Content Management and Digital Preservation

White Paper Content Management and Digital Preservation Organisations are increasingly creating integrated systems to manage their live content as it is authored, approved, disseminated and deleted. They are also realising the need to retain information for long periods. How do you meet these requirements and create a whole life information management approach that provides information access whenever it is needed? Content Management Records Management Digital information is the lifeblood of Records Management adds rules regarding modern organisations, whether it is email, retention and disposal of the content within documents, web sites, transactions or other a CMS. It has its own standard, ISO 15489, forms of knowledge. which covers the concept of records, how they are defi ned, described, retained and The process of managing this information is destroyed. becoming increasingly controlled covering its creation, authoring, review, versioning, Records need to be defi ned for compliance approval for release, the mechanisms for or other reasons. Records are logical pieces sharing and disposal of information. of information that will not be changed once under management. This introduces This sort of information management often the concept of information preservation, concerns live information – it is changeable information which has a prescribed lifetime dynamically and often published live on defi ning how long it must be retained any the internet. Much of this is disposable, who is able to see it. but much must be retained for the various purposes. Record preservation however is only at a logical level, defi ning rules stopping the The effective control and management of destruction of records before the end of their this dynamic information is a critical part of life. This is not the same as the strategies organisations and is often encapsulated in need to ensure the information is readable a set of business rules captured within a and usable. Content Management System (CMS). Archival Information Management What is Digital Preservation? Whether under records management or Digital Preservation is a different discipline just within the content management system to Content Management and has different there comes a time when information is drivers. It is covered by its own standard no longer needed day to day but is still (ISO 14721:2003) that dictates the potentially useful or is required for regulatory key features a comprehensive Digital or legal compliance. The decision is made to Preservation solution should have. keep it safe but keeping it in the live content The key features of a Digital Preservation store makes the knowledge set more system are: cluttered and may compromise performance. • Ingest System : Method for efficiently and When the information is needed however securely moving content into the archive it must be easily found and easy to use. It must be protected against being lost, • Archival Storage: Caring for the digital corrupted or becoming unreadable. objects, making sure they are unchanged and safe Why Do I Need to Digital Preservation? • Data Management: controlling how the digital objects are structured and Instinctively organisations know why they described, and disposing of them at the need to keep information – to reduce risk appropriate moment. and to gain value for the knowledge it captures. This can be categorised as: • Administration: controlling access to digital objects • Knowledge re-cycling. Sweat those digital assets to gain more from their • Access: allowing the objects to be found value and downloaded to appropriate users • Regulatory Compliance. Prove you • Preservation: making sure the digital are following the regulations for your objects are usable at the time they are business quickly and without fuss required by technologies accessible to the users. • Legal Evidence. Have the details at your fingertips should you face a legal This latter point turns out to be a major challenge or wish to pursue a case. problem in today’s very fast moving technology world. All of these drivers point to the need for a good quality digital preservation solution Why Digital Preservation is hard Digital Preservation and CMS Information held digitally is highly fragile. It Content Management Systems and Digital is easy for the bits to become unreadable on Preservation do different but overlapping corrupted media or lost on removable media. jobs. There are functional similarities like: There are plenty of horror stories of material • Security rules on content access of critical importance being held on tapes that no one can read. • Business rules implement using workflows Even after you have the bits held • Flexible data descriptions somewhere safe and protected the problems do not stop. IT is continually updating • Retention management rules to dispose of and the file formats of today can become content are the right time unreadable by the software and IT systems There are also features that are obviously or of tomorrow surprisingly quickly – you have subtly different, see the table below. the bits but cannot make any sense of them. Preservica’s Active Digital Preservation Digital Preservation must have an inbuilt Technology “Active Preservation” system. This will use the best tools available to recycle files into Preservica has been selected by innovative formats that can be read today and to do so archives and libraries in 7 countries across in a way that is automated and validated, 3 continents and was recently awarded the and that preserves the full behaviour of the Queens Award for Enterprise Innovation. digital objects, not just their appearance. Integrating this technology with a good CMS makes archiving innovation available to Selecting the right tools is a job for those who just need the archiving challenge specialists. Preservica pools expertise from to be solved without fuss. the world’s leading archives, libraries and academia to provide a professional service build on advanced research. Feature Content Management Digital Preservation Content versioning Yes, controlled No, fixed Access speed Fast, immediate Slow, can wait File format obsolescence Not a problem Major concern Data volumes Generally smaller Can be huge: wide variety of sources accumulated over large timescales Bit level protection Yes, but smaller volumes Yes, made worse by make this less of a concern large volumes and long timescales Download tools Using same system that May use very different created the content technology Specific usage Yes, implemented for May take content from specific business needs multiple sources Whole Life Information Management Further Reading To deliver whole life information For a good paper covering a full comparison management we need to combine the of Content Management and the OAIS functionality of both content management Archiving Standard please see the following: and digital preservation. This functional “Digital Preservation for Enterprise Content: integration must offer: A Gap Analysis between ECM and OAIS • Content finding tools (search, browse, (J.Korb and S. Strodl, 2012)” http://publik. download) tuwien.ac.at/files/PubDat_191180.pdf • Business rules to dictate when content is Next Steps moved to the archive Preservica can help you answer these • Integrated security rules questions as part of an organisational review • Federated or combined search of information lifecycle management and technology choices. Contact us at • Consistently applied retention [email protected] management rules There are many questions to be answered to determine the appropriate integration approach – is transfer to the archive performed automatically or manually? Is the archive an invisible black box embedded inside the CMS or a separate system accepting content from multiple sources? Is a Records Management System in control? www.preservica.com Copyright 2017. All rights reserved. Preservica is a registered trademark. .

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