Text, graphics, videos, and other content that is used in gallery and exhibition spaces to guide audiences and provide learning experiences.

Digital Species: Museum and Gallery, Social Media

New Rescoped Entry

Consensus Decision

Imminence of Action

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

Significance of Loss

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

Effort to Preserve | Inevitability

It would require a small effort to preserve materials in this group, requiring the application of proven tools and techniques.

Examples

These may include explanatory text and diagrams. This type of content typically sits alongside objects being exhibited. This information may also be used in other forms of digital public engagement, including within websites and social media.

‘Critically Endangered’ in the Presence of Aggravating Conditions

Poor or no documentation; lack of repository and preservation infrastructure; external dependencies; poor storage; significant volumes or diversity of data; digital content being left unmanaged with Exhibitions teams (e.g. not going through any Records Management, Recordkeeping, being passed to the archives, or having preservation even considered).

‘Vulnerable’ in the Presence of Good Practice

Strong documentation; preservation capability; good recordkeeping principles, practices, and management in place; strong repository and preservation technical infrastructure; well-developed migration pathways.

2023 Review

This entry was added in 2019 under ‘Digital Materials in Museums and Galleries’ and previously rescoped in 2021 to ‘Supporting Digital Materials for Museums and Galleries’.

The 2023 Bit List Council superseded the entry, splitting it into six discrete entries as the scope of the single entry was too broad to provide the guidance needed. The recommendation to break this entry down was also made by the 2021 Jury, as the types of digital collections content in museums can be vast and offer particular risks in museum and gallery contexts. This entry was added to focus on risks tied to interpretive materials in museums and galleries. These materials may be tailored to various audience demographics and may take into account a variety of learning styles. These materials can also provide significant insight into how display and interpretation of objects has changed over time. While some interpretive materials may be text or still image based, others may be more technically complex as they may be time-based (e.g. video) or even a complex digital object in its own right.

Additional Comments

Interpretive outputs through websites may have reduced risk as web outputs if captured as part of national web archiving initiatives.

This entry refers broadly to digital secret and sacred cultural material and documentation of First Nations peoples’ heritage in all forms of media. This can include born-digital materials directly or indirectly produced as outputs of research, community projects, oral histories, private or personal recordings, and/or data in databases and online platforms which have not been sustained or future-proofed.

Digital Species: Community Archives

New Entry

Consensus Decision

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

Examples are wide ranging but can generally include: Born-digital material produced as an output of funded research, produced as an indirect output of community projects (e.g. funded projects to provide technology, devices and training to First Nation community members to record content); Video or oral histories depicting secret/sacred stories, traditional ceremonies, dances or sacred sites; Private, personal video or oral history recordings on personal devices; Data and content in databases and online platforms.

‘Critically Endangered’ in the Presence of Aggravating Conditions

Lack of understanding within collecting institutions about cultural restrictions and complex levels of access permissions; Distrust of "official" archives due to lack of culturally appropriate handling of restricted/sensitive material; Lack of technical infrastructure within the (remote/rural) community to preserve the content; Low internet accessibility to rural/remote regions or disadvantaged cohorts (the digital divide); Non-ideal environmental conditions for storing digital carriers (e.g. SD card, digital video device storage, mobile phone).

‘Vulnerable’ in the Presence of Good Practice

Improved internet accessibility (especially in rural/remote regions to enable cloud storage); Funding to improve technical infrastructures within communities (e.g. government or national funding); Funded programs to improve digital literacy within communities (e.g. government or national funding); Well-developed and considered outreach and awareness-raising efforts/collaborations to increase education to community members about the risks of losing digital content and possible digital preservation solutions; Education and uptake amongst archives and collecting institutions in culturally appropriate approaches for handling and preservation of secret/sacred digital material; Positive reciprocal collaboration and relationships between local First Nation community Knowledge Centres, collecting and research institutions, and Government infrastructures to empower First Nations People in the decision-making in preservation, archiving, description and determination of appropriate accessibility to the content.

2023 Review

This is a new Bit List entry added in 2023 to provide greater awareness and specificity in approaching the digital preservation of secret/sacred, sensitive and private materials. While this entry can be considered very wide-ranging, covering different kinds of digital materials, it was added to draw attention to risks and issues not fully addressed by existing entries–those relating to the significance of material created and support for preservation within and in the context of the communities. While the 2023 Council all agreed on the importance of including this entry, there was also much discussion about the need for further rescoping and presentation of the entry in a considered and appropriate way. For example, differentiating between First Nations cultural material (which can include sacred/secret material) and secret/sacred or other culturally restricted materials more broadly. The discussion touched on the challenges to assign one overall risk classification, significance and impact within the existing structure of the Bit List, and also on providing recommendations for practice in and outside of organizational contexts (taking into account creation, ownership, intervention, misappropriation, legal and ethical considerations that need to be taken when considering these cultural materials).

