Preservation Approach
Our Approach to Preservation
Future research requires access to the findings of the past. This access cannot be assured without reliable long-term preservation of scholarly digital content. Portico’s approach to digital preservation is comprehensive—combining long-term content management and organizational commitment with a philosophical dedication to addressing the needs of tomorrow’s scholars.
Digital Preservation Defined
Digital preservation is defined as the series of management policies and activities necessary to ensure the enduring usability, authenticity, discoverability, and accessibility of content over the very long-term. The key goals of digital preservation include:
- Usability—the intellectual content of the item must remain usable via the delivery mechanism of current technology
- Authenticity—the provenance of the content must be proven and the content an authentic replica of the original
- Discoverability—the content must have logical bibliographic metadata so that it can be found by end users through time
- Accessibility—the content must be available for use to the appropriate community
To meet these goals, we have defined and follow exacting standards and processes for content management and maintenance and replication of the archive; we conduct self-checks and third-party archive certifications to ensure quality and security; and we maintain a delivery system and services to provide access to users in ways that are as easy and integrated with other online resources as they expect.
What Digital Preservation is Not
Providing reliable future access over the long-term requires significant investment and a diversity of methods and systems. Often people confuse important near-term access protections with long-term preservation. Alone, none of the following are sufficient to ensure access to content into the distant future:
Backup
Backup—when content is copied and stored in multiple locations to create readily available data replacements in case of equipment failure or other catastrophe—has long been understood to be a requirement for protection of near-term data access. A well-managed backup system can help to quickly resolve problems with content encountered this week, or next week, or next month, but on its own is insufficient over the long-term.
Access System Redundancy
Many content delivery systems are configured for redundancy, so that the entire system is running over two or more computers in two or more data centers. Access system redundancy is an excellent way to ensure that there is little interruption to near-term, ongoing access, but it does not alone guarantee usability, authenticity, or accessibility of the content over the long-term as technology and data formats evolve.
Byte Replication
Byte replication is a process whereby identical, multiple copies of files, file systems, or websites are created. However, simple byte replication includes no provision for ensuring the content is usable when the file formats are no longer current, nor is there any inherent provision for ensuring that the content remains discoverable.
