Davis Digital Preservation and the Web: Challenges for Libraries
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The document discusses the challenges libraries face in digital preservation, particularly concerning dynamic web content, which is increasingly difficult to archive due to evolving technologies like HTML5 and JavaScript. It highlights the need for collaboration between libraries, publishers, and content creators to create preservation-friendly applications and strategies. Additionally, it emphasizes the importance of adopting best practices and selecting appropriate technologies for long-term digital preservation.
Davis Digital Preservation and the Web: Challenges for Libraries
- 1. Digital preservation and the web: challenges for libraries Corey Davis, Council of Prairie and Pacific University Libraries (COPPUL) Digital Preservation Coordinator
- 2. The big challenge for all of us
- 3. “Much of our global cultural heritage, and our own individual and social imprint, is at serious risk of disappearing.” Richard S. Whitt, Corporate Director for Strategic Initiatives at Google
- 4. Keepers “…represents only about 20% of the ‘continuing resources’ and ‘integrated resources’ having an ISSN.” http://library.ifla.org/121/1/ 098-burnhill-en.pdf
- 6. …and the early web
- 7. The web now… 1. With AJAX and HTML5, the web is transitioning from a document- centric information space, to an applications-based information space 2. Content is tailored to people, locations, and devices. There is often no “canonical version” of a webpage anymore
- 10. Amnesiac civilization • “HTML5, in effect, changes the language of the Web from HTML to Javascript, from a static document description language to a programming language.” • “I've been warning for some time that one of the fundamental problems facing digital preservation is the evolution of content from static to dynamic.” • http://blog.dshr.org/2011/08/moonalice- plays-palo-alto.html
- 11. Current preservation services… • Tend to focus on discrete objects or packages (PDFs, images, XML) • And the creation of Archival Information Packages (AIPs) • “I have always thought of the ‘autonomous AIP’ zipped up and held on a storage device as an residue of paper-thinking.” Jon Tilbury, Preservica (Pasig- discuss listserv)
- 12. Some examples of the challenges of preserving dynamic web content
- 13. The short tail and long tail 1. CNN http://cnn.com 2. Colonial Despatches https://bcgenesis.uvic.ca/
- 14. The short tail: CNN • “CNN.com has been unarchivable since 2016-11-01T15:01:31” • http://ws-dl.blogspot.ca/2017/01/2017-01- 20-cnncom-has-been-unarchivable.html
- 16. January 20th, 2017, Inauguration Day
- 17. • “In short, the archival failure is caused by changes CNN made to their CDN (content delivery network); these changes are reflected in the JavaScript used to render the homepage.” • John Berlin http://ws- dl.blogspot.ca/2017/01/2017-01-20- cnncom-has-been-unarchivable.html
- 18. The long tail: Colonial Despatches • “This digital archive contains the original correspondence between the British Colonial Office and the colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia.” • https://bcgenesis.uvic.ca/
- 22. How can we address these challenges together?
- 23. Working with the long-tail • Major project at University of Victoria to explore the archiving of dynamic, interactive websites in the digital humanities • Working with information producers and developers to create preservation-friendly applications
- 24. Selecting technologies for long-term survival • “We have settled on building web applications which have virtually no server-side requirements beyond response to HTTP requests, but instead are based on client-side HTML5, JavaScript and Cascading Style Sheets.” • “Using these core standards, we are building completely ‘static’ websites which can actually function locally in any current web browser, with no server at all, but which still preserve virtually all of the appearance and functionality of the original web applications they replace ” • Martin Holmes, Programmer/Consultant, University of Victoria Humanities Computing and Media Centre
- 25. Best practices for content creators: Distill.pub • “A Distill article (at least in its ideal, aspirational form) isn’t just a paper. It’s an interactive medium that lets users – ‘readers’ is no longer sufficient – work directly with machine learning models.” • http://distill.pub/about/
- 26. Distill.pub
- 27. Interactivity and preservation • “Distill does an excellent job of publishing articles that use interactivity to provide high-quality explanations … without sacrificing preservability.” • David Rosenthal http://blog.dshr.org/2017/05/distill-is-this-what-journals- should.html
- 28. Capturing the dynamic web: Webrecorder.io • Developed by Rhizome for preservation of interactive online art • Focus on dynamic web content
- 29. Academic publications and CLOCKSS • Digital preservation collaboration between research libraries and publishers • Working to develop functionality to harvest dynamic content from publishers’ websites
- 30. To sum up…
- 31. Significant issues • Costs • Dynamic content • Presents significant technical and policy issues for preservation • Scale • A technical and financial issue • Incentives • Public policy could address some of this • Proprietary information and DRM • Copyright legislation for preservation not likely forthcoming
- 32. Collaboration is key • Libraries need to work together • Libraries and publishers and other content creators need to work together • Publishers can practice “preservation in place”