Pre-WWW ViewData and TeleText Services where no Archival Agency has Captured and Retained the Signal
Pre-WWW ViewData and TeleText Services where no Archival Agency has Captured and Retained the Signal
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Pre-WWW television information services broadcast within the TV signal that allowed a degree of search and retrieval of up-to-date information, based on Teletext or ViewData technologies and variants. |
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Digital Species: Sound and Vision |
Trend in 2022:
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Consensus Decision |
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Added to List: 2017 |
Trend in 2023:
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Previously: Critically Endangered |
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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 many people and sectors. |
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. |
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Examples AerTel; Electra; MetroText; Antiope-based systems; Ceefax; TeleText. |
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‘Practically Extinct’ in the Presence of Aggravating Conditions Lack of understanding; structure of information silos; Lack or loss of documentation; Uncertainty about intellectual property rights; Lack of funding or impetus. |
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‘Endangered’ in the Presence of Good Practice Captured within on-air broadcast recordings; active research and recovery programme. |
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2023 Review A number of important developments were reported since this entry was added in 2017, raising hope that collections can be recovered and reused under certain circumstances. A trend towards decreased risk was noted in 2020, based on live capture of broadcast output at the BBC and British Film Institute. Embedded signals can be assembled to access the Teletext content, and methods to recover such signals have been demonstrated (where the appropriate broadcast archive exists). In 2019, a proposal to add teletext graphics characters to the Universal Coded Character Set was accepted, making it easier to transmit and archive teletext and legacy computer graphics for archiving and preservation. Version 13.0 of the Unicode Standard, released in March 2020, included the addition of graphic characters that provide compatibility with early teletext broadcasting standards. The 2021 Jury agreed with the 2020 review with a 2021 trend towards reduced risk. While it is not yet fully clear how such a signal could be made searchable or made available at scale, research has progressed with different threads of research and enthusiast and community-led initiatives being brought together in the development of preservation tools and techniques. In light of these developments and active research and recovery efforts, the Jury supported a change from the Practically Extinct to Critically Endangered classification. The 2022 Taskforce noted no change to the trend (they agreed these risks remain on the same basis as before). The 2023 Council noted a lower significance of the digital material of this entry than the previous 2021 Jury but agreed with the Critically Endangered with the overall risks remaining on the same basis as before (no change to the trend). |
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Additional Comments From a cultural studies point of view, it is a huge loss: an important source of information about news and social mores of the time. Is there progress to report on this entry, meaning that elements of the problem have been resolved? Major national agencies have collections of off-air recorded television on videotape carriers, which are likely to contain the teletext data. Few, if any, have undertaken substantial extraction and preservation of the teletext in its own right. However, many have digitized videotape carriers to digital file formats, which are now under preservation. An active Teletext enthusiast community has developed and created programmatic solutions to extract the teletext from the video files and emulation of the teletext display. A next step could be a collaboration between the official agencies and the enthusiast community to develop a systematic programme to extract teletext from off-air recordings for both preservation and access via emulation. See also:
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No ChangeSmart Phone Apps
Smart Phone Apps
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Applications created for smartphones. Many are deprecated quickly but others survive through multiple update cycles. It is hard to maintain version control and is often dependent upon the company that publishes them. There is no clear agency or mandate to record or collect. |
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Digital Species: Apps |
Trend in 2022:
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Consensus Decision |
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Added to List: 2017 |
Trend in 2023:
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Previously: Critically Endangered |
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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 or services within this group would have a global impact. |
Effort to Preserve | Inevitability Loss seems inevitable: loss has already occurred or is expected to occur before tools or techniques develop. |
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Examples London 2012 app; BBC Olympic app; apps published for Apple iOS 10 or earlier; apps for less-common operating systems such as Palm OS, Symbian, Blackberry OS. |
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‘Practically Extinct’ in the Presence of Aggravating Conditions Device dependence; poor documentation; uncertainty over IPR; short-term contracts; lack of skills, commitment or policy from corporate owners; rapid churn of OS; shifting business requirements of app resellers; dependence on exotic or obsolete formats or OS processes. |
