Digital preservation is fundamental to information stewardship in the 21st century. Although much useful work on preservation strategies has been accomplished, we do not yet have an adequate conceptual framework that articulates precisely and formally what preservation actually is. The intention of the account provided here is to bring us closer to this goal. Following an initial analysis of the concept of preservation as it occurs in ordinary discourse around digital stewardship, several influential preservation models are analyzed, identifying both useful insights and problems. A framework of interrelated concepts is then developed that analyzes the challenges of long term digital stewardship through the lens of information communication. Successful digital stewardship is understood as reliable, mediated, intentional communication with an emphasis on the agents involved in the process and the roles they play in supporting the intended flow of information through time and inevitable changes in the underlying mediating communication technology. The complex notion of the digital object, commonly considered the persistent unit of digitally–communicated information, is unpacked into its fundamental abstract and concrete components, avoiding the common category mistakes that pervade digital preservation discourse and impede a clear understanding of the nature of preservation. This conceptual framework makes use of the conceptual machinery of Situation Theory [Devlin, 1995] and the Gricean theory of meaning [Grice, 1957,Grice, 1968]. The notion of an interpretive frame [Dubin et al., 2011] is adopted here to model the contingent mapping between the fundamental components involved in the representation of information and extended with the notion of a constraint (from Situation Theory) to clarify the role of agent intentionality in the process of establishing the appropriate mappings that ultimately support the successful communication of units of information. This agent–based intentional perspective not only captures the social and contextual nature of successful digital stewardship, but also promises to support a finer grained analysis of preservation expectations from different stakeholders and the potential practical strategies to fulfill them. This research is intended as a contribution to the overall digital preservation agenda by bringing us closer to sound conceptual foundations for the long–term stewardship of our digital scientific and cultural heritage.

The South Asia sub-region is now in the forefront of the Open Access movement within developing countries in the world, with India being the most prominent partner in terms of its successful Open Access and Digital Library initiatives. Institutional and policy frameworks in India also facilitate innovative solutions for increasing international visibility and accessibility of scholarly literature and documentary heritage in this country. This publication has its genesis in the recommendations and proceedings of UNESCO-supported international conferences and workshops including the 4th International Conference of Asian Digital Libraries (ICADL2001, Bangalore); the International Conferences on Digital Libraries (ICDL2004 & ICDL2006, New Delhi); and the International Workshop on Greenstone Digital Library Software (2006, Kozhikode), where many information professionals of this sub-region demonstrated their Digital Library and Open Access initiatives. This book describes successful digital library and open access initiatives in the South Asia sub-region that are available in the forms of open courseware, open access journals, metadata harvesting services, national-level open access repositories and institutional repositories. This book may be considered an authoritative Source-book on Open Access development in this sub-region.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of North Texas, May, 2009. / Title from title page display. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Drexel University, 2009. / Includes abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 149-159).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 261-280).

The long-term preservation of digital objects has become increasingly relevant. Libraries, public institutions and museums, but also companies are requesting solutions to store their digital files with all relevant contents and attributes for the future. This master thesis makes two contributions to the research in digital preservation.The first attempt is the creation of a testbed which stores many files in different file formats. These files can be used to evaluate the impact of preservation solutions. In this paper an environment for storing and describing files is being suggested and implemented.The second contribution is made by presenting a framework which is based on Utility Analysis for evaluating different preservation solutions. The application of a detailed hierarchy of objectives, considering the individual requirements of the user, will allow a reasonable and clear decision for a specific preservation solution, which can be supported with arguments. The theoretic framework is evaluated in two casestudies. For the first one the whole process is being realized, for the second example only the major part of the analysis, the objective tree, is treated in detail.

Web archiving is necessary to retain the history of the World Wide Web and to study its evolution. It is important for the cultural heritage community. Some organizations are legally obligated to capture and archive Web content. The advent of transactional Web archiving makes the archiving process more efficient, thereby aiding organizations to archive their Web content. This study measures and analyzes the performance of transactional Web archiving systems. To conduct a detailed analysis, we construct a meaningful design space defined by the system specifications that determine the performance of these systems. SiteStory, a state-of-the-art transactional Web archiving system, and local archiving, an alternative archiving technique, are used in this research. We experimentally evaluate the performance of these systems using the Greek version of Wikipedia deployed on dedicated hardware on a private network. Our benchmarking results show that the local archiving technique uses a Web server’s resources more efficiently than SiteStory for one data point in our design space. Better performance than SiteStory in such scenarios makes our archiving solution favorable to use for transactional archiving. We also show that SiteStory does not impose any significant performance overhead on the Web server for the rest of the data points in our design space. / Master of Science / Web archiving is the process of preserving the information available on the World Wide Web into archives. This process provides historians and cultural heritage scholars access to the data that allows them to understand the evolution of the Internet and its usage. Additionally, Web archiving is also essential for some organizations that are obligated to keep the records of online resource access for their customers. Transactional Web archiving is an archiving technique where the information available on the Web is archived by capturing a transaction between a user and the Web server processing the user’s request. Transactional Web archiving provides a more complete and accurate history of a Web server than the traditional Web archiving models. However, in some scenarios the transactional Web archiving solutions may impose performance issues for the Web server being archived. In this thesis, we conduct a detailed performance analysis of SiteStory, a state-of-the-art transactional Web archiving solution, in various experimental settings. Furthermore, we propose a novel transactional Web archiving approach and compare its performance with SiteStory. To conduct a realistic study, we analyze real-life traffic on Greek Wikipedia website and generate similar traffic to perform our benchmarking experiments. Our benchmarking results show that our archiving technique uses a Web server’s resources more efficiently than SiteStory in some scenarios. Better performance than SiteStory in such scenarios makes our archiving solution favorable to use for transactional archiving. We also show that SiteStory does not impose any significant performance overhead on the Web server in other scenarios.

