Right then, it's me. Hello there, morning
everybody. I apologize for the croaky voice. But um, maybe we'll be able to battle through
that. Um, so I'm Neil Grindley and I
work in an organization called JISC in the UK. And
so we're gonna run a panel now. So uh,
can I invite my panel members to please come
up and take your seats and I shall reposition myself to another microphone.
Mm hmm. So let's check these microphones.
Yes, they seem to be working. So thanks very
much Aaron for that wrap up yesterday. Also useful
points that Uh huh. Mm hmm, mm hmm, Tom is
veering away and didn't catch anything thing. Okay
So lovely to see you all here in Barcelona.
Come to Barcelona they said, the weather's gonna
be lovely. I think the weather does look like
it's improving so it's a good sign. It's a good omen, good omen for
today's conversation. Um, so I'm gonna let
my panel introduce themselves actually just to test their voices
and their microphones. So you've heard from me.
Good morning. My name is Tom Cramer.
I'm the Chief Technology Strategist from Stanford University Libraries
Do you want us to say more than that?
Yes. Why don't you say one thing that
has relevance to the conversation we're about to have?
We are going to talk about efficiency of solutions and
I think I am a technical idealist. I don't know if
I'm the technical idealist or a technical idealist
on the panel. Um, but as part of that I will
be talking I guess to some of the community based
initiatives that I've been involved in. I'm a board
member of DuraSpace, which is a stewardess stewardship
organization for the DSpace and Fedora. I'm a founder
of the Hydra Collaborative and I'm a member of the
Fedora steering group. So all initiatives that in some
way touch on digital preservation. Thanks Tom, Is
that alive? Hey oh, I'm alive! Um My name is Tom
Wilson also probably some confusion amongst the Toms here,
but um I'm an Associate Dean at the University
Libraries from the University of Alabama in the state of
Alabama in the U.S. Um I'm also
here representing the Alabama Digital Peservation Network um and I
might be the crank on the panel. We'll see how it goes.
Okay. Um so my name is Sabine Schrimpf, I
work at the German National Library in Frankfurt as a
Digital Preservation Officer and I'm involved in the daily activities
of the German Network of Expertise in Digital Preservation, called Nestor, which
is a community driven initiative where most of the organizations in Germany
that are active in digital preservation come together to share knowledge and expertise, share
worries and questions and try to find common solutions or
maybe also different solutions but they make sure they talk about their problems [inaudible].
So, that's the perspective I bring to the panel, I guess. I'm also involved in the most
wonderful project for you by the cost
of curation. Um well we also that's not very
long. Yeah. Okay, thanks, Sabine,
thanks for plugging the project. She says I'm cool
later on and I probably should have mentioned that in
relation to my interest in the discussion we're about to
have um we're looking better about trying to think about
the economics of digital preservations. Um so let me
just briefly introduce the topic that we're about to talk
about, we have to do any kind of a
big presentation before and wanted sort of diet strange discussion
if possible, or into a discursive mode. I
suspect that we could probably the four of us would
probably talk for the next hour, but but we
would like to hear from you as well. Of
course, that's that's that's wrong in this discussion up
quite quickly. Um but the reason we're here on
this panel for this hour is to think how how
can we employ the resources that we have available to
us most economically to achieve our digital preservation objectives?
So that's a question that, you know, all
sorts of ways. Um we can we can talk
from our experience, I care about a range of
initiatives, um some some well funded initiatives, some
some kind of grassroots initiatives, um that's uh what
we're going to try and do. Is it possible
that I don't know how many of these principles we
might get to, but I'm gonna try and scribbled
down some things as we talk and perhaps a riot
, a few, a few principles that we might
use for discussion uh continuing this conference. And perhaps
we only if we can um about this question,
how can we most economically and efficiently go about this
business digital preservation, because we're all engaged in and
and why might assess principles help? Well, if
we're talking about collaboration here, we're talking about alignment
and collaboration cooperation and shared understanding of this process is
clearly uh it's a very good thing if we wish
to have this collaborative principles. Um so and a
set of principles might lead to share ideas about strategy
and strategy, share strategy might lead, tactics and
tactics might lead to policy that I think I think
you know, we might cascade down if we're gonna
write these kind of principles. Um So right.
I'm making assumptions here from the very start in this
panel is about questioning assumptions and checking that assumptions.
And the 1st 1 is about the notion of collaboration
. Um So collaboration, international collaboration films ensures it
feels like it's a good and positive thing but of
course it comes with a cost. Um You can't
you can't put effort into partnership building without actually putting
that effort in and it costs money. So brings
us to this first question. This first assumption.
That might be worth checking. I don't care.
