Reiner GÖLDNER
(Archaeological Heritage Office Saxony, Dresden, Germany)

Keywords: long term preservation, archiving, archaeological data

Abstract:
Archiving (in English better: preservation) means to permanently preserve content and functionality of digital data and provide access to it. OAIS defines six complex functions to be performed, e.g. data management and preservation planning. So, archiving is the most intensive and most expensive way to store data. But aren’t there any alternatives?
Based on intensive discussions in a in a working group of the Association of State Archaeologists in Germany (Verband der Landesarchaeologen in Deutschland – VLA) and on first lessons learned while operating a digital archive the presentation will address some small steps leading towards a proper archiving without using large budgets.
The first step is to hold somebody responsible for Preservation of digital data. This person has to acquire competencies in the fields of archiving, information technologies and cultural resource management (may be archaeology). He/she would benefit from some clear archiving objectives and requirements.
Next steps may be to think about the security of the existing data, to index the existing data with metadata and to reduce the amount of data formats to a small set of well suited archiving formats.
Going such steps will help to reduce the risk of losing important digital information.
Going these steps will also bridge the gap until proper preservation tools are available at a reasonable price.

Relevance conference | Relevance session:
The presentation matches the conference theme in the field of archaeological data that has to be preserved sometimes without large budgets.

Innovation:
Up to now digital preservation is a story for the rich. Almost all success stories tell us of large systems. So it is very interesting to create some bottom up ideas.

References:
GÖLDNER et al.: Ratgeber zur Archivierung digitaler Daten (http://www.landesarchaeologen.de/fileadmin/Dokumente/Dokumente_Kommissionen/Dokumente_Archaeologie-Informationssysteme/Dokumente_AIS_Archivierung/Ratgeber_Archivierung_V1.0.pdf)
BIBBY, D. / GÖLDNER, R.: Authenticity and Functionality at Digital Archaeological Data (http://archiv.chnt.at/chnt-18-proceedings)