Significant properties in preservation solutions by Jon Tilbury (Preservica) on the first International Digital Preservation Day.

1. Significant Properties
and where they fit in to the
DP future
November 2017

2. Preservation : Now
•Who does what
•What role do Significant
Properties play

3. Trusted long-term digital repository
• Digital Preservation patterns become established
• Evolution from original ​research to initial bespoke
systems to off-the-shelf products
• Similar approaches to overall workflows and digital
preservation
From Testbed to eDepot​

4. Producer Manager User
Create and
use
Agree who
keeps what
Transfer Characterize
Organise &
Store
Migrate Find Download
Validate &
re-use

5. DP systems

6. Where Significant Properties play a part
Create and
use
Agree who
keeps what
Transfer Characterize
Organise &
Store
Migrate Find Download
Validate &
re-use
Created
Used to
make
decisions
Used to
validate
migration
Used as a
finding aid
& filter
Used to
validate
content

7. Properties, properties
• Attributes of files
• Number of pages, running time, colour histogram
• Attributes of compound objects
• Number of attachments, number of scanned
pages
• Attributes of content
• Research data definitions

8. So where is the problem?
• Experienced users define different properties
• DP systems extract different properties
• DP systems use properties in different ways
• Little research into which properties should persist a migration and how much leeway to allow
• No mechanism for sharing properties, or other best practice
• Most current users don’t care
• Most future users won’t even want to know

9. Preservation : Future
•The users of the future
•What this means for DP systems
•Where this leaves properties

10. Where next – model 1?
Create and
use
Agree who
keeps what
Transfer Characterize
Organise &
Store
Migrate Find Download
Validate &
re-use
Rules
agreed
Immediately
accessible
Fully
automated

11. Where next – model 2?
• Aging rules
• Automated
transfer
Initial
content
life
• Find my
content
• Get my content
In the
future
My day-to-day
system
My DP black box
Ingest
• Receive
• Characterise
Manage
• Organise & Store
• Migrate
Access
• Search
• Download

12. Where next – model 3?
• Store and use
in my day-to-
day system
Initial
content
life
• Find and get
the latest
rendition
In the
future
My day-to-day
system
My DP toolkit
My
content
store
• Find content at
risk
• Extract objects
Find and
migrate
• Confirm
migration
• Update store
Validate
& return

13. What does this mean
for Significant
Properties

14. Automation, automation
• Rules are the DNA of Preservation
• The community is the brain
• Automated extraction of properties
• Automated migration according to rules
• Constant updating of the rules
• Rules need to reflect community best practice, academic validation and the art of the possible

15. Its all about registries
• Registries define best practice for identification, validation, property extraction, migration, rendering
• World network of registries with cooperation between DP vendors, practitioners, academics, content software
vendors
• Update using human and artificial intelligence
LocalLocal
Local Local
Master
University
Standard
user
Product 1
National
leader
Product 2
Specialist

16. Summary
Significant Properties are important
• Drive validation, trust, automation and preservation at scale
The users of tomorrow will be different
• May not even know they are using Digital Preservation
Global cooperation is needed
• Lets all work together to share best practice and the users of tomorrow will thank you

17. Thank you
info@preservica.com
preservica.com
@preservica
@dPreservation