Additional Comments

The 2023 Council additionally recognizes that further scoping and input are needed for this entry and recommend that the next major review for the Bit List revisit and restructure the entry, in particular looking at scoping the role and importance of creators and communities. It is needing further work to tease out the issues for rural and remote as well as sacred /secret and community archives. Input and guidance from First Nations contributors is necessary.

Consultation with the relevant community knowledge holder or representative is the first consideration when dealing with traditional knowledge issues.

The content and creator are both important to assessing risks and approaches. The secret/sacred nature of the content may deem the material to be restricted to be accessed only by appropriate First Nation community members. However, in the long term, it also has an impact on the relevant nation's history and heritage. In any case, custodians should take into account permissions and authorization. There will be similarities and differences between First Nation communities and within individual continents.

There is an education piece for cultural institutions. When secret/sacred material comes in we are having to rethink workforces as an archive in how to take in and process and how to make it as safe as possible for viewing and being respectful of the content (e.g., male and female content stored separately, etc.)

Time constraints are unknown, and required actions have a lot to do with government funding

It may be better to score and structure this entry into two, with one for materials from marginalized and/or threatened communities, and another for sacred and/or other culturally restricted materials. Both of these are resistant to centralized and saviourism/colonialism approaches and benefit from community empowerment.

If considering a widening of scope to other culturally restricted materials more broadly, this should also contain any material that is dangerous for the individual to hold, such as LGBTQ+ materials in countries where it is illegal.

Case Studies or Examples:

• The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA) Central Australian Aboriginal Digitisation Project (n.d.) ‘First Nations Knowledge and 21st Century Technology’. Available at: https://www.nfsa.gov.au/latest/first-nations-knowledge-and-21st-century-technology-preserving-strehlow-collection [accessed 24 October 2023].

• National and State Libraries Australasia (NSLA) (2018) ‘Culturally Safe Libraries: Working with Indigenous Collections’. Available at: https://www.nsla.org.au/resources/cslp-collections/ [accessed 24 October 2023].

See also:

• Barrowcliffe, R., Booker, L., McKemmish, S. and Thorpe, K. (2021) ‘Activating and supporting the Tandanya Adelaide Declaration on Indigenous Archives’, Archives and Manuscripts 49:3, pp. 167-185, https://doi.org/10.1080/01576895.2021.1961086

• Barrowcliffe, R., Wheatley, P. and Marsh, J. (2023) ‘The Tandanya Adelaide Declaration and a discussion of ethical decisions around digital preservation, presentation and discussion at Queensland State Archives’, Digital Preservation Coalition Event. Available at: https://www.dpconline.org/events/eventdetail/205/-/the-tandanya-adelaide-declaration-and-a-discussion-of-ethical-decisions-around-digital-preservation [accessed 24 October 2023].

• Boamah, E. and Liew, C. (2017) ‘Conceptualising the Digitisation and Preservation of Indigenous Knowledge: The Importance of Attitudes’ in Choemprayong, S., Crestani, F., Cunningham, S. (eds) Digital Libraries: Data, Information, and Knowledge for Digital Lives, 65-80. Part of the International Conference on Asian Digital Libraries (ICADL) Notes in Computer Science book series, LNISA, vol 10647. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70232-2_6.

• Balogun, T. (2023) ‘Data management of digitized indigenous knowledge system in repositories’, Information Development, 39(3), pp. 425-438. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/02666669231186777

• Lee, D. and Dickson, R. (2020) ‘Indigenous Perspectives on Library and Archival Digital Preservation Practices’, Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN) Virtual Conference, online, 13 October. Available at: https://www.crkn-rcdr.ca/sites/crkn/files/2020-10/2_Indigenous%20Perspectives%20on%20Library%20and%20Archival%20Digital%20Preservation%20Practices_EN_v2.pdf [accessed 24 October 2023].

• Popham, M. (2021) ‘Mass digitisation – implications and issues for long-term digital preservation’, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) Event, online, 16 November. Available at: https://aiatsis.gov.au/publication/117744 [accessed 24 October 2023].

• The National Library of New Zealand’s Digital collections guide to support iwi, community archives and organizations, available at https://natlib.govt.nz/collections/caring-for-your-collections/caring-for-collections-guides/digital-collections [accessed 24 October 2023].

• Te Mana Raraunga Charter Māori Data Sovereignty Network list of Indigenous Data Sovereignty Readings, available at https://www.temanararaunga.maori.nz/nga-rauemi#IndigenousDataSovereigntyReadings [accessed 24 October 2023].