Um Is it right to assume that generally speaking,
um what is it with you collaboration question. I'm
just gonna take a step back there and just say
cough as well. Um This is actually assumption I'm
making there about. Um can we afford to do
the preservation? Can we afford to do as much
preservation as we want? Um So let's get to
this first question is it right to assume. Generally
speaking that we can't afford to do as much digital
preservation as we think we need to, but that's
who tom is closest. Oh this problem. So
I'm actually gonna let the top to my left hand
first because whatever he says, I'm gonna disagree with
that discussing story so. Well probably first things first
, I never believed that it's correct to assume anything
but in this particular case, but I think this
is a is a much more complex issue. But
let me let me lay some personal groundwork here 1st
my background is in ancient history and from that background
I've learned and you're still that things will be lost
and humanistic inquiry amazingly still going even with those lost
items. Um So I'm less inclined to say that
it's realistic that we can preserve everything. I think
this is the main economist, your idealism might come
out here. I don't think that it's an effective
strategy to start with the assumption that we can preserve
everything. So I'm okay with losing some things.
Having said that, I don't mean that um I'm
interested in losing voices in the record that we preserving
. I'm just saying that I don't an effective strategy
to assume that we must come up with a solution
that allows us to preserve everything because I think that's
terribly unrealistic. Having said that however um I do
think that it's important that we understand the preservation gains
value and strength and robustness from hetero, I mean
that in every layer of preservation stack hardware, software
process procedure etcetera. So any international effort that we
have. I don't think the goal of that should
be that everybody everybody does things the same way.
I think that preservation strategy thanks tom so I'm starting
to try and formulate my principal and you should be
comfortable with loss and we'll work on this as we
go along. Um So I disagree, I do
think it's safe to assume some things. Um You
know the I would say that preservation it was interested
in running through his cliff was running through aligning national
approaches to digital preservation. He talked I think greatly
about alignment and he talked about national approaches and he
didn't talk about digital preservation from Aaron summary. I
think there was another track that got into that a
little bit yesterday. Um I think we can afford
to do digital preservation on everything as has been traditionally
imagined. I think that's absolutely true. I also
think that that's probably a very good thing because if
we could but I question I would highly questionable that
you want the actual investment that will be making in
those phases. I would like to see um uh
the ongoing demonstrated value of preservation and preservation related activities
. And I think that mechanism is probably the single
best investment that we can make is defining. Why
do you preserve things who's going to pay for it
and that value moving forward of course we can preserve
more things. Of course we could get more content
and of course we could get bigger storage rates and
pay more people to curation. But I'm not sure
that's really the question at this point. I'm not
sure you probably don't think that that disagrees with you
. But this is my question, assumptions. Okay
. Don't I don't I don't disagree either. I
think um I um I also see that digital preservation
always requires choices because of the different to animal preservation
. The objects don't just sit there and oh yeah
, attacked for years, decades and centuries. So
digital preservation requires measures. Whenever we make a decision
for an active measure, it's a decision against something
else. So we need to decide which connection to
three. First with which strategy started to treat it
. Most institutions won't invest in migration emulation at a
time. So we need to make sure the decision
the greatest portion from an origin institutions don't make the
same choices. Please try again something else at a
very large scale execution. Most valuable. For example
. Cold things are okay, that sounds like a
strategic approach. Um Can I just sort of ask
more directly if you have more money than three of
you, would you preserve more? I know,
thanks. No, there was a bottleneck and stuff
. So even if we have Mhm. Um was
that I couldn't Mhm. At this point I'm going
to try and get the audience involved a little bit
of a show of hands um gonna ask three questions
here. If you have more money, would you
deserve more um or well that's our show. And
if you have more resources available to you in your
organization, would you do more digital preservation? Right
, okay. There's quite a lot of bands actually
. So um next question, the same hands got
a little bit, I don't know if um mm
hmm is your is your current digital preservation strategy enough
for you in terms of what you're capable? The
capacity that you have a moment? Very good question
. No, that's not going to that. Which
was actually what will happen. Okay, so let
me get back to that question kind of confused about
to start with terms of collaboration with very poor here
and it was all over the place. Um This
is not this collaboration. Um so as I said
before, collaboration intuitively feels positive. Um but is
it genuinely a cost effective use of resources? It's
the safest it takes a lot of effort putting this
thing together. Um Is it worthwhile actually trying to
reach out internationally to collaborate. Digital preservation, savina
? Um depends on the case that you are collaborating
on. Um I don't think that generation in itself
just for the same. Um it depends on the
Yeah, um there are certain, I think you
need a business case for color marriage and just making
the business case for everything for anything else? Um
maybe that would remind yourself important motivations that led to
the foundation of the Digital Preservation Coalition in the UK
. It was found that institutions needed a collaborative effort
to get digital preservation on the agenda, which is
successful Over the last 10 years. And at this
point on the other hand, it was felt that
despite central differences, most of the institutions shared the
same technical, many organizations problems something multiplied in joining
forces. So in these areas, collaboration is perfectly
better. They're making Yes. Without me bringing examples
where the cost maybe higher. Right, thanks.
I will excuse me. I would I would agree
with that general. I think there are issues Sort
of two in my mind to categories of issues about
evaluating the value of international collaboration really any collaboration.
Um one category has to do with finding metrics for
measuring outcomes because I think to be very blunt this
collaboration is really, I mean there's a feel good
sense about this, but ultimately what we're after is
mutual benefit and not just feel good benefit, but
we have rubber on the road can Mhm. The
other category, I think has to do with scoping
what the expectations are any kind of collaboration. I
think that it may have been in Clifford yesterday.