Thesis (M.A. (Information Studies)) -- University of Limpopo, 2022 / Digitisation of library materials offers Library and Information Services (LIS) organisations, national libraries in particular, opportunities to preserve and manage fragile and unique materials, by protecting their physical, saving them from deteriorating and facilitating unmediated access to such collection. The aim of the study was to examine processes involved in the digitisation of the South African National Documentary and Cultural Heritage for the purpose of preservation and access at the national library of South Africa (NLSA). The study was guided by the systems theory by looking into the selection, processing and disseminating of digital records at the NLSA. The study examined adherence to the policies and national legislative frameworks, the technologies used for digitization and access to digitized collections, tools used for accessing digital collections, as well the challenges experienced in the NLSA digitization project. Qualitative research methodology was adopted, through a case-study research whereby, semi-structured interviews, document analysis and observations were triangulated as data collection methods for the study. The key findings showed that the digitisation project at the NLSA adheres to pieces of national legislation and international guidelines such as International Standards Organization (ISO), the and draft digitisation policy developed by the Department of Sports, Arts and Culture which takes into consideration the national legislative framework such as the RSA Constitution, the NLSA Act, the Legal Deposit Act, Copyright legislation, and the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA). However, the content analysis of these legislation did not mention anything about the handling and management of digital collections. Technologies and equipment used in the digitisation process included high quality scanners, servers and hard drives with software such as Optical Character Recognition, Content document management software and the NLSA website. The challenges uncovered in the study in relation included duplication of digitisation efforts and lack of expertise in digitisation. This study recommends that given the evolution of technology, the NLSA should migrate to a more convenient cloud storage that has a large advantage in case of unlimited storage, and keep up to date with the trends of digitisation technology. Legislation governing the LIS in South Africa also needs amendment to cater for the handling and management of digital collections. v

Digital material has different preservation requirements than non-digital and is at greater risk of loss unless deliberate preservation activities are undertaken. Digital preservation is an on-going managed process designed to enable continued use of digital material for as long as necessary. Much of the digital preservation research to date has focused on understanding technical steps in preserving digital objects and there has been less attention paid to assumptions about selection and the conceptual underpinnings of practice. Selection is done, not conceptualised. Therefore the aim of this research was to investigate the theory and practice of selection for digital preservation in UK memory institutions. The objectives employed to achieve this aim were firstly to examine the underlying theory relating to selection in libraries, archives and museums of non-digital material. The research then went on to investigate who the stakeholders are in selection, how selection of digital material is performed and identifying the key influential factors in selection. An intensive, qualitative approach was used to complete these objectives. A thorough review of the literature provided a theoretical background to selection in libraries, archives and museums. Then preliminary data were gathered through a set of exploratory interviews with eight digital preservation experts in order to provide an overview of selection for digital preservation. The findings from these interviews then formed the basis for the second set of interviews with twenty five practitioners working in libraries, archives and museums. The views of practitioners were under-explored in the literature although it is they that perform selection. In addition to these interviews, twenty two current digital preservation policies were examined. This research has found that there is on the whole little change required for selecting digital material, in comparison to selecting non-digital material, although technical criteria relating to the ability of the institution to manage and preserve the material are of high importance. There is a clear assumption in institutions of selection leading only to permanent collecting, which should be questioned. This research has uncovered drivers to selection, including external funders, and barriers, which include a lack of confidence and knowledge on the part of practitioners in how to select and manage digital material. Concepts identified through this research provide a deeper understanding of selection for digital preservation in different contexts and encapsulate key factors underpinning selection. The concept of professionalism is a key factor; the need to be professional and ethical guide s practitioners through specific professional skills and knowledge. The practitioners become engaged with digital material and the level of engagement mirrors the way digital material is conceptualised by practitioners. Many stakeholders were identified, including managers, senior managers, users, creators and donors, funders, other organisations and IT staff. Relationships with stakeholders and the possible roles they play in selection were found to be key factors in selection. These findings contributed to the achievement of the final objective, which was to develop a conceptual model of key factors underpinning selection for of digital material for preservation. The conceptual model consists of five main concepts and their relationships: professionalism; relationships; organisational capabilities; material properties; and boundaries. There is a clear need for greater availability and access to training and networking opportunities for practitioners in order to increase engagement with digital material. Through this research, factors relating to selection have been identified and conceptualised. It has uncovered issues not previously addressed, in particular relating to the social aspect of selection. This research provides an understanding of the complexities of selection and the influences upon it.

The aim of this thesis in Archival Science was to explore the concept of electronic archives and the challenges that might be encountered when attempting to move archives into a new digital age, as well as having a closer look at the term e-archive itself. Another aim was to explore how the OAIS reference model works in practice.To explore these questions I decided to do a case study on E-Arkiv Stockholm, a functioning e-archive. I decided to do a study on several documents that were created throughout the project, these included documents related to the planning of the archive, as well as the final report. My reason for this method was that these docu-ments came straight from reality and would give a clear and unbiased view of the project and it’s many aspects.Examination of the documents showed that the OAIS reference model and its concepts had been the foun-dation of much of the planning. Thoughts and planning on the matter of digital preservation are also based in the model, with a focus on migration and conversion of digital material as a means to ensure it’s lasting existence, as well as keeping a close eye on the technical development of both hardware and software. I also reached the con-clusion that the concept and term e-archive is not so much about re-inventing archival policies and theory as it is about keeping true to already existing practices in a new digital environment. With a special focus on preserva-tion, as digital preservation might, both now and in the future, prove to be much more of a challenge then the preservation of more traditional media.This is a one-year masters thesis in archival science.