Data collected, presented and disseminated in custom online databases that is not stored elsewhere, particularly data at risk when it is locked in the database because no export or harvest options are available.

Digital Species: Databases, Research Outputs, Web

New Entry

Consensus Decision

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 different people and sectors.

Effort to Preserve | Inevitability

It would require a small effort to preserve materials in this group, requiring the application of proven tools and techniques.

Examples

Custom databases created project websites for research, citizen science.

‘Critically Endangered’ in the Presence of Aggravating Conditions

Lack of open licences; lack of export options; lack of system maintenance; expired domain; lack of export functionality; lack of technical knowledge and skills; limited or dysfunctional data management planning; web capture challenges that means unlikely to be picked up by automatic crawlers.

‘Vulnerable’ in the Presence of Good Practice

Backup and documentation; preservation capability in designated repository; use of open formats and open source licencing that enables preservation; enabled export options; robust data management planning; documented and managed professionally.

2023 Review

This is a new Bit List entry nominated and approved by the 2023 Council to draw attention to the particular challenges of preservation for custom online databases. The entry focuses on the distinct risks relating to the online databases which cannot go through traditional web archiving tools.

While there are challenges to preserving databases both off- and online, this entry was nominated in context of projects which set up a custom online database to record, present, and disseminate collected data, but this data is not stored elsewhere (e.g. in a long-term digital archive) and often is locked in the database because no export or harvest options are available. The risks for these online databases include: Maintenance of the system after the end of a project is not ensured, and online databases disappear because of security issues or because the domain expires; Not all data is open and after the end of a project no one is responsible for granting access; The data is not stored elsewhere (e.g. in some trusted repository); The data is locked in: It cannot be exported in (e.g. CSV) for further re-use.

Additionally, the nomination of the entry also highlighted a gap in the Bit List for databases more broadly. The Council agreed a new higher-level Databases digital species group should be created to address this gap, inviting nominations for other database-related entries to be considered for the next major revision of the Bit List.

Additional Comments

The preservation of this entry is highly dependent on the software used but, no matter what, once the project has reached its end, it starts to become vulnerable.

Often, the online databases are of interest to a sub-discipline-specific group of people, e.g. archaeologists specialized on cuneiform tablets. But the material itself often is then invaluable for this group because of the great effort invested in compiling it.

Databases for citizen science also provide an example where the upload of information directly into it makes it distinctive.

Emulation can be used to preserve these databases. For example, Yale University is preserving databases, especially SQL databases for websites, using EAASI. There are technical challenges, but the databases can be preserved, and have found issues are often around access to data and workforce development of technical skills to undertake preservation actions. There is a risk, however, that some of the databases cannot be exposed to the web as they have no survival time and/or cannot make them available as they were intended to be used

See also:

• Cummings, J. (2023) ‘Academics Retire and Servers Die: Adventures in the Hosting and Storage of Digital Humanities Projects’, Digital Humanities Quarterly, 17(1). Available at: http://digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/17/1/000669/000669.html [accessed 24 October 2023]

Material that is not capturable via conventional web-archiving practices (i.e. remote capture with a non-browser-based crawler). The common characteristic of the material is not so much the type of content, or the context but rather the preservation risk posed to the material as a result of decisions made by the website creators, to use technologies and make design decisions that do not support the capture of the content, combined with the limitations of current web archiving processes.

Digital Species: Web

New Entry

Consensus Decision

Imminence of Action

Immediate action necessary. Where detected should be stabilized and reported as a matter of urgency.

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

Examples are wide ranging but include: 1. Interactive content such as maps, charts, 3D models, multi-page forms etc.; 2. Content that is only accessible through search (and does not support a blank search with pagination URLs; 3. Content that is only accessible via POST or Ajax requests (i.e. 'Load More' issues);.4. Content hosted on sites which aggressively block crawlers;

5. Content hosted on proprietary platforms whose technical implementation makes web archiving difficult (Wix, Medium etc.)

‘Critically Endangered’ in the Presence of Aggravating Conditions

Creation and design decisions that do not support the capture of the content; limitations of current web archiving processes.

‘Vulnerable’ in the Presence of Good Practice

Continued development of tools that can capture some types of this material; continued resourcing of the web archiving community and developers working in this space;

Longer-term work towards a cultural change that prioritizes accessibility and achievability.

