Sustaining Software Preservation Efforts Through Use and Communities of Practice

The brief history of software preservation efforts illustrates one phenomenon repeatedly: not unlike spinning a plate on a broomstick, it is easy to get things going, but difficult to keep them stable and moving. Within the context of video games and other forms of cultural heritage (where most software preservation efforts have lately been focused), this challenge has several characteristic expressions, some technical (e.g., the difficulty of capturing and emulating protected binary files and proprietary hardware), and some legal (e.g., providing archive users with access to preserved games in the face of variously threatening end user licence agreements). In other contexts, such as the preservation of research-oriented software, there can be additional challenges, including insufficient awareness and training on unusual (or even unique) software and hardware systems, as well as a general lack of incentive for preserving “old data.” We believe that in both contexts, there is a relatively accessible solution: the fostering of communities of practice. Such groups are designed to bring together like-minded individuals to discuss, share, teach, implement, and sustain special interest groups—in this case, groups engaged in software preservation. In this paper, we present two approaches to sustaining software preservation efforts via community. The first is emphasizing within the community of practice the importance of “preservation through use,” that is, preserving software heritage by staying familiar with how it feels, looks, and works. The second approach for sustaining software preservation efforts is to convene direct and adjacent expertise to facilitate knowledge exchange across domain barriers to help address local needs; a sufficiently diverse community will be able (and eager) to provide these types of expertise on an as-needed basis. We outline here these sustainability mechanisms, then show how the networking of various domain-specific preservation efforts can be converted into a cohesive, transdisciplinary, and highly collaborative software preservation team. [This paper is a conference pre-print presented at IDCC 2020 after lightweight peer review.

Consider the Source: The Value of Source Code to Digital Preservation Strategies

One of the major challenges in the digital preservation field is the difficulty of ensuring long-term access to digital objects, especially in cases when the software that was used to create an object is no longer current. Software source code has a human-readable, documentary structure that makes it an overlooked aspect of digital preservation strategies, in addition to a valuable component for the records of modern computing history. The author surveys several approaches to software preservation and finds that, by supporting open source initiatives, digital libraries can improve their ability to preserve access to their collections for future generations

The Copyright Permissions Culture in Software Preservation and Its Implications for the Cultural Record

This report summarizes results from research with the professionals who make up the software preservation community about how their understanding of copyright intersects with their preservation mission. Professionals typically face significant challenges from perceived copyright barriers. They tend to assume that a license or other express permission from a copyright holder is required before embarking on a wide variety of preservation activities, and typically find that such permissions are difficult or impossible to obtain. In the absence of reliable information to guide informed risk assessment, professionals act on the reasonable assumption that high levels of legal risk could be associated with activities that potentially implicate copyright and related doctrines. As a result, they often forego and postpone essential preservation activities, and establish access policies for collection materials that strictly limit scholarship. Preservation professionals have actively explored opportunities for collaboration and resource-sharing, but their prospects are clouded by legal uncertainty. At the same time, professionals are frustrated and deeply concerned that over-conservative approaches are limiting access to software and software-dependent works, imperiling the future of digital memory. The community has so far had little access to information or expert advice about alternatives to seeking permission, and in particular about the fair use doctrine, which allows the use of copyrighted materials without permission from the copyright holder under certain circumstances. Developing a shared understanding among preservation professionals of best practices around employing fair use to achieve their preservation and access mission will facilitate their work

Managing Research Data in Big Science

The project which led to this report was funded by JISC in 2010--2011 as part of its 'Managing Research Data' programme, to examine the way in which Big Science data is managed, and produce any recommendations which may be appropriate. Big science data is different: it comes in large volumes, and it is shared and exploited in ways which may differ from other disciplines. This project has explored these differences using as a case-study Gravitational Wave data generated by the LSC, and has produced recommendations intended to be useful variously to JISC, the funding council (STFC) and the LSC community. In Sect. 1 we define what we mean by 'big science', describe the overall data culture there, laying stress on how it necessarily or contingently differs from other disciplines. In Sect. 2 we discuss the benefits of a formal data-preservation strategy, and the cases for open data and for well-preserved data that follow from that. This leads to our recommendations that, in essence, funders should adopt rather light-touch prescriptions regarding data preservation planning: normal data management practice, in the areas under study, corresponds to notably good practice in most other areas, so that the only change we suggest is to make this planning more formal, which makes it more easily auditable, and more amenable to constructive criticism. In Sect. 3 we briefly discuss the LIGO data management plan, and pull together whatever information is available on the estimation of digital preservation costs. The report is informed, throughout, by the OAIS reference model for an open archive

Managing Research Data: Gravitational Waves

The project which led to this report was funded by JISC in 2010–2011 as part of its ‘Managing Research Data’ programme, to examine the way in which Big Science data is managed, and produce any recommendations which may be appropriate. Big science data is different: it comes in large volumes, and it is shared and exploited in ways which may differ from other disciplines. This project has explored these differences using as a case-study Gravitational Wave data generated by the LSC, and has produced recommendations intended to be useful variously to JISC, the funding council (STFC) and the LSC community. In Sect. 1 we define what we mean by ‘big science’, describe the overall data culture there, laying stress on how it necessarily or contingently differs from other disciplines. In Sect. 2 we discuss the benefits of a formal data-preservation strategy, and the cases for open data and for well-preserved data that follow from that. This leads to our recommendations that, in essence, funders should adopt rather light-touch prescriptions regarding data preservation planning: normal data management practice, in the areas under study, corresponds to notably good practice in most other areas, so that the only change we suggest is to make this planning more formal, which makes it more easily auditable, and more amenable to constructive criticism. In Sect. 3 we briefly discuss the LIGO data management plan, and pull together whatever information is available on the estimation of digital preservation costs. The report is informed, throughout, by the OAIS reference model for an open archive. Some of the report’s findings and conclusions were summarised in [1]. See the document history on page 37

A Validation Framework for the Long Term Preservation of High Energy Physics Data

The study group on data preservation in high energy physics, DPHEP, is moving to a new collaboration structure, which will focus on the implementation of preservation projects, such as those described in the group's large scale report published in 2012. One such project is the development of a validation framework, which checks the compatibility of evolving computing environments and technologies with the experiments software for as long as possible, with the aim of substantially extending the lifetime of the analysis software, and hence of the usability of the data. The framework is designed to automatically test and validate the software and data of an experiment against changes and upgrades to the computing environment, as well as changes to the experiment software itself. Technically, this is realised using a framework capable of hosting a number of virtual machine images, built with different configurations of operating systems and the relevant software, including any necessary external dependencies.Comment: Proceedings of a poster presented at CHEP 2013, Amsterdam, October 14-18 201

In pursuit of an expressive vocabulary for preserved new media art

The status of the new media, interactive and performance art context appears to complicate our ability to follow conventional preservation approaches. Documentation of digital art materials has been determined to be an appropriate means of resolving associated difficulties, but this demands high levels of expressiveness to support the encapsulation of the myriad elements and qualities of content and context that may influence value and reproducibility. We discuss a proposed Vocabulary for Preserved New Media Works, a means of encapsulating the various information and material dimensions implicit within a work and required to ensure its ongoing availability