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Case study: the University of Glasgow’s digital preservation journey 2017-2019 Cover

Case study: the University of Glasgow’s digital preservation journey 2017-2019

Insights
Volume 32 (2019): Issue 1
By: Alison Spence,  Valerie McCutcheon and  Matt Mahon  
Open Access
|Mar 2019

Figures & Tables

uksgi-32-461-g1.jpg

Stack of analogue film canisters.

National Library of Scotland, used under CC BY 4.0 licence.

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Figure 1

Options for managing and accessing metadata

Table 1

National Digital Stewardship Alliance levels of digital preservation, Version 1

NDSA, 201, used under CC BY 4.0 licence

Level 1 (Protect your data)Level 2 (Know your data)Level 3 (Monitor your data)Level 4 (Repair your data)
Storage and Geographic Location

  • - Two complete copies that are not collocated

  • - For data on heterogeneous media (optical discs, hard drives, etc.) get the content off the medium and into your storage system

  • - At least three complete copies

  • - At least one copy in a different geographic location

  • - Document your storage system(s) and storage media and what you need to use them

  • - At least one copy in a geographic location with a different disaster threat

  • - Obsolescence monitoring process for your storage system(s) and media

  • - At least three copies in geographic locations with different disaster threats

  • - Have a comprehensive plan in place that will keep files and metadata on currently accessible media or systems

File Fixity and Data Integrity

  • - Check file fixity on ingest if it has been provided with the content

  • - Create fixity info if it was not provided with the content

  • - Check fixity on all ingests

  • - Use write-blockers when working with original media

  • - Virus-check high risk content

  • - Check fixity of content at fixed intervals

  • - Maintain logs of fixity info; supply audit on demand

  • - Ability to detect corrupt data

  • - Virus-check all content

  • - Check fixity of all content in response to specific events or activities

  • - Ability to replace/repair corrupted data

  • - Ensure no one person has write access to all copies

Information Security

  • - Identify those people authorized to read, write, move and delete individual files

  • - Restrict who has those authorizations to individual files

  • - Document access restrictions for content

  • - Maintain logs of who performed what actions on files, including deletions and preservation actions

  • - Perform audit of logs

Metadata

  • - Inventory of content and its storage location

  • - Ensure backup and non-collocation of inventory

  • - Store administrative metadata

  • - Store transformative metadata and log events

  • - Store standard technical and descriptive metadata

  • - Store standard preservation metadata

File Formats

  • - When you can advise on the creation of digital files, encourage use of a limited set of known open formats and codecs

  • - Inventory of file formats in use

  • - Monitor file format obsolescence issues

  • - Perform format migrations, emulation and similar activities as needed

uksgi-32-461-g3.png
Figure 2

Example of definitions of types of archives in the CASRAI dictionary

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.461 | Journal eISSN: 2048-7754
Journal RSS Feed
Language: English
Submitted on: Jan 28, 2019
Accepted on: Feb 6, 2019
Published on: Mar 20, 2019
Published by: Ubiquity Press
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services
Publication frequency: 3 issues per year
Keywords:
Digital preservation,
terminology,
metadata,
record keeping,
RDSS,
CASRAI

© 2019 Alison Spence, Valerie McCutcheon, Matt Mahon, published by Ubiquity Press
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

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