2023 Review

This is a new Bit List entry added in 2023 to draw attention to the particular challenges of web content that is not capturable via conventional web-archiving practices. While this entry can be considered very wide-ranging, covering different kinds of content in and across different entries represented in the Bit List, this entry was added to draw attention to risks and issues not fully addressed by these entries–those relating to material created and designed with technologies that do not support the capture of the content combined with the limitations of current web archiving processes. Given the ephemeral nature of the web, any material that is not preserved in a web archive is at risk; However, this entry focuses on material that is not accessible to conventional crawlers that is considerably less likely to be preserved because: 1. While the development of alternative capture tools (i.e. forms of browser-based capture) provide potential options to mitigate some of these issues, they remain imperfect and using such tools requires significant time and resources, meaning they are unlikely to be applied to very large-scale crawls; and 2. While website creators can be influenced to avoid such problematic technologies, even in the context of current work (e.g. within the UK Government), this can be difficult.

Additional Comments

The online experience is becoming increasingly ‘mediated’ and, due to the prevalence of personalized experiences, there is little that can be seen as ‘generic’ which can be meaningfully captured. Add-ons such as ad, tracker and script blockers also fundamentally change how users experience the web compared to others. 

There is no specific time constraint but given the relatively ephemeral nature of the web, it is likely that there is an ongoing and constant loss of material.

Given the broad scope of the entry, it can be difficult to assign an overall significance level, with some examples being trivial and others being highly important. Quantifying the impact of loss of this entry is also difficult, but it would be fair to say that it would have a significant impact on the ability of citizens to hold their governments to account and on the completeness of the historical record. Given that these issues are common across the web archiving community, this thus becomes a global problem.

Some important examples from this entry includes highly significant content of national interest that is currently difficult to capture, for instance maps showing proposed changes to electoral boundaries, government blogs and published datasets which can only be accessed through search or via 'Load more', and whole sites of national importance that aggressively block crawlers. Other pertinent examples include PowerBI and Tableau which are both increasingly widely adopted visualization tools and are very difficult to capture and also to replay. They are used to disseminate data about all sorts of things but particularly government transparency information. The mitigating action of publishing the underlying data (for example as CSV or XLS(S)) is not often observed on the web.

See also:

• Beking, A. (2021) ‘Fixity When Nothing is “Fixed” - Reflections on Upstream Engagement and Digital Preservation’, Digital Preservation Coalition Blog. Available at: https://www.dpconline.org/blog/wdpd/abeking-wdpd21 [accessed 24 October 2023]

• Monks-Leeson, E., White, R. and Palendat, K. (2021) ‘Adaptability in the face of adversity - Archiving the Web to Help Persons Forced to FleWeb Archiving the 2021 Federal Election at Library & Archives Canada – A Look Behind the Curtain’, Digital Preservation Coalition Blog. Available at: https://www.dpconline.org/blog/wdpd/lac-wdpd21 [accessed 24 October 2023]

• Wilson, T. (2022) ‘Adaptability in the face of adversity - Archiving the Web to Help Persons Forced to Flee’, Digital Preservation Coalition Blog. Available at: https://www.dpconline.org/blog/blog-tom-wilson-22 [accessed 24 October 2023]

• Hawes, A. (2020) ‘Archiving the architecture of Saydnaya: Using Webrecorder to capture 3D-spaces and ambient audio’, Documenting the Interactive Documentary Webinar Available at: https://youtu.be/mXLSwrEHyNU [accessed 24 October 2023]

Virtual reality (VR) refers to a set of technologies which build on existing 3D rendering technologies, with the aim of creating experiences which completely immerse a user in a virtual environment. The related term of Immersive Media (also known by the acronym XR) refers to a set of technologies used to create experiences, which either completely immerse a user in a virtual environment (Virtual Reality), augment the real world with virtual elements (Augmented Reality) or combine elements of the two (Mixed Reality). Key technologies include headsets, tracking systems, real-time 3D software and 360 video.

Digital Species: Media Art

Consensus Decision

Added to List: 2021

 Previously: Endangered

Imminence of Action

Action is recommended within three years, detailed assessment within 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

Oculus Rift, VR tours, art installations.

‘Critically Endangered’ in the Presence of Aggravating Conditions

Lack of established frameworks and tools; technology is relatively poorly understood in the digital preservation domain; many of the technologies are proprietary; technology is seen as inherently fragile and therefore risky to collect and preserve; emulators do not currently support XR applications; expected to be difficult and costly to migrate, a process itself dependent on access to vulnerable source materials.

‘Vulnerable’ in the Presence of Good Practice

Effective replication; emulation; strong technical documentation; preservation pathway; good descriptive cataloguing; trusted repository.

