Katherine Skinner Executive Director, Educopia InstituteProgram Manager, MetaArchive Cooperative

MCN 2009, Portland Oregon

What does it cost if we don’t preserve?

What is the cost to preserve (and who pays)?

Economically sustainable digital preservation in practice MetaArchive Cooperative example

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Print vs. digital media and preservation

Preservation as act of willTiming is everything

Short window, long timeframe

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Cost of not preserving assets: Institutional Cultural, Political, Scientific Financial

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Preservation, in context Cultural memory organizations created

to perform two major functions: provide access and preservation for

important assets/cultural artifacts Need these services more than ever in

digital age Content more fleeting, less likely to

survive with benign neglect

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Outsourcing of core mission = Loss of core mission Danger of becoming a broker rather than

a do-er Brokers unlikely to survive in tight

economic times

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Loss of historical perspectiveBlindness to our own political

mechanismsLoss of scientific data that helps to

better understand and preserve our bodies and our world

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Expenditures on digital assets are growing Investment in digitizing Investment in creating born digital assets Investment in acquiring digital assets One spectacular crash away from major

loss▪ Real world examples (and why we hear little of

them…)

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So what does it cost TO preserve…

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Still difficult to pin down, but many are trying Blue Ribbon Panel, US NDIIPP, US JISC and ESPIDA cost analysis work LIFE Model

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Defining economically sustainable digital preservation:

“set of business, social, technological, and policy mechanisms that encourage the gathering of important information assets into digital preservation systems, and support the indefinite persistence of digital preservation systems, enabling access to and use of the information assets into the long-term future.”

Source: “Sustaining the Digital Investment: Issues and Challenges of Economically Sustainable Digital Preservation” Blue Ribbon Task Force on Sustainable Digital Preservation and Access (Dec 2008)

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Not a “Simple Matter of Resources” (akin to IBM’s Simple Matter of Programming) Underlying principles may NOT be

known yet Candidate economic models need study No single model will fit all circumstances

Source: B. Lavoie, “The Fifth Blackbird” (March/April 2008)

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“Systematic challenges” and other barriers… One-time funding models are prevalent

and inadequate Alignment is poor between stakeholders

and their roles/responsibilities

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Blue Ribbon preliminary findings (2008)1. It is easier to ‘sell’ outcomes than processes.2. Avoid excessive discounting of the benefits from

digital preservation3. Separating preservation costs from other costs is

difficult4. Diversity of funding streams is important for

sustainable digital preservation5. Non-monetary incentives are important.6. Consider the full range of options when selecting an

economic model to support digital preservation.

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Must include the financial costs associated with: writing and upkeep of plans and policies training staff selecting and implementing a system/solution/service developing/maintaining software selecting assets to preserve documenting those assets (metadata) data wrangling those assets such that they can be

preserved assessing/monitoring those assets’ viability over time

(and the system/solution/service used as well!) infrastructure costs (hardware, physical space, utilities) All of the people who assist in the above

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LIFE model methodology for analyzing the lifecycle of a

collection of digital materials and its associated costs

Acquisition, Ingest, Metadata, Bit-stream preservation, Content preservation, Access

Two things to assess—importance to society of preserving materials and the life-cycle cost of preservation for materials.

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Founded on the premise that cultural memory organizations should maintain their historical role as cultural stewards Preservation of digital assets as corollary to

preserving physical ones Need in house expertise and knowledge Value of curators and librarians and archivists

Chose technical and organizational infrastructure that capitalizes on cultural memory organization’s proven methodologies Distributed preservation Partnership to keep costing affordable

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A distributed digital preservation cooperative for digital archives, based on LOCKSS

Founded in 2003; supported by combination of sponsored funding (NDIIPP, NHPRC), consulting fees, and membership fees

Provides digital preservation infrastructure and training and models to enable other groups to establish similar networks

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12 US Members+ Lib. of Congress

2 Overseas Members

Auburn University Boston College Clemson University Emory University Florida State Univ. Folger Shakespeare

Lib. Georgia Tech Pontifícia

Universidade Católica (RIO)

Rice University

Univ. of Hull Univ. of Louisville Univ. of North Texas Univ. of South

Carolina Virginia Tech

Library of Congress NDLTD SDSC

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reducing our short- and long-term costs Investing in a commonly-owned solution, not purchasing a

service Sharing technological development and organizational tasks

decentralizing our activities Safety in this “brave new world” of digital preservation may

well reside in shared knowledge and shared commitment

decreasing dependence on third-party solutions There is room for various types of solutions Increased capacity for acting as a community of cultural

stewards

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MetaArchive revenue streams Sponsored funding

NDIIPP investment of $1.25M NHPRC investment of $300K

Member investments Sustaining Members: $5K/year plus

$0.67/GB/yr Preservation Members: $1K/year plus

$0.67/GB/yr Consulting services

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Central operational expenses for MetaArchive

Three staff members Manager Systems administrator Programmer

Cloud computing infrastructure for some central network functions Two “servers” plus testing servers

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Distributed operational expenses Roles played by member institution staff

Head/lead administrator (1 hr/wk) Curator/data wrangler (1 hr/wk) Programmer/plugin writer (1 hr/wk) Systems Admin/cache manager (approx

1hr/mo) Server at each institution

16 TB caches at <$4,600 each

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By using the Cooperative model, we keep pricing extremely low

Members “pony up” resources in lieu of $$

For the price of a small central administration, members receive access to an extended network, both technically and organizationally

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Dr. Katherine Skinner404 783 2534katherine.skinner@metaarchive.orghttp://www.metaarchive.org

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