Smartphone gaming includes all games that were designed to be played on mobile devices such as smartphones or tablets. It is an example of contemporary digital culture but is often considered less important than other games. Many require community engagement for a game to function, similar to Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) Gaming.

Digital Species: Gaming, Apps

Consensus Decision

Added to List: 2021

Imminence of Action

Action is recommended within three years, detailed assessment in one year.

Significance and Impact

The loss of tools, data or services within this group would impact on a large group of people and sectors.

Effort to Preserve | Inevitability

It would require a major effort to prevent or reduce losses in this group, including the development of new preservation tools or techniques.

Examples

Pokémon GO, Candy Crush, FG/O, Clash of Clans, Angry Birds

‘Practically Extinct’ in the Presence of Aggravating Conditions

Uncertainty over IPR; short term contracts; lack of skills, commitment or policy from corporate owners; rapid churn of OS and updates; shifting business requirements of app resellers; dependence on exotic or obsolete formats or OS processes; loss of underlying code or gaming engine; limited or no commercial interest; dependency on remote servers that are closed; limited recognition of value of game play; over-dependence on goodwill of ad-hoc community.

‘Endangered’ in the Presence of Good Practice

IPR supportive of preservation; strong documentation; version control for code and compiled app; source code; emulation pathway; trusted designated repository or community taking preservation responsibility and capacity to deliver; inclusion by agencies that collect games on other platforms.

2023 Review

This was a new entry submitted through the 2021 open nomination process. There are overlaps between this entry and others relating to both Gaming and Smartphone Apps. The 2021 Jury recruited additional expertise for a recommendation on which category it better fits and agreed with the expert recommendation to assign the Gaming category but keep as a separate entry to emphasize that smartphone gaming shares preservation issues with video games that are exacerbated by issues unique to smartphones.

The 2023 Council agreed with keeping smartphone gaming as a separate entry but added two new entries to complement this one, Console games and PC games.

Additional Comments

Smartphone games such as Pokémon GO, etc. have large active communities of players and fandoms. The argument is that in relation to gaming, mobile gaming does not have the same community of support for DP as well as a higher impact given that smartphone games have a wider general audience amongst demographics that may not play PC or Console games due to the increased accessibility of mobile games as well as the more “casual” nature of the games.

It is worth noting here that the Emerging Formats project from the British Library (working with the UK legal deposit libraries), is focused on the collection of three format types; eBook mobile apps, web-based interactive narratives and structured data. The enhanced curation method detailed in Florence Smith Nicholls and Giulia Carla Rossi’s report Collecting complex digital publications: testing an enhanced curation method has potential to be applied to the broader topic of smartphone games.

Case Studies or Examples:

• Smith Nicholls, F. (2023) ‘Collecting complex digital publications: testing an enhanced curation method’, British Library Research Repository. Available at: https://doi.org/10.23636/kff3-jv09.

• British Library (2022), ‘Emerging formats’. Available at: https://www.bl.uk/projects/emerging-formats [accessed 24 October 2023].

• Davison, P. (2021), ‘Game Preservation Society races to save the i-mode library of mobile games’, Rice Digital. Available at: https://ricedigital.co.uk/saving-the-i-mode-library/ [accessed 24 October 2023].

• Volsing, K (2014), ‘The Rise and Fall of Flappy Bird and the collecting of the V&A’s first App’, V&A Blog. Available at: https://www.vam.ac.uk/blog/news/the-rise-and-fall-of-flappy-bird-and-the-collecting-of-the-vas-first-app [accessed 24 October 2023].

• There is a Wikipedia entry providing a list of the most played mobile games by player count. See Wikipedia (n.d.) ‘List of most-played mobile games by player count’. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-played_mobile_games_by_player_count [accessed 24 October 2023].

See also:

• The Videogame Heritage Society, led by the National Videogame Museum, founded in 2022 to bring together organizations and collectors working with videogames. It provides advocacy, expertise, and support in collecting, preserving and displaying video games. See National Video Museum (2020) ‘Videogame Heritage Society’. Available at: https://thenvm.org/about/vhs/ [accessed 24 October 2023]

• The Video Game History Foundation is a 501(c)3 non-profit dedicated to preserving and teaching the history of video games. See Video Game History Foundation (n.d.), ‘Mission’. Available at: https://gamehistory.org/our-mission/ [accessed 24 October 2023]

• The British Film Institute's “Embracing a wider screen culture” strategy notes the cultural significance of video games and states that they intend to embark on sector research, engagement and knowledge exchange (including on the preservation of video games and digital media). See BFI (n.d.) ‘Embracing a wider screen culture’. Available at: https://blog.bfi.org.uk/long-read/our-ambitions/embracing-a-wider-screen-culture/ [accessed 24 October 2023].

Materials saved to flash or other solid-state storage devices where the media is out of warranty and reader devices may no longer be supported or integrated easily into hardware infrastructure: typically, more than five years old.

