LIF

E3 LIFE3: Predicting Long Term

Preservation Costs

Brian Hole

LIFE3 Project Manager

The British Library

KeepIt training course 05/02/10

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Some Typical Questions first

A finite amount of funding is available for digitisation, ingest and preservation of a collection. How many items should be digitised without overspending?

A digital collection is due to be ingested into an organisation’s digital repository. Migration to a new file format offering superior compression and savings in storage cost is a possibility, but the operation itself will also have a cost. Should the organisation migrate the collection?

An organisation is considering outsourcing the storage, preservation and access of a digital collection. The service provider gives a quote. Will outsourcing save the organisation money?

A digitisation project within an organisation is not following best practice. What will be the cost of picking up the pieces in 5 years time?

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LIFE projects overview

Collaboration between University College London (UCL), the British Library (BL) and HATII at the University of Glasgow

Co-funded by Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) and the Research Information Network (RIN)

The LIFE Project: 1 year project Completed in April 2006

The LIFE2 Project: 1.5 year project Completed August 2008

The LIFE3 Project: 1 year project Began August 2009

LIFE = Life cycle Information For

E-literature

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Overview of the LIFE Projects so far

The LIFE Project: Aim: to explore a lifecycle approach to costing the preservation of

digital materials The Project developed:

A generic model of the digital preservation lifecycle A methodology for assessing lifecycle costs against this model 3 case studies, examining and costing a range of digital

lifecycles

The LIFE2 Project: Aim: to evaluate, refine and further develop the techniques

developed in phase one of LIFE Key elements:

Review by external economics expert Revision of the lifecycle model and costing methodology 3 new lifecycle case studies

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LIFE3: Estimating preservation costs

The LIFE3 Project: Aim: To develop the ability to estimate preservation costs across the

digital lifecycle The Project is developing:

A series of costing models for each stage and element of the digital lifecycle

An easy to use costing tool Support to enable easy input of data Integration to facilitate use of the results

Organisational Profile

Predicted Lifecycle

Cost

CostEstimation

Tool

Context

Content Profile

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LIFE3 costing tool inputs

Organisational Profile

Context

Content Profile

Content Profile Type of Content File format Complexity Volume

Organisational Profile Existing infrastructure Preservation policy Legal constraints

Context Inflation Hardware costs and trends Staff costs

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LIFE3 costing tool outputs – estimated costs

Reference Linking

Disposal

•Check-in

InspectionObtaining

BackupHoldingsUpdate

Ordering & Invoicing

....

User Support

RefreshmentDepositIPR &

Licensing....

Access Control

Storage Provision

MetadataSubmission Agreement

....

Access Provision

Repository Admin

Quality Assurance

Selection....

Life

cy

cle

Ele

me

nts

Access

Re-ingest

Preservation Action

Preservation Planning

Preservation Watch

Content Preservation

Bit-stream Preservation

IngestAcquisitionCreation

or Purchase

Life

cy

cle

S

tag

e

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Integration

• DROID• Planets Content Profile• FITS

• DRAMBORA• Plato • JISC Framework

CostEstimation

Tool

• DRAMBORA• Planets Preservation Policy• Data Audit Framework

•Context

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Template approach

Detailed inputs, specific outputs

Templates for typical content and organisational profiles

Auto completion of specific inputs

Lower barrier of access

Custom profiles

Example: Content Profile:

Digitised books Large collection (1000000 pages)

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Current status and key milestones

Five months into the project: First iteration of Life models 80% completed Additional data has been collected from digitisation projects A survey is being conducted on storage costs Specification and design of costing tool in progress

Key milestones: Feb 2010 – first iteration models for each lifecycle stage June 2010 – tool development and integration complete August 2010 – testing and revision of tool September 2010 – project wrap up

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Strategic Issues

Challenging context Hybrid world, non-digital not dying, funding not increasing Greater variety of content Non-digital usage increasing, security, wear and tear Scale

Allocation of resource: ratio of digital to non-digital spending Digital preservation : Non-digital preservation

Replacing microfilm surrogacy with digital: digital as a preservation medium

Risk Cost

Supporting the lifecycle approach Evidence of efficiencies over the medium to long term

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Preservation Planning

Collection management decision making Whether to purchase/acquire/digitise?

Selecting an appropriate preservation solution Plato Cost – Risk – Value Preservation requirements

Budgeting for expected preservation costs

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Related work

LIFE-SHARE Project Focus on digitisation Activity costing and analysis Skills audit Supporting a preservation and lifecycle approach to digitisation

Danish lifecycle costing Focus on format types, migration

KRDS2

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Key challenges, and request for help

Content complexity Categorisation of content type / complexity and impact on effort

required to preserve

Data, activity costing Capturing / contributing costing data

Trialling the models, feedback

More information:www.life.ac.uk

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Exercise

Excel model The Content Profile Refining the calculations

Feedback Do you feel that this approach is sound? Have we included all relevant factors? Is the model suitable for the kind of content your repository deals

with? Are we making correct assumptions, and is it clear what these are? How could we improve it?