JISC

What to preserve? Significant properties of digital objects

From the vantage point of a few weeks after the event took place, Frances Boyle of the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) records some thoughts about the workshop, more details 

This event was jointly organised by JISC, DPC and the PLANETS Project based at the British Library.

A key message which we all took away from the event was that ‘significant properties’ are a ‘hot topic’; I grant not a particularly incisive comment as the number of delegates (approx. 150) alone attested to this. However it is something that the community should recognise and inwardly digest, if nothing else, to ensure that there are further fora and opportunities for ongoing debate in this area. The direct relationship between significant properties and the wider digital landscape – preservation, curation etc. will need to be factored into ongoing research in many tangential areas. 

Another simple observation was the diversity of the participants’ backgrounds both in the number of sectors and the number of different types of organisation within the same sector.  The range of delegates’ designations signals the pervasiveness of the topic across many areas; delegates ranged from record managers, to digital archivists, to policy makers to academics through to librarians. This perhaps flags up the different approaches which organisations are taking and indeed where the responsibility and lead is coming from. This echoes one of the key messages from the day which is, significant properties is a multi layered complex area which challenges our organisational skills as well as our technical ones. For successful resolution these will need to be addressed in parallel.

Some of the meatier questions that arose in the course of the event

• What is the relationship between significant properties and representation information?
• How do we standardise the concept and the attributes of significant properties for a range of formats?
• Is there any value in significant properties influencing a conversion process?
• How de we map all these project findings?

From conversations on the day, through to the feedback form comments, and on to the post event blog postings some recurrent themes have emerged.  These include, in no particular order:

• A strong call for more practical based events on the topic under the guidance of experts. Allowing participants to be ‘hands on’ in a controlled environment
• A feeling that the schedule had been too tight.  Longer slots would have allowed people to learn more about some of the projects and perhaps offer more focused interaction between the audience and the speakers
• Delegates would have liked more opportunities for debate and active engagement with the speakers
• Earlier sight of reading lists & accompanying material would have been appreciated

These have been received & understood by the organisers and will inform future events.

And some further ‘take home’ messages

Significant properties is an area which requires a blend of technology and organisational solutions. Any automated technical solution can only hope to provide some of the answers; professional human input is required to complement, contextualise and support the technical solutions. This dual approach will then have a chance to align the preservation activity with the organisation’s strategic imperatives. A challenge for the community is to define what can be automated and how this process could be managed & eventually interfaced with the human space component of the conundrum.

Though still at the early stage, debate and project findings, are beginning to scope a framework for ongoing work. We are at the intelligent questioning and testing stage (progress indeed from the initial flailing stage a couple of years ago) but still some way from a significant properties nirvana when we have evidence based options and solutions. Significant properties is a topic of interest to many sectors. There is a breadth of external and internal drivers which influence and colour the discussions.

And a last resounding message - there is definitely an appetite for more events on this topic.

A day which included debate on issues such as the ‘human space’, ‘the good the bad and the ugly’ and an image of a very significant duck (see David Duce’s PDF) can surely only contribute to the ongoing agenda in this area.  So might we see the significant properties domain expert of the future possessing a skills set including the performing skills of Clint Eastwood (see Cal Lee's PDF) with the tact and acumen of a diplomat (see Andew Wilson’s PDF) plus formidable technical skills?  Or will work in this area continue to be collaborative with valid input from a range of communities?  Will indeed a generic transferable set of significant properties be identified which will be meaningful for different categories of material in the near future?

In conclusion all three of the organising bodies are keen to harness the momentum from this meeting, so all I can say is watch this space, it may become significant!

A formal report from the event will be appearing in the forthcoming issue of the IJDC (International Journal of Digital Curation) from Helen Hockx-Yu (PLANETS project manager)