Digital Preservation: Planning and Activities

Instructor: Gayle Palmer

A Workshop Co-Sponsored by the California Preservation Program, Infopeople, and OCLC Western

Are you wondering if digital collections can be preserved into the future or if you have a role to play in managing digital collections over the long-term? Have you ever dealt with the loss of electronic files or collection information because your hard-drive failed or your network folders were not backed up on schedule? Digital preservation will depend upon good planning, documentation and funding as much or more than the perfect technical software or hardware. Find out what you can do now to begin the process of digital preservation planning for your organization.

This is an introductory course to acquaint you to the issues involved in long-term digital preservation.

• Are you responsible for preserving digital resources?
• Do you need help with digital collection planning and funding?

This workshop will provide initial planning, funding and preservation actions that you can use today to begin a process to assure that digital materials are available and accessible for your users into the future.

Workshop Description: This all-day hands-on workshop will provide discussion and exercises focused on assessing access needs and understanding the hazards and risks of not acting. Through individual and group exercises you will review preservation software requirements and options for storing digital files. This course will introduce you to planning activities that you can begin now and use going forward to address the issues of long-term, assured access to digital collections. Using exercises, we will consider the risks and solutions to operational problems and review a preservation plan. The instructor will provide sample plans, checklists and a webliography, as well as practical, useful tips that can be applied immediately.

Pre-workshop assignment: None

Preliminary Course Outline

• Understanding the Access Problem, Assessing User Needs
  • Overview of long term access
  • Common criteria for collecting materials for access
  • Understanding preservation problems that limit access
• Understanding Preservation Actions for Digital Formats
  • Determine risk to files and potential solutions
  • Risk/loss scenarios
  • Recommended mitigation actions
• Understand the Core Requirements of Preservation Tools
  • Preservation planning and concepts of active access vs. digital archiving
  • Active access and digital archiving workflow
  • National concepts relating to in-house archiving or outsourcing archiving
• Creating Digital Preservation Planning, Funding and Implementation Goals.
  • Digital lifecycle and three areas of action for preservation, organization, resources and technology
  • Planning case model
  • Long-term funding strategies

Who Should Attend: Anyone from the California library community who is responsible for developing and managing digital collection resources. This course is appropriate for public, academic, special library staff with planning or implementation responsibilities for digital collections, including library business managers, technical support staff, web development, systems staff, and program managers. May also be of interest to trustees and commissioners.

Prerequisites: None

Check-in: 8:30 to 9:00 AM Instruction: 9:00 AM to 4:30 PM

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