Towards a Theory of Digital Preservation

A preservation environment manages communication from the past while communicating with the future. Information generated in the past is sent into the future by the current preservation environment. The proof that the preservation environment preserves authenticity and integrity while performing the communication constitutes a theory of digital preservation. We examine the representation information that is needed about the preservation environment for a theory of digital preservation. The representation information includes descriptions of the preservation management policies, the preservation processes, and the state information that is needed to verify the correct working behavior of the system. We demonstrate rule-based data grids that can verify that prior policies correctly enforced preservation properties, while sending into the future descriptions of the current preservation management policies. 1 This work was supported by the National Archives and Records Administration under NSF cooperative agreement 0523307 through a supplement to SCI 0438741, “Cyberinfrastructure: From Vision to Reality” and by the National Science Foundation grant ITR 0427196, “Constraint-based Knowledge Systems for Grids, Digital Libraries, and Persistent Archive”. The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the author and should not be interpreted as representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the National Science Foundation, the National Archives and Records Administration, or the U.S. government. The International Journal of Digital Curation is an international journal committed to scholarly excellence and dedicated to the advancement of digital curation across a wide range of sectors. ISSN: 1746-8256 The IJDC is published by UKOLN at the University of Bath and is a publication of the Digital Curation Centre. 64 Towards a Theory of Digital Preservation