Active Preservation - a practical approach to long term digital preservation

Location: Jim Potter Room, Old Physics, Melbourne Uni

All digital records are dependent on a set of software and hardware technologies that will become obsolete over time. If we do nothing to guard against this risk of obsolescence, there is a real chance we may loose the ability to access digital records we create today at some point in the future. As a result preservation planning and action are two important features of any long term digital archive solution.

Of particular importance is the need to capture the essential characteristics of digital records that have been identified for long term retention. This will allow us to make meaningful decisions regarding their long-term preservation and ensure that they remain authentic and accessible over time. By making use of technical registries containing both factual and policy data, we can automate both the preservation planning and the preservation strategy used.

Slides from James's talk 500kB

Speaker Information: James Carr is a senior architect in the digital preservation group at Tessella based in the UK and has over 5 years experience working in the digital preservation domain.

James has designed and implemented a range of digital preservation technologies and tool-sets,  including OAIS compliant digital archives for, The UK National Archives, The Swiss Federal Archives, the Dutch Nationaal Archief, The Wellcome Collection, the Estonia National Archive, the Arkib Negara (National Archives of Malaysia) and the Austrian Federal Chancellery.

James is a member of  the technical coordination committee of the EU PLANETS project and represents Tessella on the JHOVE2 advisory panel. James is also an active participant in the Sun PASIG community.

James has a degree in Theoretical Physics from Newcastle University and a Ph.D. from the University of Nottingham.

www.tessella.com/digitalarchiving