Problems in Permanent Retention of Electronic Records

LIS 392P.12, Unique Number 45195

Instructor: Patricia K. Galloway

Class meeting locations: SZB 464 and (in April) Lab Annex

Class meeting period: Tuesday, 8:30-11:30

Office: SZB 566

Office hours: Tuesday, 1:30-2:30 PM or by appointment

Office telephone: 232-9220

Email: galloway@gslis.utexas.edu

Teaching assistant: Lori Eichelberger

Email: lkeich@gslis.utexas.edu

Office: SZB 445

Office hours: Tuesday 2:00-4:00 PM or by appointment

Course Description

This course is focused upon what happens to electronic records from all sources, including preservation reformatting, once they have crossed the "archival threshold" for permanent retention. As such the course will cover media refreshment, conversion to neutral formats vs emulation to retain original format, migration, and electronic records repository construction and administration. Projects addressing these issues in government agencies, worldwide as well as locally, will be discussed as case studies. Students will also be introduced to existing practices in the information technology field and their appropriateness to archival requirements: code vaulting and escrow; data warehousing; knowledge management. The course will include a consideration of the issues of authenticity and reauthentication in the long-term preservation of electronic records. Finally, we will address issues of access (including privacy and open records) in the context of WWW standards and digital library initiatives.

Objectives

The overall objective of this course is simple: if you as an archives professional are confronted with the need to construct an effective electronic records repository for permanent retention of records, you should know what the major difficulties are, what you need to do to meet them, and where you can go for help. More specifically, students will learn:

1) How to build a physical electronic records repository

2) How to build a logical electronic records repository

3) How to preserve the records with credible authenticity

4) How to provide access to permanent electronic records while keeping them secure

Since there are as yet no universally-accepted standards, you will learn through consideration of the emerging Open Archival Information System (OAIS) model what is required to construct and implement credible standards for your repository.

Assignments

Class participation (25% of grade): Students will be expected to read assigned readings and come to class prepared to discuss them. Assigned readings and the sequence of lectures will be directed at supporting the process of repository building in the project, so discussion in the class will be a vital part of progress on it. For lab classes, students will be expected to attend and participate actively. This class will be too small for anyone to slack!

Semester project (30% of grade): We will build a small records repository, guided by the OAIS model, to contain and give access to a body of archival material. This semester I am working with Dr. Susan Cisco (Railroad Commission as well as our own Records Management instructor) and officials of the Texas Department of Information Resources toward working out a solution for Texas state government email; the strongest idea being pursued is the possibility of providing a central repository for the whole of state government email (accommodating restricted access, administrative retention, digital signatures, comprehensive search capabilities, etc.) and framing a prototype project for designing it. I am proposing that we take a stab at designing it ourselves, so that when the process is undertaken there will be a proposal for people to look at.

During April the "repository" will actually be constructed as students carry out the following tasks, with each student concentrating on their own area of domain expertise:

1) select a corpus of email for experimentation, use text analysis tool to produce auxiliary subject line

2) place email messages in database "warehouse" with appropriate metadata

3) set up maintenance tasks and schedules

4) set up access front-end and usage monitoring

Lab sessions led by the instructor and teaching assistant will be used to get each step started, and students will complete any step not completed in lab outside of class; instructor and teaching assistant will be available to assist as needed. Grading for the project will be on the basis of the instructor's observations of students' efforts, the overall success of the project, and students' evaluations of their their own and each others' contributions to the project.

Domain expert pathfinder (20% of grade): A set of "domain expert" assignments will be discussed at the first class and allocated at the second. Each student will be expected to create a web page on the course server which provides a resource for expertise in their chosen domain, which should include materials researched in developing domain specifications (see below).

Domain specifications (25% of grade): Each student will write a set of specifications for the portion of the repository requirements covered by their domain expertise according to a preset format. Due date for the specifications, March 29, is not negotiable because the specifications will be implemented in the April lab classes; a penalty of one-half letter grade will be assessed for each day the essay is late.