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‘Endangered’ in the Presence of Good Practice Strong documentation; version control for code and compiled app; emulation enabled; designated repository taking preservation responsibility and capacity to deliver. |
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2023 Review This entry was added in 2017 to draw attention to the challenges of software preservation and the extraordinary velocity of the market for apps. Given the speed of change, it is hard to see how digital preservation efforts can keep pace. The 2019 Jury noted that splitting this entry into different groups based on the platform would clarify differences, although the risks would be largely the same. The 2021 Jury discussed this further in light of the new 2021 ‘Smartphone Gaming’ entry, which can be considered a subset of this category as well as Gaming in which it is currently assigned. The 2021 Jury found no identifiable trend towards greater or reduced risk but discussed the impact of loss; some loss seems inevitable due to the changes that have taken place in mobile ecosystems over the past 15 years. The 2022 Taskforce noted no change to trend (they agreed these risks remain on the same basis as before with no significant increase or decrease over the preceding year). The 2023 Council agreed with the Critically Endangered classification with no change to trend but also recommended a change to significance of loss; the significance of loss was increased from the previous year’s reviews, suggesting that the loss of tools or services within this group could have a larger global impact. Obsolescence plays a large part; the rate of change of smart operating systems is high as are the number of apps, which means the obsolescence rate is high and furthermore a large number of vendors are also leaving the market which means their specific apps will also vanish. While the Council agreed the entry description should be updated to reflect these areas of discussion, overall risks remain and continue on the same basis as before (no change to trend). |
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Additional Comments Members of the 2023 Council additionally noted that it may be better to have a broader smart device apps entry rather than specifically Smartphone Apps and Smart TV Apps as separate standalone entries. The risks posed by these apps can apply to a variety of devices; for example, before Smartphones there were PDAs, and there are now Smart fridges, set-top-boxes, fire sticks, e-book readers, and other devices which have apps. For this reason, they recommend that the next major review for the Bit List includes a rescoping of Smartphone Apps and Smart TV Apps to consider: What differentiates these apps from others? What cultural heritage purpose do these apps serve? Are organizations collecting them? Are there distinct aggravating factors or risk profiles? Old versions of apps are completely lost to most users: once you upgrade an app, you typically cannot go back. Perhaps iOS is more critical - at least with Android, you can often get .apk from the internet separate from the marketplace. The NSRL contains hundreds of thousands of mobile applications which are not being actively preserved but could be if a mandate existed. An extension to Legal Deposit might be possible. The faster we act, the less we will lose. It is unlikely that there will ever be one agent with a mandate to collect different apps available in different countries, so a network of national organizations would be needed. The companies that create these apps are the key to the licensing challenges, and conversation with them is necessary, though it would need to happen immediately in order to negotiate the right to preserve/escrow both apps, operating systems, documentation, and phone development emulators. Messaging apps such as WhatsApp or Telegram have had an increased media presence in the last couple of years due to their role in a number of politics-related issues that have arisen, such as concerns about UK Cabinet Ministers using the auto-delete function which could compromise accountability and transparency of the UK government. Telegram has also gained importance due to its use in the Russia-Ukraine war for sharing news. Case Studies or Examples:
See also:
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Commercial Software
Commercial Software
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Computer software that is produced for sale or that serves commercial purposes, including previous editions and versions of software that are not available or no longer in use. This entry broadly includes proprietary software, access through licences or subscription business models. |
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Digital Species: Software |
New Entry |
Consensus Decision |
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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 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. |
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Examples Wordstar, Novell Netware 386, SAP, Oracle, Adobe Photoshop; Microsoft products, such as the Windows Operating System and MS Office, are some of the most well-known examples of commercial software. |
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‘Practically Extinct’ in the Presence of Aggravating Conditions Lack of established frameworks and tools; technology is poorly understood; no emulation pathway; reliance of proprietary software and/or subscription-based business models; limited or no commercial interest; complexities of sector-specific software or data types; lack of technical documentation; complex intellectual property rights; technical protection measures that inhibit preservation actions; encryption. |
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‘Endangered’ in the Presence of Good Practice Effective replication; access to source code; emulation pathway; strong technical documentation; preservation pathway; licensing that enables preservation; use of open formats and open source software; corporate preservation capability; awareness and advocacy work with commercial software providers. |
