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Digital Preservation > Concepts > Flashcards

Concepts Flashcards

Learn about digital preservation concepts.

1
Q

What is…

Format Identification

A

Recognizing a file’s format based on markers inside the binary stream. The first stage of digital preservation recognised as ‘knowing what you’ve got’.

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2
Q

What is a…

File Format Extension

A

File extensions are the characters following the last full-stop in a filename, e.g. ‘.txt’, ‘.exe’, ‘.xls’. A clue to the file’s format but not a guarantee.

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3
Q

What is a…

File Format Signature

A

Binary markers inside a file that indicate its format and version. To find a signature means reading a file’s content and so it is a more sure way of finding what a file is.

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4
Q

What is a…

Magic Number

A

✨Magic✨ number is often used as a synonym for file format signature.

The etymology for the term dates back to the seventh version of the Unix operating system (1979).

The use of magic numbers grew as requirements for them did. The use of the phrase file format signature seems to have come about through the maturisation of the field of digital preservation.

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5
Q

What is…

Web Archiving

A

The process of crawling a website in its current form and duplicating it, and its resorces (images, sound files, etc.) offline, or simply, elsewhere, that is, in a web-archive.

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6
Q

What is a…

Memento

A
  • Memento is first a project to support web archiving and finding of web archives in a standardised way.
  • Memento is second, a synonym for the snapshot of a website - an archived website may be called a Memento.
  • Memento is an intitiative from Los Alamos National Laboratory and Old Dominion University, in the US.
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7
Q

What is…

Web Crawling

A

Automation of the web-archiving process. A tool crawls a website by looking at all of the links stemming from it and then visiting those one-by-one, potentially doing the same at the next site - figuratively, crawling.

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8
Q

What is…

Fixity

A

Properties of an object, digital or otherwise, that prove it to be fixed - its state hasn’t changed. The last-modified date of a file is a potential measure of fixity. A file’s checksum value is a more robust measure of fixity.

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9
Q

What is…

Risk

A

From risk management, the formal statement of a risk is as follows:

“Because of x there is a risk that y which will result in z. “

The statement enables us to think about risk in terms of its impact and therefore steers us away from the concept of risk as in fear.

Impacts should be measurable, and real.

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10
Q

What is…

Obsolescence

A

The process of technology becoming unreadable ot unusable. Digital preservation requires monitoring of potential obsolesence.

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11
Q

What is…

Data Obfuscation

A

Hiding data from plain-view or use such that it is obfuscated, e.g. encryption, redaction, and password protection.

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12
Q

What is…

Metadata

A

Data about another item, for example, the number of pages in a book, and the number of words. Metadata about a digital object can be anything that describes that file or something in the file, for example, a digital image’s resolution (number of pixels along the x and y axis.)

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13
Q

What is…

Metadata Extraction

A

The extraction of metadata from a digital object, often using tools that can read the file and export the information in a machine-readable form such as XML or JSON.

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14
Q

What is…

Characterization

A

Characterization is whereby metadata crucial to the preservation of the digital object is recorded.

This information may describe the object itself or part of its technical environment.

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15
Q

What are…

Significant Properties

A

Properties of individual records or groups of records that may be prioritised for preservation, and used as a measure of a successful ‘preservation action’, e.g. if the number of pages in a record is considered to be important, it is a significant property we need to monitor and measure.

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16
Q

What is…

Metadata Mapping

A

The process of selecting metadata about a digital object and encoding it into an alternative schema, e.g. for archival description, or preservation.

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17
Q

What are…

Digital Humanities

A

The use of digital techniques to support the scholarly study of the humanities (Literature, Archaeology, Architecture etc.).

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18
Q

What is a…

Digital Archive (DIN (German Instituit for Standardization) Definition)

A

An organisation (consisting of people and technical systems) which has assumed responsibility for the long-term preservation and long-term availability of digital data and its provision for a specified designated community.

19
Q

What is…

Digital Preservation (Library of Congress definition)

A

Digital preservation is the active management of digital content over time to ensure ongoing access.

20
Q

What is…

Digital Preservation (AV Preserve definition)

A

Digital preservation is a function of digital curation, in which digital content is prepared and actively managed for long-term access.

21
Q

What is a…

Digital Preservation System

A

A system, or set of systems and tools, that enable digital preservation.

A system may be contrived of components for ingest, storage, preservation management, and access, as well as other functions.

Industry examples include RODA, Archivematica, Preservica, and Rosetta.