Digital Species: Portable Media

Consensus Decision

Added to List: 2019

Previously: Critically Endangered

Imminence of Action

Action is recommended within three years, detailed assessment within one year.

Significance of Loss

The loss of tools, data or services within this group would impact on people and sectors around the world.

Effort to Preserve | Inevitability

It would require a major effort to prevent or reduce losses in this group, possibly requiring the development of new preservation tools or techniques.

Examples

USB sticks and pen drives; Flash storage in cameras and phones; certain types of portable hard disk

‘Practically Extinct’ in the Presence of Aggravating Conditions

Poor physical storage; inability to access readers; no replication; encryption.

‘Endangered’ in the Presence of Good Practice

Active management; dependable access to readers; strong documentation; documentation independent from the media.

2023 Review

This entry was added in 2019 to ensure that the range of media storage is properly assessed and presented. Solid state media – typically flash – provides very fast access to data but can fail without warning. This is because it is typically subject to a limited number of program/erase cycles, as well as ‘read/disturb’ effects. Storage at scale also means the percentage likelihood of failure increases. The 2021 Jury agreed with the entry’s assigned risk classification with no noted changes towards increased or reduced risk.

The 2023 Council agreed with the continued risk classification of Critically Endangered with the overall risks remaining on the same basis as before (no change to the trend). They noted that many libraries, archives and other organizations are using these media as the access copy as well as the preservation copy. The data can be overwritten or lost by mishandling as well as bitrot and degradation. Data should be transferred into a digital preservation system that allows for active management.

Additional Comments

An additional preservation risk here is that many libraries/archives use this media as the access copy as well as the preservation copy, thus increasing the risk of the data being overwritten, lost by mishandling as well as general bitrot and degradation. To decrease the risk, data should be transferred into a digital preservation system that allows for active management.

Early generations of media and cheap giveaways are not robust and can deteriorate significantly over time.

This entry is focused on games that can be played offline, often those designed for single player play while in offline mode. This does not exclude games that can be played online or have online interactive components (e.g., Sims 3 can be played online or offline), but rather the focus is on the preservation of offline single player components over the online components.

Digital Species: Gaming

Consensus Decision

Added to List: 2019

(rescoped 2023)

Previously: Critically Endangered

Imminence of Action

Action is recommended within three years, detailed assessment in one year.

Significance of Loss

The loss of tools, data or services within this group would impact on a large group of people and sectors.

Effort to Preserve | Inevitability

It would require a major effort to prevent or reduce losses in this group, including the development of new preservation tools or techniques.

Examples

Sims 3, Planescape: Torment, Hades, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

‘Practically Extinct’ in the Presence of Aggravating Conditions

Complex hardware dependencies or bespoke hardware; dependence on obsolete, low usage operating systems with no emulation pathway; complex intellectual property rights; use of older magnetic media; loss of underlying code or gaming engine; limited or no commercial interest.

‘Endangered’ in the Presence of Good Practice

Emulation pathway; source code; trusted repository; large user community; IPR supportive of preservation; strong documentation.

2023 Review

This entry, alongside the Games with Online Play Components entry, was created from rescoping the previous Old or Non-current Video Games entry as part of the 2023 Bit List review. It was rescoped to highlight the differences in preserving offline components as opposed to online components in video games, specifically a lack of dependence on servers.

Additional Comments

Whilst this has the same risk classification as the Games with Online Play Components entry, the risk could be considered to be slightly lesser due to the lack of reliance on servers as well as examples of games having their online services shut down but players still being able to access the offline game modes/features, such as the case with Nintendo discontinuing online services for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U software in early April 2024 where they explicitly state that “Players will still be able to use features and game modes that do not require online communication”.

This entry is also interlinked with the entries covering games played on different hardware (Console games, PC games and smartphone games entries) as the risks can change based on this.

Case Studies or Examples:

• Nintendo (2023) ‘Announcement of Discontinuation of Online Services for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U Software’. Available at: https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Support/Nintendo-3DS-2DS/Connecting-to-the-Internet/Announcement-of-Discontinuation-of-Online-Services-for-Nintendo-3DS-and-Wii-U-Software-2455285.html [accessed 24 October 2023]

See also:

• ACMI (2022), ‘Australian cultural institutions unite to collect videogames’. Available at: https://www.acmi.net.au/about/media/media-releases/australian-cultural-institutions-unite-to-collect-videogames/ [accessed 24 October 2023]

• The Videogame Heritage Society, led by the National Videogame Museum, founded in 2022 to bring together organizations and collectors working with videogames. It provides advocacy, expertise, and support in collecting, preserving and displaying video games. See National Video Museum (2020) ‘Videogame Heritage Society’. Available at: https://thenvm.org/about/vhs/ [accessed 24 October 2023]

• The Video Game History Foundation is a 501(c)3 non-profit dedicated to preserving and teaching the history of video games. See Video Game History Foundation (n.d.), ‘Mission’. Available at: https://gamehistory.org/our-mission/ [accessed 24 October 2023]

• The British Film Institute's “Embracing a wider screen culture” strategy notes the cultural significance of video games and states that they intend to embark on sector research, engagement and knowledge exchange (including on the preservation of video games and digital media). See BFI (n.d.) ‘Embracing a wider screen culture’. Available at: https://blog.bfi.org.uk/long-read/our-ambitions/embracing-a-wider-screen-culture/ [accessed 24 October 2023].