You know, we've had a lot of talk how
about some action that in order to facilitate action we
need to be very clear about what expectations we have
. So that going into a collaboration, all the
parties involved. You know, it's sort of a
shared understanding of where, where we're heading, what
what's our our ultimate outcome from this class? I'm
loving that, scooping the expectations around. Um yeah
, so I I I'd spend probably half of my
time orchestrating these kinds of collaborations and seeking out partners
to work with at stanford or outside of stanford for
stanford to engage with. And I have to say
that working with other people is really a pain.
Yes, that's what they all have their own ideas
. They all have their own politics. There's an
enormous amount of overhead. I mean, it's just
it's it's a terrible thing to do on the hydro
project Anyway, I'm saying, which is if you
want to go fast, go alone, if you
want to go far go together. This is something
that al gore popularized Late 90s, early 2000s as
it was quoted as an African proper um uh and
we've certainly found that actually true is that the problem
space is too big to be able to solve by
yourself. So collaborating is actually the less painful option
then right in your own or buying something that you
can't really understand or before you maintain the literature.
I think the I would just echo what said is
the there has to be alignment, there has to
be a common purpose and a mutual benefit that underlie
underpins the collaboration. I think too often in our
space that that gets to double its sort of money
. The collaborators all agreed that what they want is
money. Um And so that doesn't lead to an
effective or sustained collaboration. So I think that's problematic
. I also think within our space we're actually not
very good at collaborating, we're good at, we're
pretty good at cooperating in some cases, we're good
at coordination. Um But in terms of coming together
to accomplish joint objectives with a combined team were not
that it's hard to do and I think it's something
where we need to work on ourselves before we can
work with other people. Um So at this point
, but one of the things that we have found
though is if you can sustain a collaboration over a
long time, I think you can invert that equation
, whereas if you want to go far together,
if you want to go fast jump on what other
people have already done and we've certainly seen that in
a number of success stories in this community. Mhm
. Crankiness, competition going on. So I'm getting
the networking with people as a pain. But collaborating
is the less painful option. I ain't got on
there, so um any views from the audience about
successful collaboration, anybody prepared to put their hand in
the air and say, well actually I think this
thing that I'm about to say very successful international collaboration
, Yes, okay, so we're gonna sort of
drill down but some more detail here about the economic
, Don't forget we're talking through very much economic lens
on the whole of this conversation here. Um so
I'll sort of think about how we get digital preservation
and actually noticed within the organization or actually funded or
sustainably funded. We've spoken to Aaron said this morning
some of yesterday's commentary about, and we wonder whether
funding are drying up here for for visual presentation activity
. So there's a sort of often stated ideal that
digital preservation should be integrated into the mindset and the
culture of of our organizations to the extent that it
becomes a kind of accepted budget line within our core
funding. Um so is this actually realistic? Can
we get our financial officers in our organizations to actually
criticized the budget for digital preservation? Will they even
know what it is? Tom listen, I will
. Yes. So we've got a uh, the
university library in its name, from Michael Keller had
kind of a mini state of library session two weeks
ago and he said two things that were kind of
surprising to meet someone from the audience Aston, what
do you think is the single most important initiative that
you're engaged in library calling on these everywhere all at
the same time doing lots of things. Um,
and uh, the first thing he said is our
number one top priority is to spend out with the
money that we have received from the provost that we
call the digital library to build up program. Is
that the head of the new buildings ahead of getting
grants from getting anything else that we, we promised
to build a digital library for stanford and that's,
that's the number one and then we need to invest
. There's a following for that. He said,
I'm actually worried that in 10 years or 15 years
it's gonna be hard to justify the physical library because
the president and professor at Stanford already think the library's
digital, that Stanford's a technology school. Both of
these men have strong technology backgrounds. They don't understand
why we need so many buildings and so much storage
space. Um now I think that's kind of funny
because we have 40 or 50 people working on the
digital library, quote unquote and we probably have 300
people, 200 to 300 people that are working on
kind of the physical or the traditional library. But
I think that argument has already been made. And
I think mentally at Stanford at least that shift has
happened. Um I don't think though that we'll ever
get um 200 people working in digital preservation. We
have a preservation group now which is somewhat smaller.
They would love to have more resources. I don't
think the digital preservation group, if we ever got
any group by that name would be much bigger.