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2023 Review This is a new Bit List entry nominated and approved by the 2023 Council to draw attention to the particular challenges of content and software preservation for commercial software products. The entry focuses on the distinct risks relating to the availability and access to software and code, and lack of preservation interest or mandate, by companies that publish them, creating challenges to preserve digital content and software in source code form. Additionally, the nomination of the entry also highlighted that Software as a whole is not currently on the list (compared to higher level species like Apps). The Council agrees a new higher-level Software digital species group should be created to address this gap and challenges specific to software preservation, while also recognizing there are overlaps with other entries including (but not limited to) Apps, Gaming. Media Art and Research Outputs. While there are overlaps, the Council agreed it would be valuable to separate software to reflect differences in volume of access to software, significance and motivations for preserving commercial software in and across different sectors. |
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Additional Comments A large part of this requires advocacy work, and call to action to raise awareness with commercial software providers to preserve their software. Software preservation raises (often debated) questions about key characteristics for preservation. Wordstar, for example, may be of interest for not only access to the content it facilitates but also for the preservation of the software as mass produced, commercial product. You can also argue in more practical ways that for most files there is usually something about them that you need for the original software for or else the content will be different, and therefore preservation of software is critical regardless of the significance of the software as a product. Software dependencies on the environment (hardware and software) enable it to run and its associated context and support and in this way some of the approaches can overlap with gaming, but software is not seen as a creative product in the same way. This nomination is more about commercial uses and industrial design objects where games are artworks for entertainment and social/cultural uses. One might argue the contents of the Museum of Brands and Packaging is not unique and yet it seems unsafe to expect it to necessarily exist elsewhere. The low regard in which commercial software (and this is before we consider bespoke research software) is held - except as a means of accessing more interesting material - seems to suggest that we may in the future look in vain for someone with a copy of even quite widely available software, let alone, say, early UK antivirus products, world leading as they were. See also:
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Console Games
Console Games
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Console games include all games that were designed to be played on video game consoles, both home consoles and handheld consoles. The three most common consoles manufacturers at this time are Nintendo (Switch), Sony (PlayStation) and Microsoft (Xbox). |
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Digital Species: Gaming |
New Entry |
Consensus Decision |
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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. |
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Examples Consoles: SEGA Dreamcast, XBOX 360, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, PS Vita, NES Games: Pokémon, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Red Dead Redemption, Soulcalibur, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Guitar Hero, Bloodborne |
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‘Practically Extinct’ in the Presence of Aggravating Conditions Complex hardware dependencies or bespoke hardware; planned obsolescence; dependency on remote servers that are closed; complex intellectual property rights; use of older magnetic media; free distribution on magazines; loss of underlying code or gaming engine; limited or no commercial interest. |
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‘Endangered’ in the Presence of Good Practice IPR supportive of preservation; strong documentation; source code; emulation pathway; trusted designated repository or community taking preservation responsibility and capable to deliver. |
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2023 Review The 2023 Council created two new entries, Console Games and PC Games, to complement the already existing entry of Smartphone Gaming. This was done to highlight the unique preservation issues that exist for each of these categories, such as Console Games being more reliant on peripherals. |
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Additional Comments Within the past few years, a number of digital console store fronts have shut down, including the PS3, PSP and PS Vita web and mobile stores as well as the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U eShop which was shut down this year. Alongside this, online services for console games are often shut down on older consoles, such as Nintendo announcing a discontinuation of online services for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U Software in early April 2024. Every company that releases a console will also release at least one peripheral for that system (the controller), with most releasing a number of extra peripherals, some only suited to one or two games. There are also a number of third-party peripherals available as well. These peripherals provide an added layer of complexity to the preservation of console games. Security software company Denuvo recently announced that its protection tools are now available to Switch developers which would block unauthorized emulations of those games on PC. Denuvo is a DRM solution that is unpopular with large swaths of the gaming community due to needing a periodic online connection and, given that this protection tool is designed to stop unauthorized PC emulations, there is a risk to ad-hoc and community preservation projects that use emulation to preserve games. Case Studies or Examples:
See also:
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Exhibition Content
Exhibition Content
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Born-digital or hybrid-digital content that was created and/or commissioned for exhibitions and has not been accessioned into the collection. This species is considered as an object or a 'work' in its own right, and not interpretive materials. |
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Digital Species: Museum and Gallery, Media Art |
New Rescoped Entry |
Consensus Decision |
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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 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. |
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Examples Digital experiences, immersive works, digital artworks, hybrid-digital artworks, media art, and other born-digital or hybrid-digital objects or materials which can take many forms. |
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‘Practically Extinct’ in the Presence of Aggravating Conditions Lack of technical documentation; complex interdependencies related to specific hardware, software and/or operating systems; significant volumes or diversity of data; dependence on proprietary products or formats; lack of preservation capacity in museum or gallery; technology is seen as inherently fragile and therefore risky to collect and preserve; conflation of access with preservation; lifespan of hardware technologies used in legacy works with few/no replacements and/or alternatives. |
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‘Endangered’ in the Presence of Good Practice Strong technical documentation; preservation capability; preservation pathway; clarity of intellectual property rights that enable preservation; availability of replacement or alternative hardware technologies. |
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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 draws attention to risks preserving born-digital or hybrid-digital materials, which can take many forms and may be complex digital objects. These works may be commissioned from an external third-party company, or created by staff internal to an organization, often with a considerable amount of financial investment involved. What is particularly critical is that these materials have not been accessioned into an organization's collection. These objects may inhabit exhibition spaces for many years, and while they may be a key component of an organization's business, have not been (and may not be) ever accessioned into the collection. |
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Additional Comments Case Studies or Examples:
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Games with Online Play Components
Games with Online Play Components
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Video games with online components that have online elements for interactive aspects of play, in particular those with online multiplayer components. This does not exclude games that have both online multiplayer and offline single player components (e.g., Dark Souls has online multiplayer components but also has the ability for single player play in offline mode) but rather the focus on the entry is on the online components for interactive play and there is more potential to preserve the interaction. This excludes games that are no longer available legally. |
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Digital Species: Gaming |
Trend in 2022:
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Consensus Decision |
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Added to List: 2019 (rescoped 2023) |
Trend in 2023:
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Previously: Critically Endangered |
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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. |
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Examples Dark Souls, Minecraft, Portal 2, Stardew Valley. |
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‘Practically Extinct’ in the Presence of Aggravating Conditions Always online DRM; Controversies around IPR; lack of offline backup; changing business model of providers; limited recognition of value of game play; over dependence on goodwill of ad-hoc community; lack of preservation know-how at service providers; dependency on bespoke hardware or interfaces; Complex hardware dependencies or bespoke hardware. |
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‘Endangered’ in the Presence of Good Practice Emulation pathway; source code; trusted repository; large user community; IPR supportive of preservation; strong documentation. |
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2023 Review This entry, alongside the Games with Offline 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 online components as opposed to offline components in video games, specifically the dependency of servers. |
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Additional Comments Whilst this entry focuses on games with online play components that are still accessible (any servers that have been shut down or discontinued would fall into the Shut Down or Discontinued Video Games entry), these games could potentially lose server support thus necessitating urgent action to preserve the online component whilst the server is still active. A recent example of this is the announcement in October 2023 of Nintendo discontinuing online services for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U software from early April 2024. Whilst the offline component will still be accessible, the game will have lost features and/or game modes that use online components thus changing the nature of the game. Case Studies or Examples:
See also:
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Towards even greater riskManuals, Documentation, and Associated Materials
