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Digital Preservation Guidelines
/digital-preservation-guidelines/

Prepared by Sidney Gao and James Van Mil -- Updated August 2020

Digital preservation efforts are vital to ensuring that UCL’s newly digitized collections remain accessible for future generations of scholars and researchers. The Digital Collections Team is dedicated to ensuring that newly digitized collections are responsibly stewarded, with the same care that is taken with physical collections. The purpose of these guidelines are to set achievable digital preservation standards for all newly created digital collections.

Scope

These guidelines outline a progressive approach for supporting the digital preservation needs of the digitized content stewarded by the Digital Collections Team. Further attention is needed to understand how to support born-digital collections, which is outside the scope of this document.

For any questions about this document, or about the current digital preservation guidelines, please contact the Digital Collections Team at digitalcontent@ucmail.uc.edu.

Standards

The team works diligently to gradually and consistently research and implement standards set by the Open Archival Information System (OAIS) and the NDSA Levels of Digital Preservation, facilitated by the Digital Preservation Capability Maturity Model (DPCMM).

  • Open Archival Information System (OAIS) -- The OAIS model for digital preservation has been widely accepted as the standard for repositories of cultural heritage digital content. Where some discussions of digital preservation focus on technology, this model equally emphasizes the importance of technology, management, and resources. This holistic approach will allow us to build a stable digital preservation program capable of growth, while customizing policies to UCL-specific needs.

  • NDSA Levels of Digital Preservation -- The NSDA Levels of Digital Preservation focus on the technical infrastructure needed to properly steward and maintain digital collections. Technology often overshadows other aspects of digital preservation for a reason: technology is crucial to maintain digital content. When used in conjunction with the OAIS, the NDSA Levels of Digital Preservation can guide UCL's digital preservation program.

  • Digital Preservation Capability Maturity Model (DPCMM) -- The DPCMM is an assessment tool that allows institutions to self-assess the maturity of their digital preservation program according to both OAIS and NDSA Levels standards. This tool provides detailed analysis of fifteen assessment points and suggests next steps to improve upon existing digital preservation activities. Following the DPCMM's plan for growing UCL's digital preservation program will ensure that OAIS and NDSA Levels standards are met simultaneously.

Guidelines

Our current Digital Preservation Guidelines are written below, and will be evaluated annually by the Digital Collections Team. These standards will be applied to all newly digitized collections at UC Libraries.

  • Preservation copies of all newly digitized content will take the form of Open Source Technology Neutral (OS/TN) formats only

    • For most of our newly digitized collections, these formats will be TIFs and PDF/UAs

    • Preservation metadata will be stored on CSV files

  • Preservation copies and preservation metadata of all digital objects in a new digital collection will be stored in a minimum of two (2) of these three locations at any given time:

    • Phase One NAS

    • Isilon storage

    • APTrust

    In addition, both Isilon storage and APTrust regularly back up servers, providing an extra layer of protection against unexpected disasters.

  • BagIt will be used to create MD5 checksums for every new digital collection, and checksums will be verified after every file transfer.

  • The Digital Collections Team will maintain documentation logging permissions and access of relevant stakeholders.

    • No one individual will have R/W access to all copies of digital content

    • Members of the Digital Collections Team combined will have R/W access to all copies of digital content.

  • Due to our limiting capacity, minimum viable preservation metadata will be stored with each digitized collection:

    • Reference, context, and provenance information

    • Fixity information

    • Content data object description

    Preservation metadata will be stored on CSV files and packaged alongside preservation copies of digital objects.