2023 Review

This was a new 2021 entry submitted through the open nomination process. These VR technologies are finding use in many sectors, including archaeology, architecture, contemporary art, documentary film, gaming, forensics, science and engineering. While these technologies are not new per se, having experienced a first wave in the 1990s, they have experienced renewed interest recently as a result of a new generation of hardware. There are connections between this entry and others relating to both Media Art and Gaming, but it has been included as its own entry to emphasize the issues of preservation that pertain to the interconnected set of specific hardware and software components that access to XR experiences is contingent on. VR is challenging to document due to the individual nature of the experience, and components tend to become rapidly obsolete due to a fast rate of technological change as the industry pushes newer, higher fidelity hardware and software. This results in the potential to lose access to XR software applications, as old VR applications can no longer communicate with new XR hardware. The reliance on proprietary software and hardware components, as well as the lack of industry standards, poses a further risk.

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

Additional Comments

The current wave of materials made using XR technologies represent a unique point in time for the continued development of the technology and therefore represent a significant piece of computing history. Individual materials/experiences created using XR technologies present their own significance beyond this, which, noted elsewhere in this entry, can be represented in a wide range of sectors.

The impacts of the loss of access to virtual reality materials could be widely felt, given their wide-ranging uses across many sectors — most notably collections and archives containing materials accessed using these technologies. Simultaneously there is a risk of a loss of understanding of this technologies' development during the 2010-present period, which is likely to be of historical significance in and of itself.

Media artworks are often made with a network of knowledge that can be precarious. Documentation around production processes can be minimal, and hence acting quickly with known processes can gather information before the knowledge and people networks start to disperse. This can mean preservation of production environments and associated workflows can be preserved alongside the media.

Case Studies or Examples:

• The Preserving Immersive Media Knowledge Base resource, created to help share information between members of the digital preservation community who are caring for virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), 360 video, real-time 3D software and other similar materials. This site was born out of Tate's Preserving Immersive Media Project with funding from the Netherlands Institute for Sound & Vision. See Preserving Immersive Media Knowledge Base (n.d.). Available at: https://pimkb.gitbook.io/pimkb/ [accessed 24 October 2023]

• Resources and outputs from the Preserving and Sharing Born Digital and Hybrid Objects From and Across The National Collection project. See V&A Research Projects (n.d.) ‘Preserving and Sharing Born Digital and Hybrid Objects’. Available at: https://www.vam.ac.uk/research/projects/preserving-and-sharing-born-digital-and-hybrid-objects [accessed 24 October 2023]. In particular the VR case study included in the project report. See Arrigoni, G., Kane, N., McConnachie, S., and McKim, S. (2022) ‘Preserving and sharing born-digital and hybrid objects from and across the National Collection’, Project Report. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7097278

• The Tate Preserving Immersive Media project, which is developing strategies for the preservation of artworks which utilize immersive media such as 360 video, real-time 3D, virtual, augmented and mixed reality. Preserving Immersive Media (2018 - ongoing) Tate. Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/about-us/projects/preserving-immersive-media [accessed 24 October 2023].

• Richardson, J. (2023) ‘Virtual Reality is a big trend in museums, but what are the best examples of museums using VR?’, Museum Next. Available at: https://www.museumnext.com/article/how-museums-are-using-virtual-reality/ [accessed 24 October 2023].

• The issues and approaches raised by the Tuvalu Future Now Project, a set of three major initiatives designed to preserve its nationhood, governance and culture in the event of a worst-case scenario. The third initiative is the development of a digital nation. It includes digitising and transferring access to government and consular services and all accompanying administrative systems into the cloud to enable elections to continue to be held, and government bodies to continue in their roles. It also includes a virtual copy of Te Afualiku, the first island in Tuvalu to be digitally recreated through satellite imagery, photos and drone footage, creating a digital twin to not only help inform decisions around urban planning and development but also examine how to use augmented and virtual reality to allow displaced and future generations of Tuvaluans to continue to exist as both a culture and a nation, complete with ancestral knowledge and value systems. If this concept becomes a reality, the Tuvaluan people will be able to interact with one another in a digital dimension, in a way that imitates real life and helps to preserve shared language and customs. See Fainu, K. (2023) ‘Facing extinction, Tuvalu considers the digital clone of a country’, The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/27/tuvalu-climate-crisis-rising-sea-levels-pacific-island-nation-country-digital-clone [accessed 24 October 2023].

See also:

• NEW MEDIA MUSEUMS: Creating Framework for Preserving and Collecting Media Arts in V4, initiated by the Olomouc Museum of Art as a joint international platform for sharing experience with building and maintaining collections of new media artworks across different types of institutions. The aim of the project is to find workable methods for heritage institutions to build and maintain collections of media arts, which are necessary for safeguarding this area for the benefit of society. See Central European Art Database (2021) ‘NEW MEDIA MUSEUMS: Creating Framework for Preserving and Collecting Media Arts in V4’. Available at: http://cead.space/Detail/projects/3797 [accessed 24 October 2023].