Manuals, Documentation, and Associated Materials
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Manuals that support physical, born-digital, and hybrid-digital museum objects, including technical manuals and that may contain diagrams, images, videos and more. Manuals may include those specifically created for the object, and/or from the supplier or manufacturer (and may exist for the entire object, or for each component part). Covered here is other documentation critical for the management, preservation, access, and display of collections objects, including conservation records. Associated materials (such as sidecar or other technical files) can provide insight into the digital content held in the collection. Encompassed in this entry is both information for internal use, supporting outgoing loans, as well as an information source for current and future researchers. |
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Digital Species: Museum and Gallery |
New Rescoped Entry |
Consensus Decision |
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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 Loss seems likely: by the time tools or techniques have been developed the material will likely have been lost. |
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Examples Manuals created for the object and/or from the supplier or manufacturer; conservation records and other forms of documentation. |
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‘Practically Extinct’ in the Presence of Aggravating Conditions Poor documentation; lack of preservation planning; held in proprietary file formats. |
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‘Endangered’ in the Presence of Good Practice Strong documentation; preservation capability; open source or commonly used file formats. |
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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. For museum objects (including physical, born-digital, and hybrid-digital) a manual for the object may be critical to being able to provide access to, display, and/or maintain, regardless of whether the object is being retained in a museum collection as a 'working' or 'non-working' object, which can be dependent on the types of materials the object is constructed from. For complex objects - physical and digital - there can be a significant dependency on these manuals and similar documentation. The extreme result of not having access to a manual may be that the object is unable to be maintained or displayed in the future. Associated materials may provide technical insight for both internal use and for researchers. For certain researchers, manuals and documentation may provide critical insight, and be of more value to the research than the object itself. |
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Native Cloud Formats
Native Cloud Formats
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This entry covers all native cloud formats that exist within a cloud system but cannot be exported in their native format. The data for these formats is held within the system and they are rendered within a browser. |
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New Entry |
Consensus Decision |
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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. |
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Examples The most widely known example of this is Google formats such as Google Docs, Sheets, Slides and Jamboard. |
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‘Practically Extinct’ in the Presence of Aggravating Conditions Lack of preservation capacity in provider; dependence on proprietary products or formats; lack of export functionality; insufficient documentation; lack of conformance or validation; lack of preservation commitment or planning; inaccessibility to automated web crawlers. |
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‘Endangered’ in the Presence of Good Practice Reduction of dependencies; improved export functionality; clear migration pathways; application of records management standards; version control; integrity checking; comprehensive documentation; access to web harvesting; technology watch. |
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2023 Review This is a new Bit List entry added in 2023 to draw attention to the particular challenges of preserving native cloud content that cannot be exported and preserved in their native cloud formats. While there are some similarities with the ‘Cloud-based Services and Communications Platforms’ entry risks relating to dependencies on service and provider business models and the terms and conditions imposed, this entry focuses specifically on the distinct risks relating to preservation of digital content and data in native cloud formats (with these formats held within cloud-based systems and rendered within web-based browsers). Currently, in order to view the files outside of the system, an export format has to be chosen (e.g., PDF, Microsoft Office, HTML). This process has issues with proving the integrity of the exports, as conventional methods (such as checksum) are not valid. There is also the issue that the original cloud formats hold all edits and versions, the export may only preserve the current version of the file without edit history and misleading revision identifiers. As the cloud formats are browser based web archiving options have also been explored but there is no current automated way to harvest a large collection of files. For these reasons, major efforts are needed to develop new tools and techniques to capture and preserve the data to prevent or reduce loss. |
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Additional Comments There are case studies already in development demonstrating good progress in this area, for example from the TNA and University of Sheffield, which will be shared as part of a DPC event on 14th November 2023. This is shortly after the publication of the 2023 Bit List but the recordings and outputs will be shared for inclusion in the next Bit List report.