Materials saved to DVDs, CDs or other optical storage devices where the media is out of warranty and reader devices may no longer be supported or integrated easily into hardware infrastructure: typically, more than five years old.

Digital Species: Portable Media

Consensus Decision

Added to List: 2019

Previously: Critically Endangered

Imminence of Action

Action is recommended within three years, detailed assessment within one year.

Significance of Loss

The loss of tools, data or services within this group would impact on people and sectors around the world.

Effort to Preserve | Inevitability

It would require a major effort to prevent or reduce losses in this group, possibly requiring the development of new preservation tools or techniques.

Examples

CDs, laserdisc technologies, DVD, HDVD

‘Practically Extinct’ in the Presence of Aggravating Conditions

Poor storage; inability to access readers; no replication; encryption.

‘Endangered’ in the Presence of Good Practice

Active management; dependable access to readers; strong documentation; documentation independent from the media.

2023 Review

This entry was added in 2019 to ensure that the range of media storage is properly assessed and presented. Optical media is in some senses a preferred option as it is typically more stable than magnetic or solid state media: but these characteristics have been oversold. The substrates of the disks can prove unstable, and more importantly, the reader technology tends to be proprietary and can become obsolete long before the disks degrade. Storage at scale also means the percentage likelihood of failure increases. The 2021 Jury agreed with the entry’s assigned risk classification with no noted changes towards increased or reduced risk.

The 2023 Council agreed with the risk classification of Critically Endangered with the overall risks remaining on the same basis as before (no change to the trend).

Additional Comments

We know what to do; it is the scale of the problem. It is a big scale problem - and in many library catalogues the information about these carriers and their playing requirements do not exist in metadata. Big scale surveys of collections to identify these carriers might be a barrier to starting to tackle this one.

Optical media is less and less recoverable as time goes on. The data cannot be actively managed, the readers are starting to go out of style, and the carriers will continue to rapidly degrade. Early generations of this media are not as robust as the current generation and can deteriorate significantly if not stored appropriately. Many optical media that were created by individuals using consumer-grade hardware and software are more vulnerable than media created using commercial-grade production techniques, and often user error makes the data unreadable before bitrot and other degradation is able to begin. The presence of adhesive labels can be a big warning sign of this type of vulnerability.

Case Studies or Examples:

• The British Library's Flashback project, a proof-of-concept that explored the practical challenges of preserving digital content stored on physical media (magnetic and optical disks) using a sample of content from hybrid collection items dating from between 1980 and 2010. See Pennock, M., May, P., Day, M., Davies, K. and Whibley, S. (2016) ‘The Flashback Project: Rescuing disk-based content from the 1980s to the present day’, 11th International Digital Curation Conference, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 22-25 February. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1321630

• The Library of Congress’s CD-R and DVD-R RW Longevity Research project page provides summarized outcomes and findings from several different complementary studies undertaken or are continuing. Library of Congress (n.d.) ‘CD-R and DVD-R RW Longevity Research’. Available at: https://www.loc.gov/preservation/scientists/projects/cd-r_dvd-r_rw_longevity.html [accessed 24 October 2023]

• The Preserving Write-Once DVDs: Producing Disc Images, Extracting Content, and Addressing Flaws and Errors analytic report by George Blood Audio Video Film (GBAVF) in which, The report was one product of a contract with the company, in which they converted a set of write-once DVDs for the Library of Congress. The report describes the issues encountered and provides some detail about methods for carrying out the work,, offering an overview of the range and extent of the issues, as well as describing the corrective tools and processes that were used. See George Blood Audio Video Film. (2014) ‘Preserving Write-Once DVDs: Producing Disc Images, Extracting Content, and Addressing Flaws and Errors, Final Draft Report’. Available at https://www.digitizationguidelines.gov/audio-visual/documents/Preserve_DVDs_BloodReport_20140901.pdf [accessed 24 October 2023]

See also:

• O’Leary, K. (2021) ‘Planning ahead for DVD-Video migration research’, Digital Preservation Coalition Blog. Available at: https://www.dpconline.org/blog/wdpd/wdpd2019-dvd-video-migration-research. [accessed 24 October 2023]

• Iraci, J. (2019) ‘Longevity of Recordable CDs, DVDs and Blu-rays, Canadian Conservation Institute (CCI) Notes, 19/1’. Available at: https://www.canada.ca/en/conservation-institute/services/conservation-preservation-publications/canadian-conservation-institute-notes/longevity-recordable-cds-dvds.html [accessed 24 October 2023]

• Baker, M. (2017) ‘Disks back from the dead’, Nature, 545, p.117–118. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1038/545117a.

