Heather Tompkins is Senior Project Officer at Library and Archives Canada
As World Digital Preservation Day approached this year, I started to think about what might be worthwhile to share with our digital preservation colleagues across the world. One of the topics that came to mind is the work we are undertaking at Library and Archives Canada (LAC) to develop our digital preservation policies. In 2022, our digital preservation area underwent an audit which resulted in several findings. One finding was to develop a digital preservation policy suite that defines our preservation priorities. Another finding was to have criteria for the acquisition and preservation of digital material that takes into account LAC’s ability to preserve and make them accessible. While we had an overarching policy on preservation, we didn’t yet have clear documentation of these priorities or criteria as it relates to the unique aspects of digital preservation. We internally recognized we could improve how we work, in part, by clarifying these priorities and criteria.
What we have now
LAC currently has two high-level policy documents which inform our digital preservation actions. The first is a Strategy for a digital preservation program. This strategy was finalized in 2017 when LAC was in a much different place as it related to our thinking about digital preservation. At that time, our focus was more heavily weighted on technology and ISO 16363 certification. Now in 2023, our understanding on what makes a sustainable digital preservation program has progressed, and we aim to place much greater emphasis on clear policies and procedures that remain relevant as technology evolves.
More recently, LAC published our Preservation Policy Framework which establishes a solid foundation on which we can build our digital preservation policy. Our Preservation Policy Framework is couched in the principles of trustworthiness, sustainability, and collaboration, and it applies to both analogue and digital material. The Framework recognizes the need for acquisition and selection decisions to consider long-term preservation and access, as well as the need to balance preservation actions with enabling access to our holdings.
What elements are we thinking of including?
The next steps for us are to develop a dedicated Digital Preservation Policy and to determine any subsequent additional policies and procedures. What could that include? Well, we think it means talking about the different types of digital preservation that we perform, most notably bit-level vs. content preservation, and under what criteria we determine one or the other. This requires being clear about what bit-level preservation means for our mandate, and how it can impact access for our users. We also want to talk more deeply about content-level preservation and how that will be achieved; for example, whether through migration to different file formats or emulation, and why that would make sense for some content but not for others. Notably, emulation is possible for content collected by our Web and Social Media Preservation Program but it may not be feasible nor needed for other digital holdings. We’re also thinking about whether establishing benchmarks for the level of effort should be covered in our Digital Preservation Policy, or if it would be better addressed in a different type of supporting policy. Some key areas come to mind, such as standardizing how many attempts will be made to extract data from a physical carrier, and how much time we would devote to determining whether a specific file format could be made accessible. In an ideal world, we would have infinite resources and access would be possible for all content – wouldn’t that be nice! In reality, we know technological obsolescence is an everyday issue in the digital preservation field and we all must work within various time and resource constraints.
Who do we need to consult to figure it out?
We also need to consult on this work, and to talk to our stakeholders within LAC to receive their input. At LAC, various areas of the organization work with private donors, government institutions, and publishers whose material ultimately becomes a holding at LAC. Thus, we need to ensure that the language used in our policy is clear and well understood. This can help manage expectations of our content providers as well as our users.
What resources are out there to help us?
Thankfully, we are not starting from scratch in drafting a digital preservation policy (and all the pieces that will eventually be tied to it!). The concerted past efforts of other organizations on digital preservation policies and strategies will be a tremendous benefit for this work. There are many great examples from other heritage institutions that we can draw inspiration from, such as the National Archives of Australia’s (NAA) Digital Preservation Policy and the National Archives and Record Administration’s (NARA) Digital Preservation Strategy 2022-2026. And we can’t forget the Digital Preservation Coalition’s Digital Preservation Policy Toolkit either which has a wealth of great advice.
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