Digital Preservation

Checklist for Creating a Preservation Policy

Organizational

1. Selection/Acquisition
1. Is the object important in the context of the institution's core holdings or collection strengths?
2. Does the object fit into the current or planned digital preservation infrastructure of the institution?
2. Roles and Responsibilities
1. Is the institution the primary holder of record for the digital object?
2. Has the institution incurred any responsibilities or restrictions for access to the object?
3. Retention/Deselection
1. Are there other institutions with greater capacity or expertise in the type of the object at hand?
2. Does the object fit with the continuing mission of the institution?

Media

1. Choosing a media type to use:
1. Does the media type have multi-vendor support for hardware readers and media manufacturing?
2. Is the media resilient to environmental fluctuations? What are the recommended environmental conditions for long-term preservation and does the institution have the capacity to provide those conditions?
3. How vulnerable is the media to accidental alteration?
4. Can the media withstand handling? What are the handling conditions of the media?
2. Management of the media:
1. How long between checks for media readability and integrity? Between media replacement?
2. Is there an identified offsite location? How often will the offsite store be updated?
3. Is there an asset tracking system in place for media and how will media be labelled/identified?

Formats

1. Choosing archival formats:
1. Does the format have broad support in viewers/editors?
2. Is the format open/non-proprietary and does it have published specifications?
3. Does the format have support for including metadata?
4. Does the format support for significant properties of the original (if a digital surrogate)?
5. Does the format support lossless compression or no compression/encryption?
2. Management of files:
1. Is the version of software that created the file recorded? Is the current version recorded?
2. How often are format emulators/migrators identified and investigated?
3. What data loss would constitute a loss of a significant property for the format?

Metadata

1. General
1. Can the digital objects use a global standard or is there a compelling reason to create a local standard?
2. Resource Discovery/Descriptive
1. Does the standard meet the discipline or domain requirements?
2. Does the standard chosen address interoperability/general resource discovery needs?
3. Structural
1. Does the standard chosen address the types of aggregation important to the collection?
4. Administrative/Preservation
1. Is there an authenticity indicator (e.g. a checksum) that can be applied to the object?
2. Can the change history and technological context of the object be traced sufficiently to ensure human readability and authenticity?
5. Persistent Identifier
1. Has the object been assigned an identifier that ensures locally uniqueness?
2. Is it important for the institution to have a universal or global persistent identifier for its objects? If so, which mechanism (e.g. PURL, DOI)?

Intellectual Property Rights

1. Is the right's holder information tracked and stored as part of the metadata?
2. How are the rights of the rights holder protected from abuse (e.g. limited public access, attribution statement)?
3. Are the usage restrictions consistent with institution policy and mandate?
4. Does the institution have sufficient rights for a preservation regimen?
5. Will the costs of securing rights for long-term access be sustainable over the period of enduring value?