• Kirn, P. (2017) ‘The first generation of CDs is already rotting and dying’, CDM Stories. Available at https://cdm.link/2017/02/a-generation-of-cds-is-already-rotting-and-dying/ [accessed 24 October 2023]

Materials saved to floppy disks, tape, portable hard disks or other numerous magnetic storage devices where the media is out of warranty and reader devices may no longer be supported or integrated easily into hardware infrastructure: typically, more than five years old.

Digital Species: Portable Media

Consensus Decision

Added to List: 2019

Previously: Critically Endangered

Imminence of Action

Action is recommended within three years, detailed assessment within one year.

Significance of Loss

The loss of tools, data or services within this group would impact on people and sectors around the world.

Effort to Preserve | Inevitability

It would require a major effort to prevent or reduce losses in this group, possibly requiring the development of new preservation tools or techniques.

Examples

Floppy disks; tape; certain kinds of portable hard disks, zip drives.

‘Practically Extinct’ in the Presence of Aggravating Conditions

Poor storage; inability to access readers; no replication; encryption; aggressive compression.

‘Endangered’ in the Presence of Good Practice

Active management; dependable access to readers; strong documentation; documentation independent from the media.

2023 Review

The 2019 Jury introduced this entry to ensure that the range of media storage is properly assessed and presented. Portable magnetic media is ubiquitous but is fragile not just to physical wear and tear but also to magnetic interference and bit-rot. The substrates of the disks can prove unstable, and in some cases, proprietary reader technology means that the disk becomes obsolete before it degrades. Storage at scale also means the percentage likelihood of failure increases. The 2021 Jury agreed with the entry’s assigned risk classification with no noted changes towards increased or reduced risk.

The 2023 Council agreed with the risk classification of Critically Endangered with the overall risks remaining on the same basis as before (no change to the trend). Additionally, a new entry “Non-current Rare Portable Magnetic Media” was created as a split, related standalone entry to highlight the increased risk.

Additional Comments

There is no "active management" of data found on these media items. The data should be copied off of the media and into a digital preservation system that allows for active management. Data found on these media should be considered a backup, at best.

We know what to do with this type of material, it is the scale that makes it a problem.

There is really no excuse for using floppy disks for storage these days. Tape is a different proposition since it allows high-density back up offline and nearline. But there are challenges with the backward compatibility of popular and even relatively recent LTO versions.

Case Studies or Examples:

• The Magnetic Tape Alert Project, Information for All Programme (IFAP) of UNESCO, in cooperation with IASA, the International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives, to alert stakeholders of the imminent threat of losing access to their audiovisual documents. The project included a survey of existing audiovisual documents on magnetic tape not yet digitally preserved. See Pace, A. (2020) ‘Magnetic Tape Alert Project Report’, IASA & UNESCO Information for All Programme. Available at: https://www.iasa-web.org/magnetic-tape-alert-project [accessed 24 October 2023] and UNESCO (2019), ‘The Magnetic Tape Alert Project is a step to save audio-visual archives’. Available at: https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/magnetic-tape-alert-project-step-save-audio-visual-archives. [accessed 24 October 2023]

• de Vries, D. (2016,) ‘8″ Disk Recovery: Kryoflux and Catweasel’, OPF Blog. Available at: https://openpreservation.org/blogs/8-disk-recovery-kryoflux-and-catweasel/ [accessed 24 October 2023]

• The British Library's Flashback Project, a proof-of-concept that explored the practical challenges of preserving digital content stored on physical media (magnetic and optical disks) using a sample of content from hybrid collection items dating from between 1980 and 2010. See Pennock, M., May, P., Day, M., Davies, K. and Whibley, S. (2016) ‘The Flashback Project: Rescuing disk-based content from the 1980s to the present day’, 11th International Digital Curation Conference, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 22-25 February. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1321630

Digital content and communications generated for personal consumption in a domestic setting. These records are highly valuable to family members and those interested in genealogy. They can also have wider historical/research significance to collecting institutions.

Digital Species: Personal Archives

Consensus Decision

Added to List: 2017

Previously: Critically Endangered

Imminence of Action

Action is recommended within five years, detailed assessment within three years.

Significance of Loss

The loss of data, tools or services within this group would have a localized impact.

Effort to Preserve | Inevitability

Loss seems likely: by the time tools or techniques have been developed the material will likely have been lost.

Examples

Childhood photographs and videos; School or graduation photos; wedding photos and movies; electronic correspondence (email, messenger, WhatsApp).

