Digital preservation

Ensure your digital records have a future.

The National Archives holds the nation’s memory. With many millions of items, it is more than a record of government decisions. It is an archive about people, from the ordinary to the famous, who together tell the story of our nation.

It is my story. It is your story. It is our history.

Preserving digital records for the futureThe National Archives ensures that significant Australian Government records – including digital records – are preserved and remain accessible in the future.

Digital records present many preservation challenges. They are at risk of being lost due to the rapid pace of development in computer hardware, operating systems and application software, coupled with the short effective life of most physical storage media.

The National Archives has developed a digital preservation methodology, supported by software, to ensure that important digital records are preserved as national archives.

Digital preservation: a four-step processTo preserve digital records, the National Archives uses its digital preservation software to convert proprietary file formats to carefully selected preservation file formats.

There are four steps in this process:

1. Manifest. A list is created of all digital records to be preserved.

2. Quarantine. Records are checked for viruses and integrity.

3. Preservation. Records are converted to preservation file formats.

4. Storage. Records are stored in the digital archive.

The National Archives’ digital preservation software:

• capturestheessentialelementsofdigitalrecords

• allowsdigitalrecordstoberetrievedfromthedigitalarchive at any time

• continuallycheckstheintegrityofrecords in the digital archive.

National Archives’ softwareThe National Archives has developed a suite of software, which includes the applications Xena, Manifest Maker, Digital Preservation Recorder and Checksum Checker.

When researching and developing our approach to digital preservation, we made some important decisions about the softwarewerequired.

As a result, the software:

• islicensedunderanopensourcelicence(theGNUGeneralPublicLicense,orGPL)

• convertsproprietaryfileformatstopreservationfileformats based on open standards.

Open source development allows the National Archives to build upon the efforts of other open source projects, sowecanachieveourgoalsmorequicklyandwithfewerresources.AustralianGovernmentagenciesandotherstakeholders benefit too; the software developed by the National Archives is freely available to download and use.

The National Archives uses preservation file formats based on open standards, which:

• havefullspecificationsthatarepubliclydocumented

• areinteroperablewitharangeofsoftwareapplications

• arenotaffectedbychangesincommercialpropertyrights over software in the marketplace.

Digital records based on open standards thus have a greater potential lifespan.

Xena

Xena (Xml Electronic Normalising for Archives) converts proprietary file formats to preservation file formats. It can also be used to view and export digital records.

Xena preserves digital records in a three-step process:

1. Xena determines the file format of the digital record.

2. Based on the file format, Xena either converts the digital record to a preservation file format or, if the record is already in a preservation file format, preserves it as is.

3. Xena then stores the digital record, with its preservation metadata, as a Xena file.

Xena handles a range of formats, including office documents, email, images and audio files.

Above: An overview of the DPR process, using a Word document as an example.

Manifest Maker

Manifest Maker supports the transfer of digital records from agencies to the National Archives by producing a manifest file. The manifest lists all the digital records that are being sent to the Archives.

The manifest is used to verify the integrity of digital records and track them when they are being processed by Digital Preservation Recorder.

Original MS Word document(.doc/.docx)

Manifest

Digital archive

Xena file(.xena)

Digital Preservation Recorder

Digital Preservation Recorder (DPR) manages the processing of digital records into the digital archive.

The main features of DPR are:

• step-by-stepguidedworkflowfromquarantinetopreservation to storage in the digital archive

• conversionofdigitalrecordstopreservationfileformats,usingXena

• storageofeachoriginalrecordanditspreservationversioninthedigital archive

• accesstorecordsstoredinthedigitalarchive

• auditinformationabouteachtransfer

• reportsonusers,transfersandrecordsstoredinthedigitalarchive.

Checksum Checker

The Checksum Checker software monitors the contents of the National Archives’ digital archive for data loss or corruption.

It continually calculates the checksums of records in the digital archive and compares them to values stored in the DPR database. If the checksums do not match, staff are alerted to fix the issue.

Future directionsThe National Archives’ development priorities are driven by changes in technology, standards and our own business processes. We are continually improving our software so it can handle the exponential growth in file sizes, and process an increasing variety of file formats and volumes of digital records.

More informationAlthough the National Archives developed its digital preservation software for internal use, we believe that it may also be useful for government agencies, organisations and individuals.

Our suite of digital preservation software can be installed on Windows, Mac OS X or Linux operating systems.

For more information and to download the software, visit the following websites:

• Xena–xena.sourceforge.net

• ManifestMaker– manifestmaker.sourceforge.net

• DPR–dpr.sourceforge.net

• ChecksumChecker–checksumchecker.sourceforge.net

ContactDigital Preservation National Archives of Australia PO Box 7425 Canberra Business Centre ACT 2610

t +61 2 6212 3600e recordkeeping@naa.gov.auw naa.gov.au