1. 8 April 20041 Risk Management of Digital Information: A File Format Investigation Gregory W. Lawrence, et. al June 2000 Council on Library and Information Resources

2. 8 April 20042 Overview Propose a workbook based procedure to “qualify” the risks and impact of digital data loss Migration of data based on risk and impact Workbook based on work with two file formats –Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet(s) –TIFF image files

3. 8 April 20043 Basis of risk management Series of qualitative questions: –Who cares about the data –What kinds of resources are available to migrate the files –Score each question with probability and impact markers Probability 5 - 1 for very high to very low Impact E - A for catastrophic to minor

4. 8 April 20044 Risk categories Content fixity - bits remain the same Security - migration affects content fixity Context and integrity - relationship with digital environment References - ability to locate other digital objects Cost - institutional and societal Staffing - technical skills and availability Functionality - addition of new ones and loss of original ones Legal - intellectual property issues

5. 8 April 20045 Visualization of assessments Scores in 1A-B 2A-B support migration now Scores in next band recommend delaying migration Scores in remaining area rule out migration

6. 8 April 20046 Why migration? Emulation cons: –Preservation of original data files –Original application software required –Original OS required –Detailed hardware specifications required Migration pros: –Routine refreshing of data files –Most up to date digital formats –Opportunities to excise proprietary formats –Improved ease of use for end users

7. 8 April 20047 Why select Lotus1-2-3? Availability of reasonable sized data set USDA Economics and Statistics System Accessed over 368,000 times during FY- 1999 7,000 files downloaded daily Increasing use of Microsoft Excel

8. 8 April 20048 How was it done? Extensive and unsuccessful search for internal specifications of Lotus 1-2-3 *.wk1 internal format Acceptable parser created to handle most file tokens Converted files were manually compared to original to determine fidelity

9. 8 April 20049 Why select TIFF? Assumed easy access to file specifications Availability of reasonable sized data set –Original data stored in proprietary XEROX format –Desire to break restriction of XEROX format Convert from XEROX Raster Document Object (RDO) format to Cornel Digital Library (CDL) format Upgrade from TIFF 5.0 to TFF 7.0

10. 8 April 200410 How was it done? Extensive and marginally successful search for TIFF standard –Defined and published tags –Proprietary tags Seemed to be concerned about byte order when order is specified in the file Developed scripts to move from RDO to CDL Identified two programs that could convert from TIFF 5.0 to TIFF 6.0 vice TIFF 7.0 Both programs were deficient in some manner

11. 8 April 200411 Conclusion Documented problems dealing with “well known” file formats They are promoting their approach They claim success

12. 8 April 200412 Impressions (1 of 3) The topics addressed in the workbook are a good starting point that looses credibility when it starts with 3.a vice 1.something Requires someone to make a qualitative decision about what is acceptable to not migrate Emphasizes the role of management and organizational direction and resources

13. 8 April 200413 Impressions (2 of 3) Addresses the tradeoff between commercial and custom migration software Appendix B seems choppy/incomplete and basically not as complete and smooth as the rest of the paper Took 56 pages to finally state what they were doing with the Lotus 1-2-3 file!

14. 8 April 200414 Impressions (3 of 3) Emphasized some of the problems associated with a loosely controlled and extensible format. Some of the comments seemed to indicate that the writers have exposure to byte level operations Casually mentioned on page 63 is a quote from XEROX that “… he doubted that the company still had the tools and specifications to make the system (RDO export tools) work.” Seems like a slam.