Future Access to the Scientific and Cultural Heritage –

A shared Responsibility

Birte Christensen-Dalsgaard

State and University Library

Outline of talk

• Staging the challenges data and their representation

• The expectation of researchersbased on field studies in Planets

• Preservation focus• Planets• CASPAR

• Summary

Collection Description – depends on purpose for use

Data – harmonised for immediate useShould we keep the original?

Data – From Bits to Interpretation

Level 2 GOME Satellite instrument data

From CASPAR

New Media

• We establish collections to give future generations access to this cultural heritage – but how will they access and use it?

• The answer will influence preservation strategies and quality measures

Information is the important thing

• What information?• Documents……• Data…….

• Original bits?• Look and feel?• Behaviour?• Performance?• Explicit/ Implicit/ Tacit

Information:

Any type of knowledge that can be exchanged. In an exchange, it is represented by data.

Long Term is long enough to be concerned with the impacts of changing technologies, including support for new media and data formats, or with a changing user community. Long Term may extend indefinitely.

Ensure that the information to be preserved is Independently Understandable to (and usable by) the Designated Community.

From CASPAR

Interview with three futurologists

• If knowledge is not available 24/7 and accessible in a meaningful way – then it is not used

• Searching on the basis of words will disappear – will start to search on the basis of argumentation

• Data are stored in international databases. Databases are linked.

• Data becomes cheaper to reconstruct by the minute – cheaper to reconstruct than to store.

Trends – which might be explored

• Researchers are not prepared to travel to collections as part of their normal research. May go before publishing

• Researchers use many sources – but miss handles to evaluate quality (authenticity)

• What is perceived as the best copy?• We live in a global society and researchers

and citizen's act and think internationally – and work with linked or integrated material

• Opening hours – meaningful?• Formulate queries in more abstract terms?

How to document the creation of ideas? Output - Process

CASPAR and Planets

• CASPAR – focus on developing framework and methodology for capturing relevant information as part of the process

• Planets – focus on creating framework and methodology for common, existing objects

Project Architecture Reflects Problem Structure

PreservationPlanningServices

CharacterisationServices

PreservationAction

Services

Test Bed:evaluation and

validationservices

DisseminationTake-up

&Training

UserCommunity

SupplierCommunity

Interoperability Framework From Planets

Interoperability Framework

• Includes• Interoperable

distributed services• Service registries and

shared data-stores• Encapsulate tools as

services• Orchestration

capability to combine services

From Planets

Representation Information

• The Data Object is “interpreted using” the Representation Information (RepInfo)

• The Reference Model is designed to ensure that an OAIS is not set the impossible task of having to provide all possible RepInfo immediately

• Hence:• Take account of the Designated Community and its associated

Knowledge Base

• The amount of RepInfo is not fixed• Additional RepInfo will be needed over time

How do we define a Designated Community?

Created how?By whom?

From CASPAR

Why focus on Representation Information?

• Shareable• A piece of Representation Information (RepInfo) can be

associated with large numbers of different digital objects

• Shared need• RepInfo Network – potentially huge and growing (as

Designated Community Knowledge Base changes)

• Huge variety• Structure, Semantics, Software etc

But• Of course we need lots of other “metadata”

• PDI, Packaging, Descriptive – Information plus…

From CASPAR

CASPAR information flow architecture

•Rep

•Info

VirtualisationHow do we capture the Representation Information?

From CASPAR

Summary

• Focus on sharing the effort involved in Digital Preservation

• Forward looking: Digital Preservation should be an integrated part of information creation

• Retrospective: Hard work