• The Collaborative Infrastructure for sustainable access to digital art LIMA project, to prevent the loss of digital artworks and to commonly develop the knowledge to preserve these works in a sustainable way. The project ‘Infrastructure sustainable accessibility digital art’ invests in research, training, knowledge sharing and conservation to prevent the loss of both digital artworks and the knowledge to preserve them. See LIMA (n.d.) ‘Collaborative infrastructure for sustainable access to digital art’. Available at: https://www.li-ma.nl/lima/article/collaborative-infrastructure-sustainable-access-digital-art [accessed 24 October 2023]

Materials saved to flash drives or other solid-state media in the last five years where the reader devices are still supported and can be integrated easily into hardware infrastructure.

Digital Species: Portable Media

Consensus Decision

Added to List: 2019

Previously: 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 small effort to preserve materials in this group, requiring the application of proven tools and techniques.

Examples

USB memory sticks; flash cards in cameras; solid state portable hard disks.

‘Critically Endangered’ in the Presence of Aggravating Conditions

Poor storage conditions; encryption; digital rights management; lack of replication; lack of documentation; lack of periodic testing; lack of refreshment pathway; lack of access to readers; out of manufacturers’ warranty or no warranty; storage in paper files.

‘Vulnerable’ in the Presence of Good Practice

Regular review and testing; replication; refreshment plan; comprehensive documentation; high quality storage; regular maintenance of readers; multiple readers available.

2023 Review

The 2019 Jury introduced this entry to ensure that the range of media storage is properly assessed and presented. 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 Endangered with the overall risks remaining on the same basis as before (no change to the trend).

Additional Comments

This entry is highly dependent on who is looking after the portable media but made more difficult over time. The lack of granularity in the definition means that only general advice can be offered, such as to refresh media. In time, it may yet be more useful to split all storage media (maybe 100 items long) with an indication of how long these can be expected to last. In many cases, specialists can recover obsolete media, but the cost of employing them can become an aggravating condition.

Digital materials generated through legal proceedings in court.

Digital Species: Legal Data

Consensus Decision

Added to List: 2017

Previously: 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 address losses in this group, possibly requiring the development of new preservation tools or techniques.

Examples

Digital records of proceedings; digital records of rulings, and all manner of quasi-judicial proceedings and tribunals.

‘Critically Endangered’ in the Presence of Aggravating Conditions

Loss of context; loss of integrity; external dependencies; poor storage; lack of understanding; churn of staff; significant or diversity of data; poorly developed specifications; ill-informed records management; poorly developed transfer protocols; poorly developed migration or normalization; longstanding protocols or procedures that apply unsuitable paper processes to digital materials.

‘Vulnerable’ in the Presence of Good Practice

Well managed data infrastructure; preservation enabled at ingest; carefully managed authenticity; use of persistent identifiers; finding aids; well managed records management processes; recognition of preservation requirements at highest levels; strategic investment in digital preservation; preservation roadmap; participation in the digital preservation community.

2023 Review

This entry is a subset of a previous 2019 entry, ‘Proceedings and Evidence in Court,’ which was itself created as a subset of entry in 2017 for ‘Digital Legal Records and Evidence.’ The 2021 Jury split ‘Proceedings and Evidence in Court’ into two more discrete entries to highlight their distinct preservation challenges and risk profiles. This entry includes court proceedings and recognizes that courts have a responsibility to provide robust preservation that ensures the authenticity of these records. The 2022 Taskforce noted no change to the trend.

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

Additional Comments

Recordings of proceedings in court may include the AV recording of the court session, which may pose particular preservation risks associated with the video files.

Temporary courts are continuing to gradually close and decisions about preservation and management of their archives are being made hurriedly and at the last minute. Some of the decisions are placing materials at high risk due to; materials being split all over the place.

including to entities with no capacity or capability to preserve them, a seeming lack of understanding that preservation and management of the archives has no completion date, an unwillingness to invest in preservation or a drive to keep costs low which is resulting in negative implications for preservation, hurried choices on preservation measures which are not allowing for proper testing of approaches to safeguard authenticity and legal admissibility (e.g. extracting digital data from complex systems in formats that can then potentially not be restored.

Standard Records Management processes within designated agencies should be able to take care of the preservation of materials like this but given that it is likely to involve complex types of data, such agencies may not be equipped to deliver preservation effectively. It is surprising that courts are not more prominent in the digital preservation community, where solutions now exist.