‘Practically Extinct’ in the Presence of Aggravating Conditions

Storage on portable media or poor storage; dependence on devices or processes; dependence on obsolete or proprietary formats; storage media out of warranty; single copies; inappropriate dependence on service provider; inappropriate encryption or password protection; lack of awareness or planning; loss or lack of documentation; over-abundance; inability to act in a timely manner; confusion over intellectual property; lack of digital literacy.

‘Endangered’ in the Presence of Good Practice

Replication; action in a timely manner; open formats; selection and appraisal; archival agency; education of digital preservation.

2023 Review

This was introduced to the Bit List in 2017. Although research and advice on the preservation of personal records have been available for some time, outreach and training have not reached the audience, and there has been no material improvement in the risks faced by this category since 2017. It is reasonable to assume that the number of digital objects in this category has increased; thus, the consequences of loss have expanded but the 2021 Jury determined there had been no significant trend towards greater risk; content is being lost all the time despite digital materials that can easily be preserved with tools not widely available outside of institutions. Therefore, this is a public awareness campaign issue and more tools need to be made easily available for people to be able to better preserve their own digital content.

The 2023 Council agreed with the Critically Endangered classification but noted that the definition for this entry did not mention the potential wider historical/research significance of some personal archives to collecting institutions and recommended rescoping the entry to make this clearer.

Additional Comments

Personal papers can provide insight into the lived experience of a wider range of people - archives of ‘everyday’ people are invaluable to social historians and personal archives of people with national/international significance complement institutional/public records.

There is a strong overlap with community archives, except noting that responsibility is even more localized. There is room breaking the entry down further into a series of components to represent the complexity more effectively and present a more nuanced action plan.

This matter needs awareness-raising. Education is needed, such as digital preservation as a survival skill for teenagers. Also, simple and cheap tools or pathways to preservation are needed.

Education to the public is critical for advocacy - these are the societal records of the future! Though having said that, what has survived in hardcopy has largely been through luck, and the same thing I think will be the same for digital. The same issues exist with glass plate negatives, photographs and certain emulsions and even printed digital photographs, brittle paper, fading ink etc.

Case Studies or Examples:

• Such materials are increasingly moved into the cloud and the Google Photos case provides a good example. See Monckton, P. (2023), ‘Last Chance To Download Your Photos: Google’s Album Archive Will Be Deleted Tomorrow’, Forbes. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulmonckton/2023/07/17/google-warning-album-archive-will-be-canceled-in-two-days-download-your-photos-now/ [accessed 24 October 2023]

See also:

• Hill, K. (2022) ‘Your Memories. Their Cloud’. New York Times. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/31/technology/cloud-data-storage-google-apple-meta.html [accessed 24 October 2023]

Correspondence and other records which describe the configuration and delivery of research, but which are ancillary to the core research outputs, including reviews, drafts and correspondence between researchers.

Digital Species: Research Outputs

Consensus Decision

Added to List: 2019

Previously: Critically Endangered

Imminence of Action

Action is recommended within three years, detailed assessment in one year.

Significance of Loss

The loss of tools, data or services within this group would impact on many people and sectors.

Effort to Preserve | Inevitability

Loss seems likely: by the time tools or techniques have been developed the material will likely have been lost.

Examples

Email boxes of senior academics; social media posts; personal spaces on institutional networks.

‘Practically Extinct’ in the Presence of Aggravating Conditions

Originating researcher no longer active or changed research focus; staff on temporary contracts; dependence on single student or staff member; weak or fluid institutional commitment to subject matter; weak institutional commitment to data sharing; complicated or contested intellectual property; encryption.

‘Endangered’ in the Presence of Good Practice

Recognition of value of correspondence; integration with CRIS; routine use of EDRMS; documented and managed professionally; separation of personal and corporate identities.

2023 Review

This entry was introduced in 2017 under ‘Research Data,’ though without specific reference to the correspondence and records of research. In 2019, the Jury split this entry into a range of contexts for research outputs. There was a 2020 trend towards greater risk based on education and research institutions facing budget uncertainties, and a number of institutions have introduced early severance schemes or put staff on short term contracts at greater risk of redundancy and, while this puts other types of research output at risk, the personal nature of correspondence means that the risks are intensified, and so this item faces greater risks than identified in 2019. However, the 2021 Jury agreed there had been no significant change in the trend over the preceding year indicating a trend towards increased or reduced risk.

The 2023 Council agreed with the Critically Endangered risk classification.

Additional Comments

In an ideal circumstance, correspondence should be stored in EDRMS systems separately from research data and subject to different retention schedules, i.e., 10-20 years. There may be challenges connecting the EDRMs holdings to the research data and vice versa.

Advocacy and research re the scale of the problem may be required to encourage academics to use EDRMs, for example, correspondence and integration with CRIS. Simplified tools and workflows to move data from CRIS to Repository to Preservation systems.

