Creating Digital Preservation Plansas a Team Effort

Meg Phillips, External Affairs LiaisonLeslie Johnston, Director of Digital PreservationJana Leighton, Electronic Records Processing ArchivistCriss Austin, Supervisory Motion Picture Preservation Specialist

May 18, 2020Best Practices Exchange Conference

1

2

How Did This Project Come About?Leslie Johnston

● NARA needed to better understand and document the risks associated with its digital holdings in Preservation Action Plans. These plans had to document:

○ Significant preservation properties for each record type (textual, images, A/V, structured data, etc)

○ File format sustainability and current level of preservation risk for NARA

○ Links to specifications/documentation○ Proposed NARA preservation actions○ Proposed tools for processing and preservation used

at NARA

● The Digital Preservation unit had limited resources as a staff of one.

● Deep expertise with the file formats existed in the appraisal and custodial units.

3

Leslie’s Plea for Help: Internal Posting for a Detail

4

Getting Everyone TogetherJana Leighton

“Life Keep GIF.” Giffy, 04/17/2017,

https://media.giphy.com/media/a9wFQSc0oRQGI/giphy.gif.0

p4/17/2

5

OrganizationJana Leighton

6

The ResearchCriss Austin

● What do I do IRL?○ Manage a small staff of five employees responsible for preserving

and digitizing over a million reels of film spread between the Mothership (NARA) and 13 Presidential Libraries

○ Work on equipment○ Serve on standards groups○ Beg for resources○ Really love working on film

● Why did I apply for this detail? - multiple choice1. I am crazy2. I wanted to get out of my comfort zone3. If I didn’t do it no one else would and/ or it might turn out really

badly4. All of the above

● Thoughts Going In?○ Cue “What’s Happening?!?!” by the Byrds○ Followed by the Wonder Woman theme song

7

The ResearchCriss Austin

● Similar work done when transitioning from analog to digital work processes in 2008

○ Creation of a format matrix for dynamic media○ Research established best practices for NARA based on

the equipment we had○ Development of Products and Services

● This work fed into NARA’s File Format Transfer Guidance○ Had a sustainability template

● Within the Matrix I tried to answer each “question” for each file format

○ All The Googling○ Delved into White Papers○ Contacted experts

8

The ResearchCriss Austin

9

The ResearchCriss Austin

10

The ResearchCriss Austin

11

GitHub

● Drafts of Format Action Plans on GitHub were created as PDFs and released September 4, 2019○ https://github.com/usnationalarchives/digital-preservation

● Open for comments for 6 weeks

● We received 27 comments on GitHub and over two dozen in-person comments and questions.

● The feedback covered a wide variety of topics.

12

Next Steps Based on Feedback

● Reviewing the plans for links to appropriate resources

● Adding several dozen formats to the plans

● Breaking format families into individual versions

● Releasing next version in June 2020

● Releasing plans as linked data later in 2020

● Capturing copies of specifications and standards for use in

ongoing format sustainability research

● Continuing on an ongoing basis to:

○ add formats, update our recommendations, introduce new

tools, and identify new community resources

13

How Successful Was This Model?

● The work was completed on time and the scope FAR exceeded

the original scope of the project.

● The team members developed rapport across organizations

and geographical locations.

● This introduced a new workflow for digital preservation

assessment and planning.

● The scope and outcome were key factors in the successful

justification for 1 additional staff member in the Digital

Preservation unit.

● The team received a 2020 Archivist’s Award, the highest award

in the agency.

14

Questions & Discussion

Digital Preservation Strategy:https://www.archives.gov/preservation/electronic-records/digital-preservation-strategy

GitHub:https://github.com/usnationalarchives/digital-preservation

THANK YOU!meg.phillips@nara.govleslie.johnston@nara.gov