Text(s):

I have ordered the following text, which is available at the Co-op:

Gregory S. Hunter, Preserving Digital Information: A How-To-Do-It Manual (New York: Neal-Schuman, 2000).

Although this text is a handy repository of useful information and references, you should not therefore assume that anyone knows “how to do it.” We will have additional reading assignments to get closer to the cutting edge than this appreciation of the field offers. Students will be expected to read this whole text, whether all segments are assigned for class discussion or not, since the book contains more information of the preservation of digitized objects than we will have time to address in class.

Class Schedule

January 15: Course overview

Discussion:

Course content

Student experience and other courses

Reading:

Hunter, Preserving Digital Information, Chapter 1, Digital Information: The Preservation Challenge”

January 22: Preservation issues: reliability, authenticity, custodianship

Readings:

Hunter, Preserving Digital Information, Chapter 3, “Recent Research in Electronic Records and Digital Preservation”

Luciana Duranti, "Reliability and Authenticity: The Concepts and their Implications," Archivaria 39:1-10.

Heather MacNeil, "Conceptualizing an Authentic Electronic Record," available at: http://www.interpares.org/documents/hm_saa_2000.pdf

David Bearman, "Virtual Archives," available at: http://web.archive.org/web/20001022231601/www.sis.pitt.edu/~nhprc/prog6.html

January 29: Preservation issues: conversion, migration, emulation, reauthentication

Readings:

Hilary Berthon, "The Moving Frontier: Archiving, Preservation and Tomorrow's Digital Heritage."www.nla.gov.au/nla/staffpaper/hberthon2.html

Margaret Hedstrom, "Research Issues in Migration and Long-Term Preservation"  http://web.archive.org/web/20001027145531/http://www.sis.pitt.edu/~cerar/s5-mh.html

Jeff Rothenberg, "Avoiding Technological Quicksand: Finding a Viable Technical Foundation for Digital Preservation," available at www.clir.org/pubs/reports/rothenberg/contents.html

David Bearman, "Reality and Chimeras in the Preservation of Electronic Records," available at: www.dlib.org/dlib/april99/bearman/04bearman.html

Stewart Granger, "Emulation as a Digital Preservation Strategy."  www.dlib.org/dlib/october00/granger/10granger.html

February 5: Preservation issues: specific genre concerns

Readings:

Hunter, Preserving Digital Information, Chapter 5, “Electronic Mail and Web Pages,” and Chapter 6, “Digital Imaging and Preservation”

Anne R. Kenney et al., "Preservation Risk Management for Web Resources: Virtual Remote Control in Cornell's Project Prism," D-Lib Magazine 8,1 (January 2002), available at: http://www.dlib.org/dlib/january02/kenney/01kenney.html

Charles McClure and Timothy Sprehe, Guidelines for Electronic Records Management on State and Federal Agency Websites, available at: http://istweb.syr.edu/~mcclure/guidelines.html

Gregory Lawrence, William Kehoe, Oya Rieger, William Walters, and Anne Kenney, Risk Management of Digital Information: A File Format Investigation, CLIR Report # 93, 2000, available at: http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub93/contents.html

February 12: Preservation issues: managing terabytes; digital archaeology

Readings:

Michael Lesk, “How Much Information is there in the World?” http://www.lesk.com/mlesk/ksg97/ksg.html

Reagan Moore et al., "Collection-Based Persistent Digital Archives--Part 1," D-Lib Magazine, March 2000: www.dlib.org/dlib/march00/moore/03moore-pt1.html

--Part 2, D-Lib Magazine, April 2000: www.dlib.org/april00/moore/04moore-pt2.html

Hunter, Preserving Digital Information, Chapter 4, “Storage, Handling and Preservation Best Practices”

William E. Underwood, "Analysis of Presidential Electronic Records: Final Report," available at: perpos.gtri.gatech.edu/perpos/Final_Report.pdf