22
Q

What is an…

Archive Management System

A
  • An archive management system commonly wraps functions that are not part of a digital preservation system.
  • An archive management system enables the description of digital records and the provision of context relevant or one or more archival models.
  • A connection must exist between the archive management system and a digital preservation system to allow digital records to be retrieved by their catalogue references.
23
Q

What is…

CMS/ECMS

A
  • Content Management System/Enterprise Content Management System are contemporary methods of maintaining digital records in an organisation.
  • Systems manage storage and retrieval of records across the organisation for all users.
  • Systems will implement retention and disposal schedules, as well as wrapping records in suitable record keeping management and discovery metadata.
24
Q

What is a…

Trusted Repository

A
  • A repository certified as trusted following an audit using the measures defined in ISO standard 16363:2012.
  • A trusted repository will conform to measures surrounding Organizational Infrastructure. Digital Object Management. Infrastructure and Security Risk Management.
  • Bodies providing audit and assessment must also conform to ISO standard 16919:2014.
25
Q

What is…

Validity

A

A file format and its informational content that follows a set of rules defined in its specification is considered to be valid.

26
Q

What is…

Well-Formed

A

A file format that conforms to a structure defined by its specification is considered to be well-formed.

27
Q

What is an…

Intellectual Entity

A

An item, or groupsing of items that constitute a record in a digital repository, e.g. a book is an intellectual entity made up of many pages. Different mechanisms of displaying or looking after this book may be called representations.

28
Q

What are…

Standards

A

A standard is commonly a set of recommendations and principles, that may or may not require absolute compliance.

From the International Organization for Standardization’s (ISO) perspective, standards provide specifications for products, services, and systems, that help ensure quality, safety, and efficiency.

In the digital preservation community, standards help to create a lingua franca as a platform to communicate upon.

29
Q

What is…

Bitrot

A

The loss of data through degradation of a carrier medium, e.g. the loss of magnetic resonance on a floppy disk leading to the file allocation table (file directory) becoming unreadable.

30
Q

What is…

Active Management

A

The continuous monitoring of digital objects for changes in their bitstream. The monitoring of a file on a file system for bit rot.

31
Q

What is…

Preservation Watch

A

The monitoring of the technical aspects of a digital object for obsolescence., e.g. the current long-term support status of a piece of software, or the introduction of a newer specification of a file format or standard.

32
Q

What is…

Bit-level preservation

A

The process of correcting a digital file that has suffered bit-rot, identified through the process of active management.

33
Q

What is a…

Dark Archive (for storage)

A

The use of offline, or near-line storage for digital archives. Little or no immediate access is provided. Files are preserved through bit-level preservation unless a concerted intervention is made by the archival institution.

34
Q

What is a…

Dark Archive (for access)

A

A gamut of archival or preservation systems can be used to give users access to metadata and catalogue entries about records, but there is zero public access to the records themselves. A dark archive configuration like this may be used because information content demands it to be protected in such a way.

35
Q

What is…

Audit (AV Preserve)

A

A review of a system to ensure compliance. The outcome of an audit is binary – either you pass or fail.

36
Q

What is…

Assessment (AV Preserve definition)

A

An assessment looks at how a system is succeeding and where there are gaps.

The outcome of an assessment is feedback for growth;

identification of gaps in practice; and spotlights strengths.

Assessments completed regularly may lead to a successful pass on an audit (toward Trusted Digital Repository Status) in future.

37
Q

What is…

Organizational Alignment (AV Preserve concept)

A
  • Beyond OAIS-like digital preservation (IT) systems; the coordination of digital preservation needs to happen ‘outside-the-box’ across the organization.
  • Organizations may be complex and there is a recognition that content of value may not be managed consistently across it and in-line with digital preservation principles.
  • Organizational alignment is the operationalization of digital preservation.
38
Q

What is…

Library Carpentry

A

The development of practical digital skills, such as programming basics, for use in the GLAM sector.

39
Q

What is…

Big Data

A
  • A popular definition of big data is data that requires a certain amount of computational power to be able to ask research questions and draw sensible conclusions from.
  • A working definition of ‘big data’ seems to be a range from Gigabytes (querying portions of your collection for keywords, for example), to the generation of a Gigabyte of data a second (the amount of data produced by the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland)
40
Q

What is…

Digital Continuity

A

The idea that preservation of digital records happens in situ in the organisation creating the records. Digital continuity focuses on the value of creating and maintaining the digital records in your organization. Principles of digital preservation apply to this material but the custodianship of an archival institution is not needed to apply them.

41
Q

What is an…

Audit Trail

A

Related to the concept of provenance, an audit trail describes the agents and actors that have accessed a digital resource and the processes (read, write, transform) that have been applied to that resource.

42
Q

What is…

Migration

A

The transformation of a file format into another file format with the same, or similar properties, e.g. migration of a JPEG image to PNG. Migration is a potential method of preserving digital information.

The key for many users is the measurement and quality analysis of properties apparent in the data before, and after migration, and an understanding of what may be lost along the way.

43
Q

What is…

Emulation

A

The recreation of legacy, or current, computer architecture in software. A potential mechanism for allowing users to interact with archival records.

Digital Preservation (13 decks)

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