LIBER Digitisation Conference, Copenhagen The cost of digitisation and preservation: The LIFE Project October 2007 Richard Davies LIFE 2 Project Manager, The British Library

2 Overview ► What is the LIFE Project? ► LIFE 1 and LIFE 2 ► LIFE Models ► Burney Case Study ► Benefits ► Further Information

3 Lifecycle Information for E-literature Project phases: ► LIFE 1 (12 months) ► LIFE 2 (18 months)

4 £ LIFE starts to answer the question: What is the long term cost of preserving digital material?

5 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 Aims ► Better understanding of the digital lifecycle ► Plan and prepare for digital preservation activities ► Evaluate and improve efforts ► Compare analogue and digital

7 LIFE 1 project 1.Literature Review 2.Economic Lifecycle Model 3.Generic Preservation Model 4.Case Studies 5.International Conference

8 LIFE 1 Case Studies e-Journals Web Archiving Voluntary Deposit

LIFE 1 LIFE 2

10 Aim of LIFE 2 To evaluate, refine and further develop the techniques developed in phase one of LIFE

11 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 ► End of project conference

12 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 Model v1.1: Non-lifecycle Elements Non- Lifecycle Stage Management and Administration Systems / Infrastructure Economic Adjustments Non-Lifecycle Elements Management Repository Software Inflation AdministrationDiscounting

14 Generic LIFE Preservation Model The GPM predicted large cost and much activity - the challenge is reducing both. Preservation Actions: 1.Preservation Tool Cost 2.Preservation Metadata 3.Performing preservation action 4.Quality Assurance

15 Generic LIFE Preservation Model Frequency of action Tech Watch Preservation action Preservation cost of n objects of a particular format for the period 0 to t. Preservation = + * e.g objects of the GIF format for a period of 10 years. Monitoring formats and software for obsolescence Preservation planning Updating metadata The number of preservation actions within the time period calculated Q/A Update object and event metadata Perform preservation action Cost of Preservation tool

16 Q/A Update metadata Perform preservation action Cost of Preservation tool Complexity of file formats Size Complexity Proprietary Open Standardised Frequency of action Tech Watch Preservation action Preservation = + * = CategoryComplexityExamples Simple0.1ASCII, Unicode Bitmap0.2JPEG, GIF Mark-up0.3XML, HTML Vector0.4EMF, Draw Multimedia0.6MPEG3, WAV Document0.8Word, PDF Complex1Oracle database dump Format Complexity

17 LIFE 2 Case Studies Institutional Repositories Primary Data Digitised Newspapers

18 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.

19 Questions that arise from Burney ► 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?

20 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

21 LIFE Website & Blog Website LIFE Blog

22 Thank you. e t +44 (0) w x

23 Acknowledgements: ► LIFE Team (Paul Ayris, Rory McLeod, Helen Shenton & Paul Wheatley) ► Special thanks to Ulla Bøgvad Kejser Comments & questions…