February 19: Access issues: The role of metadata

Readings:

Anne Gilliland-Swetland, “Setting the Stage,” in Introduction to Metadata: Pathways to Digital Information, available at: www.getty.edu/gri/standard/intrometadata/2_articles/index.htm

Tony Gill, “Metadata and the World Wide Web,”, in Introduction to Metadata: Pathways to Digital Information, available at: in Introduction to Metadata: Pathways to Digital Information, available at: www.getty.edu/gri/standard/intrometadata/2_articles/index.htm

Mary Woodley, “Crosswalks: the Path to Universal Access?” in Introduction to Metadata: Pathways to Digital Information, available at: www.getty.edu/gri/standard/intrometadata/2_articles/index.htm

Traugott Koch and Stuart Weibel, "Introduction to a Special Issue on Metadata: Selected Papers from the Dublin Core 2001 Conference," Journal of Digital Information 2,2 (2002-01-04), available (this page provides links to all the papers) at http://jodi.ecs.soton.ac.uk/Articles/v02/i02/editorial/

Clifford Lynch, “Access Management for Networked Information Resources,” available at: http://www.cni.org/projects/authentication/authentication-wp.html#Appendix

February 26: How to build a repository: physical/technical issues

Readings:

OAIS model: www.ccsds.org/RP9905/RP9905.html (read sections 1-3)

Texas state computing installation specs: www.state.tx.us/ftp/pub/adrocpol.txt

March 5: How to build a repository: three logical models

Readings:

CEDARS/OAIS model (two documents):

Kelly Russell, "Digital Preservation and the Cedars Project Experience," available at: http://www.rlg.ac.uk/events/pres-2000/russell.html

David Holdsworth and Derek M. Sergeant, “A Blueprint for Representation Information in the OAIS Model,” use the "Wayback Machine" at http://www.archive.org to find: http://gps0.leeds.ac.uk/~ecldh/cedars/nasa2000/nasa2000.html

Data warehouse model: William H. Inmon, Building the Data Warehouse, 2nd ed., Chapter 2; available on e-reserves in two files, part 1 and part 2.

Code vaulting/"escrow" model: "Articles on Escrow (18 short "Cases in Point") at: http://www.dsiescrow.com/techescrow/index.html (choose "How-To Guides," then "articles on escrow")

March 12: SPRING BREAK

March 19: How to build a repository: deciding on components of a logical model

Readings:

Hunter, Preserving Digital Information, Chapter 7, “preserving the Information System”

TSLAC, “Functional Requirements” (1999), available at http://www.tyc.state.tx.us/errc/erecfuncreq.doc

TSLAC, “Electronic Records Standards and Procedures” 2000, available at http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/slrm/state/stateerules.pdf

Public Record Office, Management, Appraisal, and Preservation of Electronic Records, Chapter 5, “Preservation of Electronic Records,” available at: www.pro.gov.uk/recordsmanagement/eros/guidelines/procedures5.htm

March 26: Structuring and implementing a metadata set

Readings:

OIAS model, sections 4-6 and annexes

OCLC/RLG Working Group on Preservation Metadata, “Preservation Metadata for Digital Objects: A Review of the State of the Art,” available at http://www.oclc.org/research/pmwg/documents.shtm

OCLC/RLG Working Group on Preservation Metadata, “A Recommendation for Content Information,” available at: http://www.oclc.org/research/pmwg/documents.shtm

April 2: Intake of records to repository (reception of SIP) (lab)

Discussion of domain specifications for transfer, conversion

April 9: Records into database with metadata (AIP) (lab)

Discussion of domain specifications for database function and structure

April 16: Set up to provide maintenance of records (lab)

Discussion of domain specifications for migration, security

April 23: Integrate access with WWW and set up usage monitoring (DIP) (lab)

Discussion of domain specifications for web server function/linkage

April 30: Complete any remaining tasks

Class survey