There are significant cultural issues to preserving these materials. Researchers may be unlikely to see the value in correspondence and other documents, these may be seen as ephemeral. There is also a risk to the preservation of correspondence through channels outside of the university email that may be harder to capture and preserve, such as Teams or WhatsApp. There should also be an encouragement to researchers to keep only what is needed and only for so long as the retention period requires. More often than not, records of correspondence will not require long-term preservation.

Research project management records may have funding agency retention periods varying from 3 years to 10 years after the completion of the project for standard projects, to 20 years for more innovative projects, stretching to permanent retention to first-of-a-kind research. Advocating researchers to identify which group their records belong to, let alone get them to transfer different types of correspondence to a platform which has retention and preservation capability as part of it, is a massive task.

Digital materials produced and shared in and by ad-hoc community art and heritage projects, typically through digitization, where the creation of digital materials was a significant purpose of the initiative.

Digital Species: Community Archives

Consensus Decision

Added to List: 2019

Previously: Critically Endangered

Imminence of Action

Action is recommended within twelve months, detailed assessment is a priority.

Significance of Loss

The loss of tools, data or services within this group would impact on people and sectors around the world.

Effort to Preserve | Inevitability

Loss seems likely: by the time tools or techniques have been developed the material will likely have been lost.

Examples

Locally organized programmes associated with public remembrance and celebration such as World War One centennial commemorations; City of Culture; Olympic Games; World Cup.

‘Practically Extinct’ in the Presence of Aggravating Conditions

Poor documentation; lack of replication; lack of continuity funding; lack of residual mechanism. dependence on a small number of volunteers, lack of preservation mandate; lack of preservation thinking at the outset; failure of digital legacy planning; conflation of backup with preservation; conflation of access and preservation; inaccessible to web archiving; lack of knowledge or application of standards to ensure good quality preservation actions; lack of internet access; distrust of “official” archives.

‘Endangered’ in the Presence of Good Practice

Residual archive with residual funding able to receive and support collections; strict adherence to digitization guidelines; quality assurance; active user community; intellectual property managed to enable preservation.

2023 Review

This entry was added in 2019 as a subset of ‘Community Archives and Community-Generated Content’ which was split into two to provide greater specificity in recommendations. The 2020 Jury noted a trend towards greater risk based on how Community art and heritage groups, which often rely on volunteer effort, have been unable to meet for extended periods in 2020. Moreover, the local galleries, museums and arts centres on which they depend have closed, in some cases for good. Considering this dislocation, digital materials generated by community groups in arts and heritage are likely to be at a greater risk than in 2019.

The 2021 Jury agreed with the Critically Endangered classification and 2020 trend towards greater risk. However, the risk had not increased to the extent where there was a notable 2021 trend. The Jury commented that risks have not increased as so much as the challenges have remained, specifically those of funding and sustainability. Community-generated materials are often produced and shared through funded projects and tell a similar story of loss through inaction, but the challenge is the same as before; sustainability with project-based funding. There should be greater Responsibility of funding bodies to ensure that digital preservation is built into any funded community preservation project plan and outcome. Digital content in this context is often seen as a by-product of engagement and is annoyingly left to disappear by organizations that do not have digital preservation experience or infrastructure. With good governance and sustainable digital repository support, this should not be an issue.

The 2023 Council agreed with the Critically Endangered classification but noted a higher significance of loss as well as a higher inevitability of loss, and from this a greater imminence of action to assess, prioritize, and develop tools and techniques for reducing future loss of materials.

Additional Comments

Local archives address these collections on an ad hoc basis. Loss seems likely due to the precarity of the funding streams, or lack thereof, for these projects. Once digitization has been carried out, many projects do not know what to do with them or have the means to make them accessible and a lack of understanding of copyright is a barrier to sharing as well. Funding paths that enable digitization may not include planning for long-term storage and access. This does often tend to be the case in local archives, where a higher imminence of action is critical to assess and address these issues before content is lost.

Communities who live in rural and remote areas may have a lack of access to services such as broadband connectivity, which is a well-reported issue and is often referred to as the “digital divide”. Inadequate internet connectivity would diminish the capacity for these communities to access digital preservation solutions, such as cloud storage for digital assets. This is especially prevalent with personal photos and videos on mobile phones as possession of a mobile phone does not necessarily mean the user has adequate internet connectivity to be able to upload videos to web-based platforms.

There may also be a distrust of “official” archives and government agencies due to the need for culturally appropriate handling of restricted/sensitive content. If the photographs, videos or audio depict culturally sensitive elements (e.g., sacred sites, ceremonies or secret Dreaming stories), the communities may want to uphold strict practices of restrictions. There are instances where “official” archives have changed their workflows and processes to accommodate the cultural wishes of particular First Nation communities, especially for secret/sacred content but these practices are not yet common-place. A detailed look into the preservation issues of secret/sacred content can be found in the New First Nations Secret/Sacred Cultural Material entry.

