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DIGITAL PRESERVATION TECHNIQUES

by Uneeb Khan
Digital Preservation

WHAT IS DIGITAL PRESERVATION?

According to different authors, digital preservation is:

The “set of activities, including conservation, and which are aimed at ensuring that an object lasts as long as possible in its original state, digital preservation would mean carrying out these tasks on information in digital format, worrying us not only for the maintenance of the object but also (and mainly) for its informational content.”

Today, the considerable increase in digital documents, the great diversity of formats (old and new), files, software, hardware, and compatibility problems between them, make it necessary to take measures and apply adequate methods that guarantee the integrityauthenticityreliabilitylegibility, and functionalities of the preserved resource, despite the passage of time and the impact of technological change.

In short, digital preservation is the set of techniques and methodologies that make it possible to ensure that information content digitally stored in any format, program, machine, or system continues to be accessible and can be used, in its entirety, in the medium and long term, although your computing environment changes.

DIGITAL PRESERVATION TECHNIQUES

Currently, there are different options for digital long term preservation. Among those used by centers and libraries around the world are the following:

UPDATING / REFRESHING

It involves transferring data from one support to another; the container is renewed without altering the content. It does not preserve the data, but it is an essential step to guarantee access to it. The frequency with which the update is carried out varies according to the institutional policy and the type of support.

MIGRATION

It consists of transferring data from one format to another, transferring it to other hardware, and converting it to another file (for example, replicating or making copies when there is only one original). 

It is the most used strategy despite the risk of losing the essential characteristics of the data with the passage of time and the accumulation of migrations. 

It is advisable to migrate to standard formats, ensuring that it is a reversible process without losing information. It is a measure against the obsolescence of the previous hardware or file format.

EMULATION

It consists of simulating the behavior of the original software that created the digital Archiving so that they can be executed and used regardless of the original program.

It is the most respectful strategy with the original document and does not require continuous monitoring of the format, although there are few real experiences, and it requires very advanced computer skills.

The emulator, operating system, application, and data must be preserved, and the loss of any of these components makes the information inaccessible.

TECHNOLOGY PRESERVATION

It consists of preserving the technical environment that runs the system, including software and hardware. It assumes that the information must be held in the original support and that of the technology necessary for its access. 

It is not a viable technique since, over time, technological advances will make it challenging to maintain said technical environment.

DIGITAL ARCHEOLOGY

Digital archeology is a technique that recovers damaged information with data loss or deterioration over time. It is a solution to retrieve information when preventive measures have not been taken.

METADATA

It consists of creating data linked to the information for the correct identification and description of the documents. The technique prioritizes metadata as one of the essential options in which institutions and the scientific community are most interested.

“In the digital environment, assigning metadata consists of describing resources, giving access points, analyzing content, and locating resources. In short, it is nothing more than cataloging in a new context where objects are not physical but electronic.

There are two types of metadata:

  1. Object descriptors (allow their retrieval).
  2. Of conservation (they describe how to access the data) with two types of necessary information:
  • From Content – Details on rendering the document format (this rendering metadata changes and is updated).
  • Descriptive: includes bibliographic identifiers and details, owners, history, format validation, and link with other formats.

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