Fourth UNICA Scholarly Communication Seminar, Prague The LIFE Project Costing Digital Preservation May 2008 Richard Davies LIFE 2 Project Manager, The British Library
2 LIFE Project - UNICA (16 May 2008) Overview ► What is the LIFE Project? ► LIFE 1 and LIFE 2 ► Costing Model ► Case Study Examples ► Benefits
3 LIFE Project - UNICA (16 May 2008) Lifecycle Information for E-literature Project phases: ► LIFE 1 (12 months) ► LIFE 2 (18 months)
4 LIFE Project - UNICA (16 May 2008) € LIFE starts to answer the question: What is the long term cost of preserving digital material?
5 LIFE Project - UNICA (16 May 2008) Why use lifecycle costing? ► Enables evaluation of all the financial commitments for an item in a collection ► Important for digital collections, where many costs are largely unknown
6 LIFE Project - UNICA (16 May 2008) Aims ► Better understanding of the digital lifecycle ► Plan and prepare for digital preservation activities ► Evaluate and improve efforts ► Compare analogue and digital
7 LIFE Project - UNICA (16 May 2008) LIFE 1 project 1.Literature Review 2.Economic Lifecycle Model 3.Generic Preservation Model 4.Case Studies 5.International Conference
8 LIFE Project - UNICA (16 May 2008) LIFE 1 Case Studies e-Journals Web Archiving Voluntary Deposit of Electronic Publications
LIFE 1 LIFE 2
10 LIFE Project - UNICA (16 May 2008) Aim of LIFE 2 To evaluate, refine and further develop the techniques developed in phase one of LIFE
11 LIFE Project - UNICA (16 May 2008) LIFE 2 deliverables ► Economic Evaluation of LIFE 1 ► Revision of the LIFE Model Version 1.1 (October 2007) Version 2 (Summer 2008) ► Updated Preservation Model (Summer 2008) ► Final report ► Project conference (23 June 2008)
12 LIFE Project - UNICA (16 May 2008) The LIFE Model v1.1 Inspection Re-ingestBackup Reference Linking User Support Preservation Action Refreshment Metadata Extraction Holdings Update Access Control Preservation Planning Storage Provision Metadata Creation Deposit Access Provision Preservation Watch Repository Admin Re-use Existing Metadata Quality Assurance Lifecycle Elements Access Content Preservation Bit-stream Preservation Metadata Creation Ingest Check-in Obtaining Ordering & Invoicing IPR & Licensing Submission Agreement Selection Acquisition.... Creation or Purchase Lifecycle Stage Access Content Preservation Bit-stream Preservation Metadata Creation IngestAcquisition Creation or Purchase
13 LIFE Project - UNICA (16 May 2008) Levels within the lifecycle Lifecycle Lifecycle Stage Lifecycle Element Lifecycle Sub-element Acquisition Selection Selection Policy
14 LIFE Project - UNICA (16 May 2008) LIFE Model v1.1: Non-lifecycle Elements Non- Lifecycle Stage Management and Administration Systems / Infrastructure Economic Adjustments Non-Lifecycle Elements Management Repository Software Inflation AdministrationDiscounting
15 LIFE Project - UNICA (16 May 2008) LIFE 2 Case Studies Institutional Repositories Primary Data Digitised Newspapers
16 LIFE Project - UNICA (16 May 2008) Institutional Repositories
17 LIFE Project - UNICA (16 May 2008) SHERPA-LEAP Case Study Mostly text-based objects Journal and conference papers, and book chapters, with only a few A/V objects currently held. Research output from the visual and performing arts perspectives. Few repositories hold this kind of material. A range of text-based materials Mostly journal and conference papers.
18 LIFE Project - UNICA (16 May 2008) Repository Lifecycle Costs
19 LIFE Project - UNICA (16 May 2008) The Burney Collection ► Purchased by the British Library in 1818 for £13,500 ► 1,100 volumes of the earliest known newspapers ► 1,000,000 pages from 17 th, 18 th and 19 th Centuries. ► Re-scanning or re-microfilming is not possible. ► Microfilmed in the 1970s ► Digitisation started in and ran until 2004.
21 LIFE Project - UNICA (16 May 2008) Issues that arise from Newspapers Study ► Comparing digital and analogue lifecycles ► What is the lifecycle cost to an institution of producing digitised surrogates? ► What are the key preservation issues common across digitisation projects of differing scales?
22 LIFE Project - UNICA (16 May 2008) Case Study Progress ► Develop analogue and digital workflows ► Terminology issues ► How can we get a meaningful comparison? ► Future digitisation costs
23 LIFE Project - UNICA (16 May 2008) Newspapers: Questions – 1 Q. Is the LIFE model terminology inappropriate or difficult to use when identifying the costs for analogue collections? A. No. Interviewees felt that the definitions and instructions in the model were able to be followed
24 LIFE Project - UNICA (16 May 2008) Newspapers: Questions – 2 Q. Is the stage level definition applicable to analogue collections? Access Content Preservation Bit-stream Preservation Metadata Creation IngestAcquisition Creation or Purchase A. Yes. With the name change to the stages: Bit-stream preservation ► Book storage provision Content preservation ► Conservation procedures Lifecycle Lifecycle Stage Lifecycle Element Lifecycle Sub-element
25 LIFE Project - UNICA (16 May 2008) Newspapers: Questions – 3 Q. Is the element level definition applicable to analogue collections? A. It is certainly workable for Newspapers. Other collections may need to consider changes to element definitions. It is recommended that more types of physical objects are assessed. Lifecycle Lifecycle Stage Lifecycle Element Lifecycle Sub-element
26 LIFE Project - UNICA (16 May 2008) Newspapers: Questions – 4 Q. Are the sub-element definitions applicable to analogue collections? A. No. Specific library operational terms would be used at this level. Lifecycle Lifecycle Stage Lifecycle Element Lifecycle Sub-element
27 LIFE Project - UNICA (16 May 2008) Benefits of LIFE ► Assess the financial commitment for acquiring or creating new digital materials ► More effective planning for preservation activities ► Comparison of digital lifecycles across collections ► Evaluation and optimisation of existing digital lifecycles ► Predictive future cost of digital preservation
28 LIFE Project - UNICA (16 May 2008) LIFE Website & Blog Website LIFE Blog
29 LIFE Project - UNICA (16 May 2008) LIFE 2 Conference ► Free, 1-day conference ► 23 rd June 2008 ► British Library, London, UK ► Register here:
30 LIFE Project - UNICA (16 May 2008) Thank you. e t +44 (0) x Acknowledgements The LIFE Team: ► Paul Ayris ► Rory McLeod ► Rui Miao ► Helen Shenton ► Paul Wheatley Useful Websites ► ► ► ►