Case Studies or Examples:
See also:
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PC Games
PC Games
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PC games include all games that were designed to be played on a personal computer (PC). |
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Digital Species: Gaming |
New Entry |
Consensus Decision |
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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. |
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Examples SimCity 3000, Factorio, World of Warcraft, Starcraft II, Phasmophobia |
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‘Practically Extinct’ in the Presence of Aggravating Conditions Controversies around intellectual property rights; lack of offline backup; changing business model of providers; limited recognition of the cultural and historic value of game play; complex intellectual property rights; 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. |
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‘Endangered’ in the Presence of Good Practice IPR supportive of preservation; strong documentation; source code; emulation pathway; trusted designated repository or community taking preservation responsibility and capable to deliver. |
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2023 Review The 2023 Council created two new entries, Console Games and PC Games, to complement the already existing entry of Smartphone Gaming. This was done to highlight the unique preservation issues that exist for each of these categories as well as the differences in preservation risk. |
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Additional Comments The three most common operating systems for PCs are Windows, macOS and Linux. Not all operating systems can run all PC games, and operating systems as a limitation on games becomes a limitation on video game preservation. Gamers tend to find workarounds to operating system limitations through emulation, but this creates dependencies on emulators being maintained. New versions of operating systems can also be detrimental as older games may not be able to run on newer versions or may need workarounds to allow them to run. Future changes to the Bit List might need to consider Video Game Mods as a separate category. Whilst mods do exist for consoles, the majority of gaming mods tend to be for PC games and, for many games, especially older ones, mods become a staple in playing games. It is not uncommon to see utility mods being suggested in forums when players pick up older games and there is often functionality built into games to allow players to create mods. Case Studies or Examples:
See also:
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Smart TV Apps
Smart TV Apps
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Apps created for smartphones. Many are deprecated quickly but others survive through multiple update cycles. It is hard to maintain version control and often dependent upon the company that publishes them. There is no clear agency or mandate to record or collect. |
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Digital Species: Apps |
New Entry |
Consensus Decision |
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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 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. |
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Examples UlangoTV; ITV Hub; Plex; apps created for older or no longer manufactured TVs. |
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‘Practically Extinct’ in the Presence of Aggravating Conditions Device dependence; Poor documentation; Lack of preservation interest or mandate by company; Deletion of stores or apps. |
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‘Endangered’ in the Presence of Good Practice Strong documentation; Development of tools to archive stores and preserve menus online via the WARC format, and for HTML5 and Flash only based smart TV media; Designated repository taking preservation responsibility and capacity to deliver. |
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2023 Review This is a new Bit List entry added in 2023 to draw attention to the particular challenges of content and software preservation for apps designed and used for smart TVs. While there are some similarities with the ‘Smartphone Apps’ entry in regard to device dependency, frequent updates, and lack of preservation interest or mandate by companies that publish them, this entry focuses on the distinct risks relating to the availability and access to apps made specifically for smart TVs, which can be more short-lived, variable, and challenging to access and find a rootable version for preservation actions. These apps, designed and used specifically for smart TVs, are deprecated quickly or undergo frequent updates. It is challenging to maintain version control and preserve the content. Preservation efforts often depend upon the availability and access to rootable versions of the apps by the companies that publish them, particularly for older TVs that are no longer manufactured. There also remains a lack of clear agency or mandate to record or collect from corporate owners and barriers to access for preservation efforts outside this context. |
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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. Council members additionally noted that it may be better to have a broader smart device apps entry rather than specifically Smart TV Apps and Smartphone Apps as separate standalone entries. The risks posed by these apps can apply to a variety of devices; for example, before Smartphones there were PDAs, and there are now Smart fridges, set-top-boxes, fire sticks, e-book readers, and other devices which have apps. For this reason, they recommend that the next major review for the Bit List includes a rescoping of Smart TV Apps and Smartphone Apps to consider: What differentiates these apps from others? What cultural heritage purpose do these apps serve? Are organizations collecting them? Are there distinct aggravating factors or risk profiles? In regard to preservation actions, rooting methods for old smart TVs are often non-existent or hard to do (and sometimes manageable when they do exist); it is challenging to buy or find owners of older smart TV units with removed-from-the-store apps that have rootable versions and/or is willing to root. The content these apps contain can hold social and cultural significance; they can provide a history of television, entertainment, and exclusive or unique content only made available through the apps specifically designed for smart TVs. Although there is a small community of people interested in old smart TVs and a bigger one focused on new ones too; In the future, when the technologies become even more obsolete, there will be researchers and others interested in looking back at Smart TVs as a piece of the history of entertainment and even culture. Case Studies or Examples:
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