U.S. Department of the Interior U.S. Geological Survey John Faundeen August 26, 2011 Society of American Archivists – Chicago, IL Geospatial Data Preservation: Issues and Challenges

Outline  Context  Environmental  The Right Stuff  More Than One  To the Rescue  And the Next Media is

Context

By the Numbers...  Digitally  1972 to Present  Sort of…  Receive 2-3 Terabytes / Day  Manage 4.5 Petabytes  +40 Million E-Records  Film Archives  1939 to Present  Many Formats/Sizes/Types  +8 Million Frames

2008

2003 Dasht-e Kavir (Great Salt Desert, Iran)

Environmental  Temperature  Relative Humidity 181,000 data points January 2010 to July 2011

Environmental Source: NARA 1571 Archival Storage Standards

Environmental

The Right Stuff  Appraisal of Records  Continuing Value  Can be Subjective  Involve Relevant Reviewers  Engage Management at all Levels  Benefits  Reduce Breadth of Holdings  Focus on Core-Mission Datasets  Prioritize Resources  Have a Way to Say “No”  Document Decisions - Accountability

The Right Stuff   56 Appraisals  39 Retain/Accept  17 Dispose/Not Accept  Disposal not the Same as Destruction  Seek a Better Home  Sample of Datasets Appraised  Landsat (3)  Gemini  Apollo

More Than One  Copies  A Suggestion...

More Than One  NARA Partnership Agreement

To the Rescue  USGS  2007  $1.3M  Preservation & Access  Legacy Science  ICSU CODATA  2011  DARTG

And the Next Media is  Migration of Media  Including Hard Disk  Obsolescence  HW, SW, Firmware, Media  Within a 3-5 Year Period

Take-Away  Track Temperature and Relative Humidity  65/35  Consider Appraisal  Three-Copy Strategy  Rescuing Data  Plan for Data Migrations

Take-Away  Track Temperature and Relative Humidity  65/35  Consider Appraisal  Three-Copy Strategy  Rescuing Data  Plan for Data Migrations Thank you! John Faundeen