Arkivum 101 Series: Preservation

In technology, the only constant is change.  

20 years ago, people were using completely different technology than they are today. 20 years from now we’ll be using completely different technology again. The rapid rise of AI is just one example of how new technology disrupts and transforms the digital landscape; both in terms of the hardware and the software that we use. 

This applies to both common and more proprietary formats, with the risk of obsolescence increasing for the latter due to the more bespoke nature of the technology. That’s not to say that we need to ignore the risks to more common formats.   

In the Digital Preservation Coalition’s (DPC) most recent edition of their Global Bit List of Endangered Digital Species, they highlighted commercial software (including the Microsoft Office suite of applications) as critically endangered due to the lack of interest in digital preservation. 

When retaining data for long periods of time (or even forever), it must be maintained to give it every possible chance of being usable, legible and readable both now and in the future. 

This means that when I try and access a file from whatever device I’m using in 20 years from now, I can be assured that it will; 

• Be recognised by that future device. Does your device know what type of file it is?  

• Have the ability to open it. Does your device have an application that recognises it? Can that application open the file on the current or future device? 

• And when it is opened, it is completely readable and usable by a human. Can it be viewed in its original context? Does the current device support the fonts? Is the formatting correct? Has any of the contents been altered or moved by your device? 

If even one of the above is not possible, that data is at serious risk of becoming lost or unusable forever, potentially causing serious damage to an organisation. 

Introducing Digital Preservation 

At Arkivum we harness digital preservation good practice to ensure that our customers’ data is future proofed. 

 This means that we automatically maintain long-term preservation copies of data through a process called ‘file format normalisation’. In practice this means that our solution: 

1. Identifies what format the file is in. 
2. Automatically generates an associated long-term copy in line with digital preservation good practice, for example a Word Document will generate a PDF/A copy. 
3. Safeguards both files against the risk of corruption, for as long as needed. 
4. Continues to review digital preservation trends and good practice throughout the entire lifecycle of the data, adjusting preservation processes if required. 

 As technology evolves, so does Arkivum; we stay on top of digital preservation trends so that our customers can rest easy that their data is usable and legible, for as long as they need it. 

Digital preservation is critical for any organisation operating in today’s digital world.