Advanced Digital Preservation

Citation

Manžuch, Z. (2013), "Advanced Digital Preservation", The Electronic Library, Vol. 31 No. 4, pp. 538-539. https://doi.org/10.1108/EL-03-2013-0050

This book invites the digital preservation community to consider the complexities of born‐digital objects and their stewardship issues in more detail. An experienced digital preservation reader will notice the presence of familiar topics – authenticity, significant properties, the Open Archival Information System (OAIS), digital preservation costs, etc. The book is intended for professionals who deal with digital preservation that “goes beyond simply preserving rendered objects” (see p. viii; e.g. text documents, pictures). Attention is drawn to more complex digital objects such as research data, digital art, music and, consequently, adding more in‐depth context and comments to widely known concepts, definitions and processes.

Digital preservation issues are discussed in three parts: the first part is devoted to major concepts of digital preservation, the second provides a discussion of tools and techniques based upon the results of research projects (mainly the European Union project CASPAR), and finally the third is dedicated to organisational and financial issues of managing digital preservation repositories. The discussion of digital preservation issues is structured by using the major concepts of the Open Archival Information System Reference Model (OAIS). The definitions, intentions and rationale behind the recommendations of this standard are thoroughly discussed.

This publication can enrich knowledge about digital preservation issues and point to useful solutions developed within international research initiatives. However, it should not be considered a manual to implementing digital preservation initiatives. It deals with general concepts and processes, and partly discusses the same issues that have been offered in earlier publications on the topic. Some themes are discussed very briefly – for example, 12 of 19 pages devoted to audit and certification of digital repositories are just a table of metrics. Despite an impressive 510 pages, the unequal attention to different topics encourages a conclusion that nowadays it is impossible to write a comprehensive book on digital preservation. Perhaps, with growing and increasingly specialised knowledge in the field there is a need to concentrate on selected issues.

The book is easy to read, although some topics require a previous orientation in digital preservation issues (including technical ones). Most discussions are supplemented with clear, simple examples and case studies. However, there is a lack of critical evaluation of conceptual models and tools presented in the book, which would have been very helpful because often professionals feel overwhelmed by the variety of conceptual models, tools and techniques produced by digital preservation research projects. But, there is a lot of truth in the author's words that in order to assess them “the only real way would be to live a long time and check the supposedly preserved objects in the future” (p. ix).