I think digital library operations or adjust operations is going
to be quite sizable and we see a shift in
actually with the roles and capacity of the staff of
groups of uranium. It's very organizational specific I suppose
in Alabama. I mean you've made great strides in
getting your digital preservation sustainable. Well here, here's
where perhaps some of my comments might have been controversial
. On the one hand, my first reaction to
the question of, do we think it's possible or
likely that um we're going to move part of our
operational budget paraphrasing here into the support of digital preservation
. My response is, well, we already have
, I mean now that there is important, I
think distinction here that I want to pull out and
underscore um, in library in, in the library
culture, I think it's very common to define things
in terms of departments or units that have specific sets
of responsibilities and the people in them have certain tasks
and professional judgments that they make about those areas of
responsibility increasingly, what I'm seeing is that our organizations
need to have blurred boundaries and that's nothing to be
scared of. And it's simply, that's the way
we need to move in order to be more responsive
more agile organizations. So in my university library,
um, we don't really have a preservation group now
. We have several people including myself who have parts
of our responsibilities are related to either the Alabama digital
preservation network and our investments, our sweat equity if
you will in that environment, we have a couple
of people in special collections and archives that have responsibilities
for more traditional preservation activities. But that's not the
only thing that they do. Um, some people
might respond to that and say, oh poor Alabama
. Um, you know, someday, maybe you'll
have enough resources to do that. And this is
an example of if I had more money, I
wouldn't invest more in creating asylum of expertise but I
don't invest in is making sure that the people we
have have the appropriate training, uh, the appropriate
understanding. There's an education role. I think it's
very important to hear. Um, and I,
and I'll go as far out on stick here saying
, you know, another aspect of this education is
we need to make sure that other administrators in our
larger organizations understand things. But I'll go as far
as to say that it is not up to the
financial person to make a decision about where strategic funds
are are investing. Those are things that get made
. Those are decisions that get made through lots of
input from throughout the organization. And financial person is
simply the person who makes sure that, you know
, monetary obvious get moved into the right thing in
the building. Hey, so the german National Library
undoubtedly has a large budget line dedicated to digital preservation
. Actually, yes, we do. Um actually
we were in the lacking position that the expedition.
No, the german expanding our amendment two digital publications
and together with this. Um, should the law
, our budget we're friendly new staff positions and the
budget to build up a digital preservation system. So
there is a significant portion of money and staff resources
dedicated to this task um providing access to the digital
. So these 20 new staff posts, they are
actually apartments in the library. The acquisition departed.
Some of them sit in the reading rooms providing users
services. Great. Some of those that in the
I. T. Department in solution. Um So
all kinds of barriers. Okay positions and then review
I think the financial department to untangle where in the
library resource. Right. And that's again strategy reads
to build their next decisions on date. Yeah husband
the season and some what I'm here and there.
And answer my question is that it's actually not that
realistic to expect digital preservation to appearance budget line.
Um And if you have comments, opinions you want
to offer then just put it in the air and
come in at any time. It's not. Um
So I'm Vicki right Schwartz program at stanford University.
Um Probably thinking about all the players in the changes
following communication and their investment in digital preservation. Ah
The large publishers now pay money to clocks. Portobello
. They are taking care of their own electronic assets
and I wonder ah how much so of from from
elsevier's point of view they're spending tiny probably what they
spend on lunch in a month. Digital reservation.
Do not write this down. But so they're spending
very little and I wonder what their motivation is.
But I wonder if The four C group are looking
at the various sectors of the digital scholarly communication chain
. Who is spending what and what percentage of it
and what percentage of their total budget is getting spent
on digital preservation. And um yes. Um is
the project looking at that? Um Not specifically in
terms of trying to break it down in that way
but thanks for that. That's it's an interesting idea
in terms of relative spend in particular areas. Mhm
. And it's so bad to tom's comment about um
stanford. We're so so I think what seems to
me to be true is that organizations will spend money
to preserve content that has this is very cynical and
I apologize for this but it's worth preserving content that
is tied to how money flows in the door.
So publishers it's worth spending money on digital preservation because
the librarians expect them to or because it really is
an important asset. And they believe that ah actions
that locks clocks particle are taking on this content really
will help it preserve, preserve it for the future
. And they you know this will help them make
more money from it. Or libraries will invest in
digital preservation because they own materials that they need to
keep for to satisfy their clientele to get more money
from programs. But I wonder if there's a way
to um was this Watergate follow the money I mean
literally take an extremely cynical view the problem just not
because it's right but just to try to highlight what
the motivations are and really follow funding change for every
family. Mhm. Sacramento I think I think there's
there's a we can move on and start focusing on
contact. He was talking about um communications chain and
what we're actually focusing on within that chain. Um
So one of the things that we're talking about enforcing
project, one of the sort of terminology that we're
trying to use in front of bushes, this notion
of digital assets um digital objects thinking of themselves,
they're actually visit value. Um So if can we
think about these digital objects in terms of digital assets
and conversely digital liabilities. If these things aren't of
value to us and we can regard those liabilities.