Case Studies or Examples:

• The PARADISEC Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures project to digitize analog records of materials from endangered cultures from all over the world. This includes audio recordings and video recordings of performance, narrative, singing, and other oral tradition, amounting to over 207 terabytes and representing 1,370 languages, mainly from the Pacific region. See PARADISEC (n.d.), ‘Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures’. Available at: https://www.paradisec.org.au/ [accessed 24 October 2023].

• The State Library New South Wales ‘Reconnecting collections to communities’ Mukurtu implementation, in which the Indigenous Engagement team works to make available the Library’s Aboriginal Historical and Indigenous Languages collections to communities on Country and online. See State Library New South Wales (2022), ‘Reconnecting collections to communities’. Available at: https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/about-library/services/indigenous-engagement/reconnecting-collections-communities [accessed 24 October 2023].

• The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Data Archive (ATSIDA) is a specialized trusted research data management facility for Australian Indigenous research data and is managed by the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) Library. ATSIDA is a thematic archive within the Australia Data Archive (ADA) with its datasets stored securely at the Australian National University's National Computational Infrastructure (NCI). See ATSDISA (n.d.). Available at: https://www.atsida.edu.au/ [accessed 24 October 2023].

See also:

• Sentance, N. and University of Sydney Library (2021) ‘Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultural Protocols’, University of Sydney Library. Available at: https://doi.org/10.25910/hrdq-9n85

• Digital inequality is recognized as one of the targets in the National Agreement on Closing the Gap, the objective of which is to “enable Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and governments to work together to overcome the inequality experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and achieve life outcomes equal to all Australians.”. Target 17 states that “By 2026, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have equal levels of digital inclusion”. See Closing the Gap (n.d.), ‘Closing the Gap Targets and Outcomes’. Available at: https://www.closingthegap.gov.au/national-agreement/targets [accessed 24 October 2023].

• The “digital divide” in Australia has an impact on digital preservation of content generated by communities living in remote areas. See Parke, E. (2022) ‘Australia's digital divide means 2.8 million people remain 'highly excluded' from internet access’, ABC. Available at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-16/australia-digital-divide-millions-cannot-access-internet/101498042 [accessed 24 October 2023] and Al Khawaldeh, K. (2022) ‘‘Digital divide’: report finds some Australian rural mobile data speeds 90% slower than urban’, The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/dec/13/digital-divide-report-finds-some-australian-rural-mobile-data-speeds-90-slower-than-urban [accessed 24 October 2023]

Digital materials created by musicians and fans as a by-product of performance or recording, not otherwise published or shared. The use of ‘archives’ in this context refers to music production data that is in an archive.

Digital Species: Sound and Vision

Consensus Decision

Added to List: 2019

Previously: Critically Endangered

Imminence of Action

Action is recommended within twelve months, detailed assessment is a priority.

Significance of Loss

The loss of tools, data or services within this group would impact on people and sectors around the world.

Effort to Preserve | Inevitability

It would require a major effort to prevent losses in this group, such as the development of new preservation tools or techniques.

Examples

Pre-production notes; demo recordings; photography; correspondence.

‘Practically Extinct’ in the Presence of Aggravating Conditions

Fragile or obsolete media for offline content; service provider preservation capability for online content; dependence on proprietary formats or products; lack or loss of documentation; uncertainty over intellectual property rights; lack of version control; lack of policy or mandate.

‘Endangered’ in the Presence of Good Practice

Replication; clarity of intellectual property rights; preservation agency involved and capable of looking after content.

2023 Review

In 2019, this entry was created as a subset of a previous 2017 entry, ‘Digital Music Production and Sharing,’ which was split into to draw attention to the different challenges faced by the different forms. Although it overlaps with other entries, including ‘Pre-production TV and Movie materials,’ it is a separate entry to emphasize the value of the archival materials relating to the recording process over and above the recordings themselves.

The 2021 Jury agreed with the entry’s assigned risk classification with no noted changes towards increased or reduced risk. The 2022 Taskforce noted no change to the trend (they agreed these risks remain on the same basis as before).

The 2023 Council agreed with the Critically Endangered with the overall risks remaining on the same basis as before (no change to the trend), though they noted that action needed to be taken more imminently.

Additional Comments

For the imminence of action, it will all depend on the format of the records. Correspondence or photographs may be left for longer, but recordings will need closer attention, especially if it is a bespoke recording format.

This may be less of a digital preservation challenge and more of an archive or collecting challenge. This type of material in the past, like most 'unpublished' archives, has survived through luck and is largely out of a GLAM or institution’s control relying on individuals to assess and evaluate if what they have is of significance. When these types of things come to an institution, based on significance on a case-by-case basis, are these digital objects then considered 'worth' the effort to a) bring into the collection and b) care and preserve them? So yes, while Critically Endangered, these types of collections are enormous and quite often not things one would want to keep for the long term; however, sometimes there is the odd gem.