Case Studies or Examples:

• The Special Tribunal of Lebanon 14th Annual Report (2022-2023), which touches on the above comments concerning the planning and approaches developed and agreed between the United Nations and the Government of Lebanon to guide the Special Tribunal to ensure the completion of the Tribunal’s residual functions, including the management and preservation of the records and archives of the Special Tribunal. Special Tribunal for Lebanon (2023) ‘Special Tribunal for Lebanon 14th Annual Report (2022 - 2023). Available at: https://www.stl-tsl.org/sites/default/files/documents/annual-reports/STL_Annual_Report_2022-2023.pdf [accessed 24 October 2023].

Primary and/or original recordings of radio broadcasts generated live but often poorly stored thereafter, for example offline recordings on single LTO (Linear Tape Open) Tapes.

Digital Species: Sound and Vision

Consensus Decision

Added to List: 2017

Previously: 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

Broadcast archives include but are not limited to national, local, public, commercial radio.

‘Critically Endangered’ in the Presence of Aggravating Conditions

Lack of archival mandate; lack of capability of archive; lack of policy or capacity within broadcaster; small or unprofitable broadcaster; concern over intellectual property rights; overzealous rights management protection; device or software dependence; dependence on proprietary or obsolete formats; lack or loss of documentation; little use or inaccessibility; storage (typically tapes) older than warranty; lack of media refreshment plan; lack of error or integrity checking process; single copies.

‘Vulnerable’ in the Presence of Good Practice

Archival responsibility accepted and acted upon; replication; refreshment of media; good documentation; active in digital preservation community; trusted repository; content re-used.

2023 Review

This entry was added in 2017 as a separate entry due to concern over recordings on LTO tapes. These provide between 15 and 30 years’ storage which may be less depending on usage and storage conditions. LTO1 and LTO2, released in 2000 and 2003 respectively, have largely reached the final phases of viability. Reader compatibility may be more problematic than media resilience, however. Drives supporting newer releases of the format are typically only compatible within two generations, and experience with the recently released LTO8 suggests that it is only backwardly compatible to one generation. For instance, one major national archive and library had decided to expedite migration away from LTO6, which is becoming obsolete more quickly than anticipated. Through time, the risks to collections that have not been refreshed or replicated from early LTO tapes expand. Thus, the overall trend is towards greater risk when collections are not migrated. Older formats, perhaps as recently as LTO6, extinction events should be anticipated within two to five years.

The 2021 Jury agreed with the Endangered classification, noting the importance of a selective approach. 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 Endangered classification with the overall risks remaining on the same basis as before (no change to the trend).

Additional Comments

The 2023 Bit List Council also recommends that the next major review for the Bit List consider creating a new ‘Broadcast’ species group where this entry may be better suited.

Depending on the legislative context, digital radio recordings may fall under published works if they are broadcast. Additionally, if the recordings are broadcast by a taxpayer-funded broadcaster, record-keeping guidelines may already exist to advise how long content should be kept, which would then inform a selective approach to caring and looking after them for as long as required.

While broadcasters may keep their own programmes, they are often not comprehensively collected or archived by memory institutions as contributions to cultural heritage.

Case Studies or Examples:

• The Radio Preservation Task Force (RPTF), created in early 2014, grew out of the Library of Congress’s National Recording Preservation Plan (2012). See Radio Preservation Task Force (2014), Library of Congress. Available at: https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-recording-preservation-plan/about-this-program/radio-preservation-task-force/ [accessed 24 October 2023].

• The British Library Save Our Sounds National Radio Archive project (2018) to create a digital radio archive that will preserve a representative proportion of ongoing UK radio output and make this available for research. National Radio Archive (2018), British Library. Available at: https://www.bl.uk/projects/national-radio-archive [accessed 24 October 2023].

• Meddeb, S. and Cecchine, R. (2023) ‘The Valorization of the Tunisian Radio Archive in the Artificial Intelligence Era’, iPres 2023, Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA, 19–22 September.

Original recordings of music and other performance from which retail products are derived, typically in multiple tracks and uncompressed high-resolution sound quality.

Digital Species: Sound and Vision

Consensus Decision

Added to List: 2019

Previously: 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 small effort to address losses in this group, requiring the application of proven preservation tools or techniques.

Examples

Original official recordings of a song, sound or performance owned by music industry.

‘Critically Endangered’ in the Presence of Aggravating Conditions

Single point of failure; storage on old or degrading media; lack of ongoing investment in changing preservation requirements; lack of capability; poor documentation; dependence on small staff.

‘Vulnerable’ in the Presence of Good Practice

High-quality storage; meticulous and consistent replication; trusted repository; preservation requirement understood at the executive level and funded accordingly; leadership in preservation community; expert staff.