What does this mean? This change in terminology to
us and on this ship, this kind of financial
language if you like anybody wants that express some opinions
on that. Yes you are enforcing project and we're
trying to take a sort of financial view of things
. Thanks. I um answer yes from from the
forest point of view I see the digital assets and
Mhm um from a national library, it doesn't help
because we have anyway if they are related business opportunities
. Um So okay, so I mean this is
sort of trying to get to this notion of um
value which I think is actually critical in terms of
selection and appraisal. We didn't project question project in
just a few years ago trying to sort of get
this notion of um was actually to do with Green
, his digital preservation and and whether going through President
of selection and appraisal, trying to reduce the amount
of things that we're trying to look out. We
actually have much financial um him apparent very quickly that
the consultants went around asking organizations, is it possible
for you to look through your digital assets and sort
them out? And um and they were met with
sort of bank branch. We haven't got time for
doing any of that, which seems to suggest to
me that organizations have a tough time trying to decide
which which things are valuable on the job um that
you're kind of yeah, has triggered something in my
mind. Okay. We've certainly had and and my
that the University of Alabama's approach to digital preservation at
this time has focused almost exclusively our digitization projects for
special collections materials. So this there may be entirely
different issues that come up even if you're working here
either data sense or published literature and those kinds of
things. But on the issue of duplicates, we're
still going through some growing pains in terms of trying
to understand where in the workflow process are duplicates actually
identified and of course, what is doing, what
do you mean? And I'm actually we have some
cases where in our archives. Yeah. Um photographs
where literally there are duplicates. Um, and in
some cases early on in our digitization process, those
things were viewed as unique items. And therefore we
have since been going back and trying to understand really
is that is there, is that what's the incremental
value of having if something is truly a on more
recent things, we try to identify duplicates going into
the process. So they don't even get digitized because
you know, one of the overarching here here and
touched on on this. And I made some comments
yesterday about this about I still think we're at a
point where we need to define what is digital preservation
? I don't mean that it's some simplistic thing,
but I mean, what are we including in tricks
? What are the pieces parts of them? Yeah
, it seems to me I haven't necessarily fully thought
this out but that there are a lot of pieces
of digital preservation and it's going to be very difficult
just separate them from other works and duplicates are a
good example. If you get to the point where
you're actually in the preservation workflow, then Yes.
There's a digital preservation. How many pieces dealing with
. However, if you put that into the workflow
of civilization? Yes. Is that actually part of
digital preservation? Or is that part of this other
workflow that actually mitigates an additional cost in digital preservation
. Were to do the de duplication. All right
. Considering millions. Mm hmm. Maybe I agree
with you tom But you can disagree with them.
Can I speak with this perspective as an administrator always
budgets and and my you know, I was listening
to, you know, this there is things around
. We asked the new money for digital preservation.
Digital preservation. And I would absolutely say no because
I don't want to itemize anything in my budget than
some higher industry come and say the cherry pick out
. I want to, you know, put forward
a comprehensive budget that, you know, it has
lots of justification knowing that benefit constituency clientele when I
get that line item detail on a major on things
that we need. We just need to do just
one whether, you know, administrators are not understand
digital conservation of the need for changing lands. And
do we really want them to do we want to
spend the time to bring them up to speed and
we want them to trust us. So I would
argue, you know, we need to sell them
on the benefits and the importance of but not like
they fall apart. Things have rest and fun but
rather overall importance of cultural memory, institutional memory missions
that we're trying to carry forward when they also,
you know, it's I kind of was puzzling over
the question few minutes ago Neil, you know,
major examples of success in the international arena. The
I I P. C I think is a good
example of a successful collaboration and one that didn't necessarily
the FTC. International reservation, it does largely gets
focused around national when harvesting and preservation with lots of
players aspects never. And most of the I just
don't know what Catholics here, we have something representatives
of BC. No the audience so I almost speak
for them but I know that many of those I
. V. C. Efforts were not, you
know, they didn't get huge amounts of new fun
go for it. National Library, I just did
it because it was important as part of their overall
mission and they understood, you know, without ever
thinking that they were going to first go to there
before they did anything that they were going to go
to their government authorities and ask for new money to
do it. It was just hard. Exactly.
And I think ultimately that it is just part of
what we do, you know, it's not quite
as part of the mission of the library in the
digital age to preserve things, martin welcome those general
comments about any of the questions that we've covered from
anybody. Um my question, I just wanted to
make him Alex official and one of the things that
language funding for preservation initiatives um that the notion that
digital stuff is different, quite understood always people who
hold the budget and stuff very often founded, it
comes down to and that's the language of business,
the language of business and policy decisions, this convention
institutions by creating this, so on the areas that
we've been looking at. And I think it's useful
language is not the risks and consequences. So you
can find the risk it should right. Risk of
loss, put a consequence against loss. Also the
visual asset. That's great. We get those hold
budgets and it becomes, there's also one of the
comments on which is the insurance industry understands this.
Insurance has been around a long time, knows what
the risks of things going wrong. And we as
consumers insurance watching, do it consequences loss. Um
, that might be a good model for us to
look at. This is insurance. This is not
something different. We need to look at consequences.