There is the recognized inevitable loss of existing data but reducing this loss would require major effort to fix in terms of identifying organizations who are preserving this content, and it is not clear that this is being done already.

Data from public enquiries and reconciliation commissions which can be traumatic, politically uncomfortable and contested, typically comes in many different forms and formats. Data protection issues and cultural sensitivities only amplify the challenge to preservations.

Digital Species: Political Data, Legal Data

Consensus Decision

Added to List: 2017

Previously: Critically Endangered

Imminence of Action

Action is recommended within twelve months, detailed assessment is a priority.

Significance of Loss

The loss of tools, data or services within this group would impact on people and sectors around the world.

Effort to Preserve | Inevitability

Loss seems likely: by the time tools or techniques have been developed the material will likely have been lost.

Examples

The Tunisian Truth and Dignity Commission to investigate human rights violations committed prior to 2012; enquiries into historical child abuse; Bloody Sunday Enquiry (Saville Inquiry); East Timor Tribunal.

‘Practically Extinct’ in the Presence of Aggravating Conditions

Risk of falsification; fragile or obsolete media; dependence on proprietary formats or products; lack or loss of documentation; inaccessible to web harvesting technologies; lack of version control; lack of integrity checks or integrity records; poor chain of custody; inability to identify an archival authority; loss of personal testimonies.

‘Endangered’ in the Presence of Good Practice

Strong sense of archival responsibility; carefully constructed rules around information privacy that retain robust and appropriate preservation capabilities; clear legislation on retention and permanency, an appraisal of perceived value with resources to undertake preservation actions.

2023 Review

In 2019, this entry became a subset of an entry introduced in 2017 for ‘Digital Legal Records and Evidence,’ which was split into four more discrete entries. This category includes evidence from public enquiries and commissions that have been presented in court. It recognizes that courts are not limited in the types of evidence that they can admit but that they have a responsibility to provide robust preservation that ensures the authenticity of their records and evidence.

The 2021 Jury noted that there is considerable evidence of good practice emerging from some of the examples where clear archival responsibility has been the key to progress but not to the extent of changing the risk profile or 2021 trend for the entry.

The 2023 Council agreed with the Critically Endangered classification with overall risks remaining on the same basis as before (no change to the trend), while also noting that personal testimonies are particularly vulnerable, thus highlighting the importance of independent archives and advocacy for preserving these records.

Additional Comments

National or state recordkeeping regimes and legislation are often clear on the retention or permanency of these types of records. A major issue, however, is embargoes. When an embargo is lifted, will the file format or database continue to work, or will it longer work, making the data useless?

Case files and correspondence are one thing. Retention of these should be clear but may differ widely between jurisdictions and levels of government. If retention is not long-term or permanent, the risk of loss may not be so critical. Retention of 'unused' or 'potential' evidence is likely a different matter altogether. It may not even be considered a record, and certainly is not a record of the court. Should it be returned to the suspect or accused? Are their rights being considered here - not just in terms of preservation, but also simply disposition? There are legal and ethical issues around this that need to be fleshed out in conjunction with assessing its preservation risk.

Personal testimonies provided to commissions of inquiry but are not used as part of its legal investigations are in a particularly vulnerable state. The recent Mother and Baby Homes commission in Ireland collected a number of personal testimonies from survivors, but these were not used to inform the commission's final report as they were not presented to the commission's legal hearing iteration. After the commission's report, it announced that it intended to destroy these testimonies, and refused to allow survivors to access transcripts or recordings of their own testimony. A public outcry halted this planned destruction, but access to their testimonies is still difficult for survivors. Independent archives can provide a crucial role in cases such as these; whether state commissions would be willing to work with independent bodies in these cases remains to be seen.

Case Studies or Examples:

• The Hillsborough disaster and inquiry as a case example of issues arising when inquiry records get split up. See Hillsborough Independent Panel (2012), ‘The report of the Hillsborough Independent Panel’. Available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/229038/0581.pdf [accessed 24 October 2023] and Sarsfield, D., (2021) ‘Hillsborough: The Archive as a Vehicle for ‘Truth Recovery.’’, British Online Archives. Available at: https://microform.digital/boa/posts/category/articles/423/hillsborough-the-archive-as-a-vehicle-for-truth-recovery [accessed 24 October 2023]

• The Tunisian Truth and Dignity Commission, (2019) ‘Tunisia: Truth Commission Outlines Decades of Abuse’, Human Rights Watch. Available at: https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/04/05/tunisia-truth-commission-outlines-decades-abuse [accessed 24 October 2023]

• BBC (2010) ‘The Saville Inquiry: Q&A’, BBC News. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/10147362 [accessed 24 October 2023]

• Truth and Dignity Commission (2019), ‘Executive Summary of the IVD Comprehensive and Final Report’. Available at: http://www.ivd.tn/rapport/doc/TDC_executive_summary_report.pdf [accessed 24 October 2023]