conclusion or next steps, a review of key points, and notes for readers wanting to know more. The substance is illustrated with useful case studies and visual aids such as process flow diagrams. I can imagine returning to this book time and again as a reference text.

But the book is much more than a digital preservation primer. There is real substance and Brown has a point‐of‐view; he rejects aspiring to the “unobtainable, ideal of curatorial perfection”, the one‐size fits all “monolithic IT systems” view of digital preservation, reminding us that preservation is an outcome that can be achieved in many ways and degrees of complexity. At the heart of Brown's proposed strategy is use of a maturity model to identify the appropriate digital preservation implementation in each particular context; in other words he advocates taking a proportionate and risk‐based approach. This must be reassuring news to his primary audience: archivists in small organizations outside the flagship national cultural memory preservation programs and for whom the gold‐standard digital preservation is unattainable.

Brown presents his key preservation planning tool, the maturity model, in Chapter 4. The model was developed by drawing on the scalable Prince2 process schemes and the key trusted digital repository certification scheme. Using the model will allows institutions to develop and apply generic maturity levels, and process perspectives, with the goal of identifying the appropriate (i.e. the good enough) standard an institution needs to meet for each process perspective. Earlier in the chapter Brown lays out and weighs options for operating a digital preservation service, from in‐house, to bespoke, commercial software, outsourcing, consulting, and partnership. The reader's learning is supported here by five case studies that give practical illustrations of the models for implementing a digital repository.

Chapter 6 provides a thorough, sound overview of accessioning digital objects, nicely illustrated by case studies and supported by references and notes to related resources. All the key processes are introduced and related to the OAIS Reference Model. Similarly the next chapter on description sets out descriptive standards, including museum and multimedia standards, and their relationship to ISO15489. Brown refers back to the maturity model to focus on metadata management maturity levels from basic (e.g. capability exists to maintain persistent links between data and metadata) to optimized (metadata managed in complex, reusable forms, such as XML, etc.), reminding the reader that optimized is not always best. Here I found the case study on defining metadata standards for the UK Parliamentary Archives very helpful, in particular the discussion on metadata for archived web sites.

In Chapter 8 on digital preservation Brown demonstrates real skill in communicating dense, technical matter, most of which is conceptual and abstract. Brown selects examples and case studies that are familiar enough to illustrate the concepts but without being intimidating or unnecessarily complex. Consistent with the proportionate approach Brown sets out at the start of the book, he provides guidance on taking a risk‐based approach to identifying an appropriate strategy and he sets out the pros and cons of the three main strategies, the computer museum, migration, and emulation. My two “take‐aways” from this book are from this chapter. First, Brown's detailed but clear exposition of the concept of multiple manifestations (or multiple technical representations of an object and how they arise) is one that I will recommend to my IT colleagues who fail to appreciate the planning that is needed to get it right, and how easy it is to get it wrong. Secondly, I welcomed the inclusion in the context of the discussion on logical preservation and preservation planning, the addition of meeting changing user needs to managing technology and cultural change.

One quibble: in Chapter 3 Brown gives a nod to the organizational complexities and people issues which are fundamental to the work archivists do, and which derail so many IT‐related initiatives. He sees engagement with stakeholders as key; content creators and managers should be influenced to adopt “working practices and technology standards which are conducive to preservation as possible;” IT providers will need to understand and be “happy with the technical solution, including its effect on other systems, and its support needs.” However in my view Brown does not adequately emphasize the necessary connections between people, process and technology and how they connect to the digital preservation solution. He could do more to stress that good collaboration between these stakeholders is a critical success factor. I'd make a connection here to Brown's assertion, in the book's introduction, that it is a myth that a deep knowledge of information technology is necessary for digital preservation. Perhaps instead we should encourage archivists to train in IT and to engage with IT professionals with full understanding of the IT perspective. Surely archivists who possess the combination of information management and “hard” IT skills could be invaluable in bridging the IT/IM cultural divide.

Brown's focus is on digital preservation, but the book will appeal to a wider readership. I found myself wanting to know how to connect records management processes with digital preservation; what should we be doing better or differently at the records creation, even pre‐creation stage? When developing retention policy, what issues do we need to consider, how is policy development and practice changing? That I will seek answers to these questions I take as a sign that Brown succeeds in what he set out to achieve.