Thanks. Thanks very much for that. Let me
just have a comment on mike's comment there. Um
, that's actually very pragmatic way. That's how we
have marketed in peanut, the elephant digital preservation homework
um, is not so much on this notion of
, wouldn't it be great if we would preserve these
cultural assets? I mean, that's part of the
message. Another part of it is okay if you've
invested some effort, you've already decided X, y
and Z are worthwhile. Worthwhile enough that I'm going
to digitize. Don't you want to then make some
investment and assure you don't won't have to go back
digitize them. So there's a very pragmatic workflow based
understand of that process. Um, so this,
this um, this is a question of what,
what you say first or where the emphasis lies in
there because to your point about it might be a
better idea to talk about risk and consequences of loss
, but facts that depend on a man understood emotional
value in the first place. And so this notion
of a return on investment that this is financial speak
again. And there's, there's no question and how
far down this financial speak terminology line we want to
go with digital preservation, but some put it to
the panel and the audience is this notion of return
on investment worth. I think it's too difficult.
Yes and no. So it's a great library answer
. Yes. It depends. I mean, I
think yes, where you can do it and then
no. For areas where you're preserving things for the
next generation of scholars, part of our mission.
It's a mission based preservation is a mission based activity
. And to define that as return on investment.
Well, we've been, I've been in the library
for 10 years. This comes up frequently. I've
still never seen a good answer. So maybe we'll
get smarter or someone will articulate it better. But
I, I think that's fundamental challenging. I do
think Vicky's I think Vicky's point is right in terms
of if you can quantify, we spent next to
digitize this, we spend wide to license it or
we spend ze uh, to produce it in the
first powerful. I know there was a uh like
organization in the bay area that collects a lot of
legacy software. Um They're institute and they've been pushing
to get a digital locals digital preservation system in because
this software is interesting cultural artifacts by themselves. I
haven't been able to get the funding. This is
a group that also has a communications department which produces
really expensive videos um and which are really quite big
and administration said those are expensive. We should make
sure that we still have those so we can remixed
and remastered and distribute them in the future. Um
They bought a digital asset management system that corporate enterprise
digital asset management for media management. And then they
just suck the software in there. So I do
think there's, they couldn't make the case based on
cultural uh cultural heritage or values in other words,
their mission. They could do it because there was
the risk of loss was something that resonated with the
administration. And I know actually, I think there
might be something of a trend in that in north
America. At least I know of at least half
a dozen institutions where the upper administration says we need
to do something about our asset management systems. Uh
Enterprise wide. So our videos from university videos are
images from the athletics department. The things that are
in the library of the things that are in the
music department figure out what we're gonna do and we're
only gonna have one system, not for. So
coming back, sorry, I'm university. Um I
want to walk this back just a little bit because
I'm in an institution that The scope of this group
was about 10 to 15 years. This is this
is just category, that's that's where we are infrastructural
. Um we have a long legacy of pilot projects
on soft funding that don't have any coherence to them
. Yeah. Are scattered across our campus. On
the left hand, the other advantages are doing um
we're at the point now where we're just beginning to
make an argument for actual comprehensive on our campus.
Use the effort, the new Ceo we have a
new president. We're trying to figure out how to
take advantage of that leadership. At the same time
we have the staffing legacy of large percentage of people
that currently in the but that's not my job category
because their paper based, that's what they do and
when you explain that this digital stuff is also their
problem. They kind that are you kidding? Um
so we're starting with this between a rock and a
hard place because we have a percentage of of staff
with professional impaired professionals that are not to speak technically
by any stretch of the imagination and infrastructure on our
campus campuses because I'm part of it grand group that's
still being in this for smaller less resource places.
Um our infrastructure is also lacking. We have one
member of our grand group that's still basically on dialogue
. Like they don't have a T one line for
their campus. It's, you know, the best
way to get digital assets from them to us is
for them to mail us a hard time. That's
the level of infrastructure we're talking about in some cases
. So how do we move from that to even
approaching something comprehensive and cohesive, had an opportunity to
further ahead and started making these arguments. Yeah,
let me offer a couple, a couple of comments
related directly to that. Um first of all,
I think we need to step back from this notion
of comprehensive. I understand your situation about it doesn't
sound like they're necessarily dealing just with a resource issue
that you're talking about, dealing with the installed base
and infrastructural issues from years past. And that's not
uncommon. We all have some aspect of that,
but by viewing things as if I need to have
a comprehensive approach, I'm not saying I have philosophically
, I'm against what that might mean. I'm saying
sometimes that becomes a stumbling block for making the pragmatic
steps forward that we can make. I don't need
to know, I really don't need to Where I'm
going to be in 50 years, but I know
where I'm gonna be 50 years, but uh huh
, You know, I really don't need to know
where we're going to be as an organization for us
as a global initiative are gonna be in 50 years
in order for me to say, tomorrow, I
need to do this. And then next week I'm
going to follow that this and this and this and
move forward in that fashion. I'd also like to
come back and I disagree with tom simply because I
don't think we've had enough disagreement here. Mm hmm
. I would challenge all of us to be very
careful and you can kind of think of this as
watching our assumptions are unspoken, unacknowledged assumptions in our
thinking about one solution, Whether that one solution is
a particular technology towards a particular procedure or process or
in a particular way. I was thinking that we
really need to step back from a lot of the
issues we're talking and make sure that anything that looks
like, well this is naturally the decision of the
answer. Step back from that and make sure what's
the, what's pushing me in that direction somewhere.
