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Katherine Skinner's presentation on the economics of digital preservation given at MCN 2009 session on "Economics 911: The Economics of Digitizing Cultural Collections"
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Katherine Skinner Executive Director, Educopia InstituteProgram Manager, MetaArchive Cooperative
MCN 2009, Portland Oregon
What does it cost if we don’t preserve?
What is the cost to preserve (and who pays)?
Economically sustainable digital preservation in practice MetaArchive Cooperative example
MetaArchive 2009 2
Print vs. digital media and preservation
Preservation as act of willTiming is everything
Short window, long timeframe
MetaArchive 2009 3
Cost of not preserving assets: Institutional Cultural, Political, Scientific Financial
MetaArchive 2009 4
Preservation, in context Cultural memory organizations created
to perform two major functions: provide access and preservation for
important assets/cultural artifacts Need these services more than ever in
digital age Content more fleeting, less likely to
survive with benign neglect
MetaArchive 2009 5
Outsourcing of core mission = Loss of core mission Danger of becoming a broker rather than
a do-er Brokers unlikely to survive in tight
economic times
MetaArchive 2009 6
Loss of historical perspectiveBlindness to our own political
mechanismsLoss of scientific data that helps to
better understand and preserve our bodies and our world
MetaArchive 2009 7
Expenditures on digital assets are growing Investment in digitizing Investment in creating born digital assets Investment in acquiring digital assets One spectacular crash away from major
loss▪ Real world examples (and why we hear little of
them…)
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So what does it cost TO preserve…
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Still difficult to pin down, but many are trying Blue Ribbon Panel, US NDIIPP, US JISC and ESPIDA cost analysis work LIFE Model
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Defining economically sustainable digital preservation:
“set of business, social, technological, and policy mechanisms that encourage the gathering of important information assets into digital preservation systems, and support the indefinite persistence of digital preservation systems, enabling access to and use of the information assets into the long-term future.”
Source: “Sustaining the Digital Investment: Issues and Challenges of Economically Sustainable Digital Preservation” Blue Ribbon Task Force on Sustainable Digital Preservation and Access (Dec 2008)
MetaArchive 2009 11
Not a “Simple Matter of Resources” (akin to IBM’s Simple Matter of Programming) Underlying principles may NOT be
known yet Candidate economic models need study No single model will fit all circumstances
Source: B. Lavoie, “The Fifth Blackbird” (March/April 2008)
MetaArchive 2009 12
“Systematic challenges” and other barriers… One-time funding models are prevalent
and inadequate Alignment is poor between stakeholders
and their roles/responsibilities
MetaArchive 2009 13
Blue Ribbon preliminary findings (2008)1. It is easier to ‘sell’ outcomes than processes.2. Avoid excessive discounting of the benefits from
digital preservation3. Separating preservation costs from other costs is
difficult4. Diversity of funding streams is important for
sustainable digital preservation5. Non-monetary incentives are important.6. Consider the full range of options when selecting an
economic model to support digital preservation.
MetaArchive 2009 14
Must include the financial costs associated with: writing and upkeep of plans and policies training staff selecting and implementing a system/solution/service developing/maintaining software selecting assets to preserve documenting those assets (metadata) data wrangling those assets such that they can be
preserved assessing/monitoring those assets’ viability over time
(and the system/solution/service used as well!) infrastructure costs (hardware, physical space, utilities) All of the people who assist in the above
MetaArchive 2009 15
LIFE model methodology for analyzing the lifecycle of a
collection of digital materials and its associated costs
Acquisition, Ingest, Metadata, Bit-stream preservation, Content preservation, Access
Two things to assess—importance to society of preserving materials and the life-cycle cost of preservation for materials.
MetaArchive 2009 16
MetaArchive 2009 17
Founded on the premise that cultural memory organizations should maintain their historical role as cultural stewards Preservation of digital assets as corollary to
preserving physical ones Need in house expertise and knowledge Value of curators and librarians and archivists
Chose technical and organizational infrastructure that capitalizes on cultural memory organization’s proven methodologies Distributed preservation Partnership to keep costing affordable
MetaArchive 2009 18
A distributed digital preservation cooperative for digital archives, based on LOCKSS
Founded in 2003; supported by combination of sponsored funding (NDIIPP, NHPRC), consulting fees, and membership fees
Provides digital preservation infrastructure and training and models to enable other groups to establish similar networks
MetaArchive 2009 19
MetaArchive 2009 20
12 US Members+ Lib. of Congress
2 Overseas Members
Auburn University Boston College Clemson University Emory University Florida State Univ. Folger Shakespeare
Lib. Georgia Tech Pontifícia
Universidade Católica (RIO)
Rice University
Univ. of Hull Univ. of Louisville Univ. of North Texas Univ. of South
Carolina Virginia Tech
Library of Congress NDLTD SDSC
21MetaArchive 2009
reducing our short- and long-term costs Investing in a commonly-owned solution, not purchasing a
service Sharing technological development and organizational tasks
decentralizing our activities Safety in this “brave new world” of digital preservation may
well reside in shared knowledge and shared commitment
decreasing dependence on third-party solutions There is room for various types of solutions Increased capacity for acting as a community of cultural
stewards
MetaArchive 2009 22
MetaArchive revenue streams Sponsored funding
NDIIPP investment of $1.25M NHPRC investment of $300K
Member investments Sustaining Members: $5K/year plus
$0.67/GB/yr Preservation Members: $1K/year plus
$0.67/GB/yr Consulting services
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Central operational expenses for MetaArchive
Three staff members Manager Systems administrator Programmer
Cloud computing infrastructure for some central network functions Two “servers” plus testing servers
MetaArchive 2009 24
Distributed operational expenses Roles played by member institution staff
Head/lead administrator (1 hr/wk) Curator/data wrangler (1 hr/wk) Programmer/plugin writer (1 hr/wk) Systems Admin/cache manager (approx
1hr/mo) Server at each institution
16 TB caches at <$4,600 each
MetaArchive 2009 25
By using the Cooperative model, we keep pricing extremely low
Members “pony up” resources in lieu of $$
For the price of a small central administration, members receive access to an extended network, both technically and organizationally
MetaArchive 2009 26
Dr. Katherine Skinner404 783 [email protected]://www.metaarchive.org
MetaArchive 2009 27