Get a brief introduction to the core concepts and vocabulary of digital preservation. If you’re new to the practice, or simply need a refresher, this is a great overview of this crucial field.

Your presenters are two digital preservation pros from the National Library of New Zealand: Valerie Love and Martin Gengenbach. Val is Kaipupuri Pūranga Matihiko Matua Senior Digital Archivist and Marty is the Digital Preservation Policy and Outreach Specialist.

Scroll down for video chapters, useful comments left in the chat, and a list of resources.

00:00 Introductions
03:10 Overview of presentation
03:40 What do we mean by digital preservation?
05:35 What is NOT digital preservation?
07:03 What do we actually mean by "digital"?
08:28 Technical challenges
10:50 Danger! Obsolescence and degration of media
11:46 Danger! Loss of context and knowledge about digital files
12:45 Practical application of digital preservation - the main considerations
15:02 Getting started: Understanding the types of digital files you have
17:25 File format identification tools
19:22 Preserving digital audio and video
20:17 Fixity and checksums
21:21 Common uses for Fixity and checksums
22:46 Digital Preservation Strategies
23:23 Is it possible to use old computer hardware for digital preservation? (answer to audience question)
25:27 Bitstream preservation
27:13 Active preservation
28:41 Digital Preservation Environment
29:41 Digital Preservation resources and community
31:11 Audience Question: Has there been any investigation into emulation as a service here in Aotearoa as they have in Australia? (this question refers to https://auseaasi.org/)
32:39 Audience Question: Do you have any recommendations for checksum software? One audience answer shared in the chat: Terracopy
33:50 Audience Question: We have seen that people have seen microfiche, then floppy disks, then CD's as digital storage solutions for the long-term, but have been proven wrong. Do you foresee a future problem brewing with current physical/digital formats? How can these be mitigated?
37:05 Audience Question: Can you recommend strategies for evaluating digital preservation software systems?
39:20 Audience Question: When items get older, and knowledge is lost as to how to use it. Do you have to create accompanying documents to describe how to interact?
40:36 Audience Question: I once spent 6 months trying to track down a Zip drive reader. Are there any resources for tracking down hardware to read some of these older formats?
42:05 Audience Question: How is digital rot managed? What measures are in place to prevent it? Is it something that is actively looked for? And what can be done once it is found?
43:37 Audience Question: What sort of meta data standards might New Zealand have, particularly around large media files?* *Joshua Ng from Archives New Zealand helped with last question, noting in the chat: Archives New Zealand is working on a standard transfer metadata format (STMF). It's for all media, not only large media. It's a work in progress.


Useful resources:
Australian metadata standards: https://aiatsis.gov.au/sites/default/files/research_pub/PBC%20resources%20-%20Metadata%20and%20digital%20media%20files.pdf Australasian Preserves learning resources