The other thing of her pragmatic level that, and
I spent a lot of time trying probably mostly unsuccessful
um, in my home institution of helping people to
understand that there was a big distinction between an asset
management system and digital preservation, an asset management system
. By definition, it's a simple what you do
with the back end could be digital preservation, but
just because you have your assets organized doesn't necessarily mean
they're preserved. And I would argue in my experience
dealing with three very large public institutions in the United
States that when people start talking particularly people from the
financial side of the house or from purchasing or units
that have a lot of sort of admissions have a
lot of paper to deal with information to kind of
manage and they want to track and be able to
understand what relates to what they're very interested in a
digital asset management system because it helps them today do
their work and make sense and tracking and it's important
. There's nothing nothing wrong with that. But they
may actually not be interested in longer term preservation.
In some cases they might be in other cases they
might not know that they are or that they should
. And and in some cases they simply honor because
all they're dealing with is with today's information. They
couldn't care less About 10 years to 15 years ago
. So I think arguing there for some focus on
the problem, what the problem actually is and what
time scales that you need to solve over. We
should respect your point back capability within an organization and
you know, what's achievable. I think that's a
great intervention. Thank you very much for getting us
focused on on what organizations can do what they can
do what they can do. You've got, you've
got to say something right? Yes. My name
is ruined from party Barson excellence. I will try
to bring another point of view with respect to your
question, Well we're done investing. Yes or no
. And we my answer. Yes. On top
of all in kind of other considerations. Let's see
early this morning somebody the person who started talk about
neglected communities, the storage, the storage, right
? It's not only the administrators, it's all your
suppliers, your suppliers talk about business case. Simeone
was talking about the business case, 17 was talking
about assets and liabilities. So perhaps we are not
comfortable. It's not the kind of language we would
love to speak. I'm afraid that we have any
choice about this. We need that language about returning
investment for example, to use the value that we
get out of preserving assets to help us to fund
to finance the preservation of liabilities and to reduce liability
. Let's see you started with the strategic approach.
Let's see recurrence. Let's move is part of that
strategic approach that goes on top of all when we
talk about digital preservation, digital preservation is not an
end in itself. And I think that everybody's scared
about this. So getting into work jobs, all
this kind of stuff but it's part of our day
patient. And let's see, let's face it,
Digital reality digital code is here to stay, it's
not going to dimension next year. We will have
more reserved so we better get more resources if we
have no money will preserve more. It's not a
choice. This is for the choice. We will
have even to spend much more money led by the
way what to preserve because okay, so I mean
you have to preserve everything that you're getting close to
humanity. But there is a lot of things that
are not even in the mandate that we have to
make choices. So yes sir. As I said
, the answer is yes. And we have the
guys that are comfortable speaking with that language and the
others take care of the important things. Okay,
that's a vote for using original investment. Okay,
so let's go questions back first. The question of
course, in the to rent an opinion, anything
you like. I'm jeremy york from a hockey trust
. It seems to me that the the kind of
focus of the question of return on investment. It
just in my experience that there's no question in higher
education about the value of preserving the assets and the
value of scholarship. That doesn't seem to be the
question to anyone. The question seems to be why
it costs so much when you can go to the
best buy, you can buy however many terabytes.
Why can't we just throw the stuff on the amazon
? And I think that's where the question, I
think it's right, it's right for them to do
that. Why does it cost so much? Why
do we need to set up this infrastructure? And
I think that's really where the question of efficiency and
collaboration comes in, how can we do this in
a way that's more efficient so that people don't say
well why why don't we just rely on google and
have all the content? They're doing all this.
Why why do we need to do it at all
? Um So I think really it's about that efficiency
and cost really important. Thank you very much.
Does it cost so much? One more question.
Mhm. I don't like that stuff and then I
don't think so much awesome. A little bit into
that discussion. David probably in the room and counting
on that as well. But but tossing it into
amazon necessarily not because I have a long term story
in your life. Yeah. Beautiful calculation in terms
of some portions. So I wanted to everything's all
right. So what is about sort of extending?
Sure. Yeah. Anyone. Mhm. To reinforce
what any of us who are spending money to ensure
that Yeah, securely stored content for years. Right
. We're spending on this. Whether it's useful for
us argument a separate line lighting, it's a different
story. Internal legend. Sorry if there are reasons
for them. He is a whole and say how
much are organizations have despised content. Also an interesting
discussion but it's not that I think all of us
were restoring the first the second one is I have
a sometimes we think digital in many ways but there
are also ways. So you think about the preservation
conservation animal and material. The same properties. Three
three good examples. I've got a score of my
treatment. Okay. So I can't just leave them
on the shelf actually after one. They're more diversity
of flames and burning light. Okay. And then
your preservation issues are all gone. Thanks. Thanks
. And especially when you have multiple sites. Um
, so we have to take active steps to preserve
that material and put it into it. Working by
other examples of audio tapes. As many of the
same properties. Additional tapes. One material, that's
another good example. It's important. Algy times longer
than the design. Sure. The active step.
