Digital preservation work at FAO

February 6, 2012

Digital Preservation at FAO

Digital Preservation

Ensuring long-term access to FAO’s work

Office of Knowledge Exchangeand the Library (OEKM)

Claudia Nicolai and Rachele Oriente

February 6, 2012

Digital Preservation at FAO

What Is Digital Preservation?

Digital preservation is the series of strategies and actions taken to promote

the availability and usability of digital information over time.

February 6, 2012

Digital Preservation at FAO

What Is Digital Information? Data that is encoded as a series of 0’s and 1’s… typically stored on various media (e.g. CD’s, DVD’s), that… requires specialized hardware to read (e.g., disk or tape drive, CD

player), and… specialized software to operate (e.g., operating systems), and… still more software (applications) to interpret and render (e.g.,

Powerpoint) into usable form, and contextual knowledge about how to operate that software in order to

use it (e.g., double click to open)

credits to: Tom Cramer, Chief Technology Strategist Stanford University Library

February 6, 2012

Digital Preservation at FAO

Why Digital Preservation?

In short, access to digital information requires hardware, software and people…

BUT technology and people change, therefore

creating potential barriers to re-use.

credits to: Tom Cramer, Chief Technology Strategist Stanford University Library

February 6, 2012

Digital Preservation at FAO

Risks to Digital Information

Media decay (bit rot) Obsolescence

– File Format– Software– Hardware– Media

Technology Failure– Software– Hardware– Media

Natural disasters Information attack Economic Failure Organizational Failure Human error

credits to: Tom Cramer, Chief Technology Strategist Stanford University Library

February 6, 2012

Digital Preservation at FAO

Digital Preservation Strategies Migration (identify the significant

properties of digital objects)• Format• Media• Technology

Emulation• Hardware• Software

Metadata– Sufficient metadata to

understand the object– Descriptive, technical,

administrative– At creation, ingest, batch,

etc. Redundancy and

heterogeneity– Technology– Location– Organization

credits to: Tom Cramer, Chief Technology Strategist Stanford University Library

February 6, 2012

Digital Preservation at FAO

OEKM’S Vision and Guidance across FAO and with other UN agencies:

preserving FAO records and specifically preserve significant FAO digital publications and FAO web;developing & sharing preservation expertise;developing a range of digital preservation policies, procedures and tools.

Digital Content Life Cycle Chart. Google Images. http://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&hl=en&source=hp&biw=1223&bih=829&q=digital+preservation&gbv=2&oq=digital+preservation&aq=f&aqi=g1g-S9&aql=1&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=2394l4898l0l5089l20l17l0l6l6l0l222l1663l1.8.2l11l0

February 6, 2012

Digital Preservation at FAO

Where did it all start for OEKM?The FAO Open Archive Merges electronic resources

and enriched metadata. Integrates cataloguing with

electronic publishing. Adopts Open Access

Standards (OAI – PMH). Adopts the Open Archival

Information System ISO standard (OAIS).

Aims at guaranteeing long term preservation and access.

Corporate Document Repository

FAO Catalogue

February 6, 2012

Digital Preservation at FAO

Preserving FAO publications

FAO has the legal mandate to manage and preserve FAO OA information; FAO OA digital content is self-describing and self-sustaining by virtue of its enriched metadata description;FAO OA digital content uses generic non proprietary formats (such as HTML and TIFF) or proprietary standards (such as PDF) that can be anyway rendered with many independent viewing tools; FAO OA workflow already foresees a close collaboration with information producers in the technical departments.

February 6, 2012

Digital Preservation at FAO

Preserving FAO Web

Web sites with legal obligations to preserve content over a period of time;

Web sites that need to be archived and removed from the web;

Web sites that are not compliant with FAO web publishing standards.

International Plant Protection Convention(legal obligation to preserve any published content for 10 years)

February 6, 2012

Digital Preservation at FAO

Preserving FAO Web - video(duration 3:30)

February 6, 2012

Digital Preservation at FAO

Benefits Beyond FAO Member countries

– Statistics FAO receives paper

copies of statistics for FAOSTATS

Member countries may not be able to preserve their own stats

Census. Library and Archives Canada http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/census/index-e.html

February 6, 2012

Digital Preservation at FAO

Synergies with the RMMP

Legal obligations to hold records with integrity of content and form;

Organization-wide responsibility; Current scope is email; Future scope will include other records; Digital preservation important final step.

February 6, 2012

Digital Preservation at FAO

UNESCO Charter

The UN has recognized the importance of digital preservation. During the 32nd Session of the UNESCO General Conference a Charter on the Preservation of Digital Heritage was adopted that recognises that “digital heritage is at risk of being lost and that its preservation for the benefit of present and future generations is an urgent issue of worldwide concern”. Access to information available on the Internet is referred to as a human right by a recently published UN report.

UNESCO 32nd Conference http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0013/001331/133171e.pdf

February 6, 2012

Digital Preservation at FAO

Collaboration with UN Agencies Survey

– UN Agencies target group;– Aims at taking a snapshot of what UN

Agencies are doing in DP. UN Workshop 2012

– Exchange of experiences;– Finding commonalities;– Looking for collaborative opportunities;– UN CLOCKS / UN LOKSS?

February 6, 2012

Digital Preservation at FAO

Achievements

Workshop on Digital Preservation and JHOVE2, FAO HQ, May 2011.

Digital Preservation Problem Statement approved by OEK Director, October 2011.

The technical specifications for Web Archiving services in FAO have been defined in collaboration with CIO, December 2011.

February 6, 2012

Digital Preservation at FAO

Next steps

ITKM Note as  a starting point for drafting an Organizational strategy for Digital Preservation

Procurement process for selecting a Web archiving service.

Workshop to outline a plan for Digital  Preservation in the Open Archive, March 2012.

Workshop with UN Agencies on knowledge sharing on Digital Preservation, October 2012.