Digital Preservation Policy

1. Purpose

The purpose of the Digital Preservation Policy is to define:

1. the types of digital objects that will be preserved
2. how the selected digital objects will be preserved
3. who will be responsible for these preservation activities.

2. Scope

Inclusions

Digital objects selected and/or collected by the Library include:

1. born-digital and turned-digital objects acquired for the Library’s collections
2. turned-digital objects created from the Library’s collections
3. digital items published in Victoria and provided to the Library under legal deposit legislation
4. electronic publications selected by the State Library of Victoria and preserved on PANDORA by the National Library of Australia
5. electronic publications (other than those selected for PANDORA, such as the VICNET website)
6. video and computer games/and or development material created in Victoria or by Victorians.

Exclusions

This policy does not address the preservation of the following digital objects:

1. corporate files and digital records stored locally on personal computers and on the LAN (Local Area Network)
2. mail files generated by staff of the State Library of Victoria (eg Lotus Notes files)
3. CD audio and DVD media not unique or significant to the State Library of Victoria.

Note: Although many digital objects may be created, collected and delivered, some of these objects may not legally be preserved by the State Library of Victoria according to copyright. In the instance of online subscriptions, the publication is considered transient or temporary. Unless express permission to digitally preserve the publication is granted by the publisher, the State Library of Victoria may not have the right to do so (see section 4, Policy, principle 4, Copyright).

3. Definitions

• Digital preservation
  The storage, maintenance and access to digital objects over the long term. This may involve one or more strategies including technology preservation, technology emulation or digital information migration.
  
• Digital object
  A description of an object that can be represented by a computer. This may include databases, spreadsheets, word processor documents, web pages, video, audio, images, maps, 2 and 3-D models etc.
  
• Born-digital
  Digital materials that do not have an analogue equivalent, either as the originating source or as a result of conversion to analogue form. They may exist in physical format or in an online environment.
  
• Turned-digital
  Digital resources created as a result of converting analogue works to digital form (digitisation). These may include bitmap images, and sound and video files created from an analogue original work.
  
• Digital resources
  A term encompassing both born-digital and turned-digital resources.
  
• Future-proof
  Describes a technology with traits or features that allegedly enable it to avoid becoming obsolete.
  
• Metadata
  Data about data. It describes the attributes and contents of an original document or work. Standard bibliographic information, summaries and indexing terms are all surrogates of the original material, hence metadata.
  
• Master TIFF
  The archive TIFF file (Tagged Information File Format) from which all surrogate files will be derived.
  
• State Library of Victoria Capture Standard
  A scanning standard for turned-digital material derived from A4 (size) at 400 pixels per inch (PPI) resolution. ('A400'). This is mainly used for continuous tone pictorial material, and also makes recommendations for other types of collection material such as maps.
  
• Physical format (digital)
  In relation to data, physical format refers to the carrier (or disk). It generally refers to digital materials which reside on a disk of some sort (for example, floppy disk, CD, CDR, DVD, or other optical data disk).
  
• PANDORA
  Pandora: Australia's Web Archive is a collection of online publications hosted by the National Library of Australia. It receives contributions from a number of Australian institutions, including several state and territory libraries.
  
• Online subscriptions
  Web-based subscriptions (often at cost to the library) to various publications. These subscriptions usually have a time limit, and are not generally considered to be a preservation priority.

4. Policy

The State Library of Victoria is committed to collecting both born-digital and turned-digital objects and converting analogue material from its collections into digital format in order to preserve these resources and to provide continued access to them. This material is collected in accordance with the State Library of Victoria Collection Development Policy.

Principle 1 - Image capture

• Image Capture Standard
  All turned-digital images produced by the Library from 1 January 2005 will be created in accordance with the Library's Image Capture Standard (A400).
  
• Master TIFF Files
  All Master TIFF file’s produced by the Library from 1 January 2005 will be created in an original, unaltered, and uncompressed format. They will have appropriate test swatches for reference in the captured image.
  
• Image metadata
  All Master TIFF file’s produced by the Library from 1 January 2005 will contain metadata that is inputted during file creation with Photoshop 7.XX, Photoshop CS, or by another program that captures this metadata within the file itself.

Principle 2 - Future proofing

• Self-supporting formats
  As far as practicable, all digital objects collected or derived by the Library will be self-supporting, and not reliant on any proprietary application or device. If the Library receives a digital object that is not self-supporting, this object may be reformatted, once it has been assessed as a priority object and copyright clearance to do so has been obtained. Note: The Collection Development Policy defines accepted digital file formats and must be referred and adhered to prior to collecting or producing digital resources.
  
• Storage
  Born-digital objects published on disk (CDR or DVD) are considered the archival copy and will be stored appropriately. When needed and authority granted, the physical format data may be copied to another storage carrier in order to preserve its contents. The master TIFF files shall be stored appropriately in a secure location on the Library's LAN, and back-ups made in accordance with TSD policy.
  
• Media
  In the case of collection items stored on disk, the carrier (DVD, CD, floppy disk, tape etc) is in principle to be treated as a temporary medium, especially given the fragility and instability of such data carriers. It is intended that the Library shall where possible copy and preserve data through processes described in its Reformatting Digital Objects procedures.

Principle 3 - Identification in the catalogue record

• The 'digital flag'
  All digital objects collected and created by the Library will be catalogued and identified by an appropriate identifier that clearly marks the object as digital regardless of format.
  
• Digital Preservation Category
  Once a digital object has been acquired or created by the Library, it will be eligible for categorisation into a Digital Preservation Category, and further identified on the catalogue as such.

Principle 4 - Copyright

The State Library of Victoria adheres to the legal requirements detailed in the Commonwealth Copyright Act, 1968; all copying and/or reformatting activities undertaken by the Library will be in accordance with the Act or with the copyright owner's agreement.

Principle 5 - Relationships

• Knowledge sharing
  The State Library of Victoria is committed to sharing knowledge and expertise with other institutions and libraries in Victoria, Australia and overseas as required.

5. Review

Review of the Digital Preservation Policy shall occur every two years, at a time during the month of the anniversary of its initial release.