So the physical material. Well, it's truly stick
it on the shelf for quite a while. Great
isn't as different initial to me at the british library
for easter. Somewhere too together with here. Really
sure person. The last thing I wanted to just
why walter white regiments. Congress 142, like for
the rams. You get the stronger your assumptions and
yes. Mm hmm. Material. The british library
often lagged by a couple of decades. I'm starting
to see lots and lots of users. Mm hmm
levels have been foreseen nine years ago. Kind of
hard to predict. We should. I'm sure you
understand forms that moral right? Why? That's it
. They have a really crisp on the line and
we've seen fast, very fear. Commercial arguments about
life. I want to make a certain I love
you college today. I think there's a time frames
that are make that kind of clear. No are
always the ones. Okay, let me just one
comment to that illustrates something else that I've been thinking
about. This conversation is going and that is that
we need to stop thinking about single arguments. We
didn't have language to talk about a variety of different
perspectives. Not only you know, 50,000 ft level
of conversation with the higher ups but also looking at
what the audience is for and what the time the
temporal framework is. In terms of right now,
my argument might be primarily based in caramelized what if
I'm talking to a different audience for it's a different
time. I'm not talking about a different kind of
argument. So we need to be more fluent in
multiple languages as it were to make these arguments.
Uh huh That's a very good point. Yeah.
Mhm We've only got a few minutes left I'm afraid
we probably there was one more kind of concept if
you like. Just stronger. Yes, this is
a bit from the background of our beginning, our
powers and on sustainability. And I want to pick
up some statements that we have on the one hand
from Sabine which said it's very hard to untangle where
in the library the costs appear to support the preservation
then in addition you said and it's very hard to
identify generally within such workflows where they appear. I
think this is also a bit about externalization cost because
when it ends up in the library, the library
has to do a lot of repairs to some content
which needs to be preserved simply because the producers did
not have the discipline to do it properly from the
start. So I want to give them another tree
. Just imagine that the library would receive a paper
without the awesome or without data, data about the
affiliation or about the publisher about cross cross references.
Nobody would accept it because it's simply managed by our
culture of future dividing and establishing. So that means
the library doesn't have to repair it when it gets
it. As a deposit object doesn't have to create
a classification because it already exists in the digital preservation
were in a totally different situation. All the costs
which should have been spent during the production process by
the scientific writers and all those who produce the content
they have externalized from this process into the library or
whoever becomes in the end responsible for taking care of
the preservation. Which means that actually we really have
to change our culture in scientific writing and scientific production
of material or any kind of material that we want
to preserve because you can no longer accept that you're
working in such a sloppy way. Just putting the
bill in the person or the institution which is the
last one in the value chain. I think that's
really a big problem where we are talking about business
models which are driven by funding another opportunities of,
because if you don't drive the business model by funding
, but I reuse and really identify what is the
value of it, but that's another discussion I think
. Thank you very much for that and there's lots
of discussion that we could have, we could go
on for and so I think I actually wanted to
come back to the point of if an organization is
at the stage of to do this kind of work
they want to do and how they hand it off
to others or offering services to others. We know
more about the cost and presumably we have more effectively
office services to others discussions go, it's gone half
past. I saw one last word from each analyst
um, why does it cost so much? Can
it be cheaper? What's the one thing we can
do to make this thing cheaper? I think a
lot of the costs right now will start up costs
, that's a function of the immaturity. I think
as we get the workflows coming in, it takes
so much to establish a workflow if you want the
turbine three versus under turtles through the because of my
flask, any other thoughts, the same stimulus means
so much cutting edge r and D. I think
it always will do certain things, but at some
point it starts being crossed this. All right,
I want to say that yes, this can be
done more cheaply than what some options about the original
our agree that there is a service level of scalability
, that's always question. Um but I also think
we need to be looking at the flip of that
. Yeah of the, you know, what does
this cost so much? And I've spent lots of
time talking with people about the difference between the best
buy two terrifying drive in a storage system. Um
but I think we as as libraries, we also
need to look at something that we, you know
, really do in other areas and that is that
we need to start looking at other things. Are
there services and other activities that actually done for a
period of time And they have, you know,
if you're talking about value propositions, then we need
to bring into the discussion value propositions of other things
we're doing so that we can look at realigning alignment
, your realigning what our priorities are reassigned people technologies
and so forth to assist us in dealing with digital
preservation, which I think will ultimately drive the cost
. Okay, great. Thank you. So,
we're getting into our break time Catherine looks like.
Yeah. Okay. So I haven't got time to
sort of reiterate some of these principles that I dropped
it down trouble and I was trying to frame my
questions that I frame my principles so we can deal
with those in the action session. Um Just a
quick word about the action sessions. We've got some
parallel sessions here, I would just say that two
of them look quite similar, but if you want
to perhaps take at active part and do some exercises
and help foresee project, think through some of the
issues that we've talked about. I belong to myself
. If you prefer to have a sort of more
discursive approach to talking about costs and cost, spectrum
and then you might want to go to paul says
he invited Greatest Center as well. Thanks very much
. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.