Wellcome Library FAQ on preservation and life cycle management

Q: What does life cycle management mean?

A: digital material needs constant and careful management if it is to remain accessible and useful into the future. Life cycle management is the name given to the processes we apply to the digital material we hold in the Library and the way we do those to ensure that material remains available in the future.

Q: Why does digital material need to be preserved, won't I always be able to open my files?

A: No. Computers, the programmes that they run and the files that they create are subject to constant change. Computer equipment has a short life and is typically replaced every three to five years. Programmes are constantly updated and new versions released. These newer versions of programmes can’t always open files created by these earlier versions. This obsolescence of both hardware and software means that we shouldn’t always rely on being able to open our ‘old’ files with new programmes. Life cycle management provides a means of over coming these difficulties.

Q: What do you do to files to preserve them?

A: Specific measures may depend upon the file type. One approach would be to take files out of a proprietary file formats such as Microsoft Word, and convert them to an open file format such as XML or the OpenOffice open document format. This process is called normalisation. Normalised file formats are much easier to manage and to preserve because it removes the dependency between a specific proprietary application or programme and its file format. Our preferred normalisation format is XML because of its flexibility. Given that we aim to hold material in perpetuity this process may happen a number of times over the life of the material.

Q: So will my material always look as it did when I donated it to the Library?

A: To help avoid problems of obsolescence we prefer to normalise material into formats that have a longer life expectancy. In this case the look and feel of a document is typically retained, but if changes to its appearance are unavoidable then we will work to ensure that the intellectual content doesn’t change. In other words, we may normalise your Microsoft Word files to XML, changing the format, but we won’t deliberately change any of the content, words or numbers within the document.

Q: Does this mean that preservation is for ever?

A: That's the aim, but we may not always be able to achieve that. Forever is a very long time. We will make every effort to manage material in such a way that it is available into the future. Our expectation is that we will hold digital material for similar timeframes to those for our other collection materials. Both paper and physical collection items have a long but finite life, and we can't rule out that at some point in the future we may simply run out of options.

Q: Will researchers need to have any special software to view my material?

A: No. We anticipate that most of the time users will be viewing material in our Library reading rooms using our computers. We will ensure that anyone viewing material is authorised to use it, and that they have the tools they need to view that material. If we can't do this then we will provide them with metadata and technical information about the material that will help them understand what tools they need.

Q: How will you ensure that my material isn't inadvertently changed or accidentally deleted?

A: We take the authenticity of all material very seriously. The material you transfer to the Library will be stored on our secure corporate IT network. It will be subject to regular back-up routines and back-ups are stored off site. The routine tool we use to check material are validation keys. These are unique text strings that are calculated when material first arrives in the Library. Every file can be assigned a key that is unique to that file and will remain the same as long as the file is unchanged. Re-checking the validation key is a way of checking that a file has not been inadvertently changed since it was last checked.

Q: What will you do if my material is changed or deleted?

A: We take great care to prevent this from happening. Because we take regular back-ups of material in the event of loss or corruption we would go back to the last good copy that was made during back-up.

Q: Will you ask my permission before you make changes to my material?

A: No. In order to keep material viable into the future we need to actively and continually manage it. We can't be certain what these future actions may be. We'd be happy talk to you to explore and explain the implications of ways to ensure your material remains viable into the future. At the time you transfer material to the Library we will ask you to sign a donor/loan agreement that asks you to give the Library permission to carry out necessary preservation actions, such as normalisation, in the future.

Q: Where can I get further information?

A: The Library has produced a series of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about working with digital material. We will be happy to send you copies of these. Alternatively you are welcome to contact Library staff.

Q: Is there someone in the Library I can talk to?

A: Yes. There are two contacts at the Wellcome Library who are available to answer your questions:
Natalie Walters, Archivist - n.walters@wellcome.ac.uk
Dave Thompson, Digital Curator - d.thompson@wellcome.ac.uk
Phone +44 (0)20 7611 8888

FAQ 2 June 2007