2023 Review

In 2019, this entry was added as a subset of a previous 2017 entry, ‘Digital Music Production and Sharing,’ which was split to draw attention to the different challenges faced by the different forms. Though it overlaps with other entries, including ‘Digital Archives of Music Production,’ it is a separate entry to emphasize the inherent and great value of original recordings over and above those distributed and the concomitant need for active preservation.

Both the 2021 Jury and 2022 Taskforce agreed with the Endangered classification with no noted changes towards increased or reduced risk. The 2022 Taskforce additionally recommended use of the term original or primary rather than the term master, except for where it is part of a format’s formal name or an industry-standard use, which is now reflected in this entry and other relevant areas of the Bit List.

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

Additional Comments

The imminence of action will depend on format and age, and the significance of loss may be more largely felt if they are recordings of a major recording star.

This is interesting as the recording houses should be seeing the value of these – so why are they not taking responsibility for looking after them? Do they not feel it is in their financial interests? The archival practices of the studios are typically based on value – the recordings are assumed to be worth keeping. However, this means relatively low-value originals may not be transferred to new media in a timely way and could be lost. There is no comprehensive deposit scheme to address the long tail of music production, and it is often unclear exactly where responsibility lies.

Case Studies or Examples:

• The Jury was particularly aware of the case of the ‘Universal Fire’ of 2008. See Rosen, J. (2019) ‘The Day the Music Burned’, The New York Times. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/11/magazine/universal-fire-master-recordings.html [accessed 24 October 2023].

• MQA (Master Quality Authenticated), a means of digitally capturing and storing original master recordings as files without the usual loss in fidelity usually experienced with compressed audio files, has gone into administration - if you have MQA files it should still work. That being said, MQA is not lossless and it’s better to get true lossless FLAC files. See McKerrell, H. (2023), ‘MQA has gone into administration: what does this mean for Tidal and supported products?’, What HI-FI? Available at: https://www.whathifi.com/features/mqa-has-gone-into-administration-what-does-this-mean-for-tidal-and-supported-products [accessed 24 October 2023].

See also:

• Mattmann, B. and Lindenmann, I. (2021) ‘Starting with complexity: Archiving digital-born music compositions from Mac systems of the 80s/90s’, Digital Preservation Coalition Blog. Available at https://www.dpconline.org/blog/wdpd/starting-with-complexity [accessed 24 October 2023].

Materials saved to DVDs, CDs or other optical media in the last five years where the reader devices are still supported and can be integrated easily into hardware infrastructure.

Digital Species: Portable Media

Consensus Decision

Added to List: 2019

Previously: 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 small effort to preserve materials in this group, requiring the application of proven tools and techniques.

Examples

CDs, DVDs produced in the last five years.

‘Critically Endangered’ in the Presence of Aggravating Conditions

Poor storage conditions; encryption; digital rights management; lack of replication; lack of documentation; lack of periodic testing; lack of refreshment pathway; lack of access to readers; out of manufacturers’ warranty or no warranty; storage in paper files; copyright; environmental disasters; technical preservation measures.

‘Vulnerable’ in the Presence of Good Practice

Regular review and testing; replication; refreshment plan; comprehensive documentation; high quality storage; regular maintenance of readers; multiple readers available.

2023 Review

The 2019 Jury introduced this entry to ensure that the range of media storage is properly assessed and presented. 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 Endangered with the overall risks remaining on the same basis as before (no change to the trend). Additionally, the Council recommended that a nomination received for ‘DVDs produced under copyright’ would provide a valuable example to this entry rather than as a new, standalone entry (see below).

Additional Comments

This entry is highly dependent on who is looking after the portable media but made more difficult over time. The lack of granularity in the definition means that only general advice can be offered, such as to refresh media. In time, it may yet be more useful to split all storage media (maybe 100 items long) with an indication of how long these can be expected to last. In many cases, specialists can recover obsolete media, but the cost of employing them can become an aggravating condition.

Case Studies or Examples:

• One example, presented to the Council through a 2023 nomination, concerns the loss of digital materials stored in DVDs. A 3,500 DVD ‘film collection’ was destroyed during the fire at the University Library Archives and Special Collections, University of Cape Town, South Africa. There were no backup copies in large part because of the (mis)understanding that they were prevented by copyright from making backup copies. This example extends beyond the loss of material in the optical media, particularly in respect to backups and issues surrounding copyright, but in the context of the entry shows how aggravating factors can place content at greater risk due to aggravating factors not only to copyright but also global warming with more such fires, floods and natural disasters to be expected. See News in Conservation (2021) ‘Devastating Cape Town fire destroys University Library Archives and Special Collections’, News in Conservation, International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works, Volume 84, p. 8-9, June-July 2021. Available at: https://www.iiconservation.org/content/news-conservation-issue-84-june-july-2021 [accessed 24 October 2023]