[OAI-general] DDQ 1(4) announces a digital preservation solution

hgladney hgladney@pacbell.net
Mon, 23 Dec 2002 09:36:50 -0800


DDQ 1(4)at http://home.pacbell.net/hgladney/ddq_1_4.htm continues DDQ’s 2002
emphasis on digital content preservation, identifying what we believe is a
solution to the technical challenges.

We agree with a developing consensus that the migration and preservation
emulation proposals for preserving meaning are flawed.  Next to no-one else
is considering fresh approaches.  This DDQ number announces a series of
articles that propose an approach to secure, meaningful digital preservation
and describe work in progress.

DDQ 1(4) also comments on people's perception that digital resources present
more difficult problems than information on paper—-an opinion that we feel
overlooks facts about the technologies and about people’s growing
expectations.

The technical components of a solution must address four objectives:
1) Ensuring that our descendants can understand and use any information we
preserve.
2) Ensuring that anybody can decide whether saved data can be trusted for
his applications.
3) Replacing human effort by automatic procedures whenever doing so is
feasible.
4) Empowering each information producer to package content and metadata to
minimize what a professional archivist or librarian must do.

Our solution treats the first three objectives economically and is
compatible with almost any deployed digitallibrary software.

DDQ tables of contents continue at http://home.pacbell.net/hgladney/ddq.htm


Best wishes of the season, Henry       HMG Consulting

H.M. Gladney, Ph.D.   (408)867-5454
http://home.pacbell.net/hgladney/
20044 Glen Brae Drive, Saratoga, CA 95070-5062