Library and Archives Canada. 2010.

Canadian Digital Information Strategy (CDIS): Final Report of consultations with stakeholder communities 2005 to 2008 Summarized by Ernest Hoffman This report is the final framework for the CDIS, and integrates stakeholder input and feedback on the 2005-2006 Report. It has as its goal ensuring that Canadas digital information assets are created, managed and preserved to ensure that a significant Canadian digital presence and record is available to present and future generations, and that Canadas position in a global digital information economy is enhanced. Both the cultural preservation and international competition aspects could fit with our goals, as were trying to preserve valuable Canadian content which is produced by, and reflects, Canadian civil society (comments, blog posts, in particular) and we can showcase e.g. Sweden as countries who are ahead of us in their comprehensive approach to born-digital online content preservation (preserve everything now, ask questions later). The strategy is divided into three overarching goal areas: 1. Strengthening content so that, over time, Canadas information assets and accumulated knowledge will be in digital form. 2. Ensuring preservation so that Canadians will have ongoing access to their countrys digital knowledge and information assets, and future generations will have evidence of our intellectual and creative accomplishments. 3. Maximizing access and use so that Canadians will have optimal access to Canadian digital information important to their learning, businesses and work, leisure activities, and cultural identity; and Canadian content will be showcased to the world. While 1 and 3 are related to our work, 2 represents the best opportunity for us to make our case as essential, as we aim to preserve the content of areas of Canadian public discourse which can and are being lost forever. Also, approaches to preservation such as the Sweden model are much cheaper than any digitization program, as they require far less staff, and acquisition costs are virtually nil (see Digital preservation Survey 2009). Encouragingly, the tone of the report isnt as digitization-centric as some of the other LAC reports weve reviewed, acknowledging early on that every sector of society both produces and consumes digital information and that the lines between information creator and consumer are blurring, that web generation users want the information they seek to be online, instantly available, and preferably free, and they want to interact with it, modify it, build personal collections, and adapt information resources to their own purposes (Pg. 7). The report acknowledges new ambiguities and gaps in the chain of responsibilities, and that *o+ur investment in digital content creation is not accompanied by a coherent national strategy for its access and preservation. Again, the report emphasizes one of our most important areas of priority: As the roles of information creators and consumers blur, we need to recognize that the social aspects of the web are growing in

prevalence. Digital content will be more and more in the form of conversations between people, using many different media types. Access to and preservation of these conversations will enable broad engagement and will provide a window on our current society in the years to come (Pg. 8). This could not be more in-line with our case for preserving online news content together with its comments, ratings, links, debates, etc, and provides us an opportunity to get out from under the newspaper digitization focus and into conversation preservation, which is both cheaper and more urgent owing to its ephemeral nature. The report acknowledges that most information resources, including newspapers, have moved online, and again emphasizes the addition of new forms of online-only content such as email, websites, web databases, blogs, wikis, webmaps, multiplayer online games, data portals, and user-created web profiles, photographs, and videos. Often this material is more ephemeral, more participative, more fluid, and inherently web-based (Pg. 9). The scope of CDIS indentifies five reasonably indicative, although sometimes overlapping, sources of digital information: 1. Civil society 2. Not-for-profit sector 3. Research communities (scientific, medical, academic, etc.) 4. Government and public sector 5. Business and corporate world (Pg. 10). It lists private personal records and internal corporate records as outside of its scope, but implicitly leaves all corporately-produced content, including news, inside. In Part 2, the report goes into detail on each of the three major areas outlined earlier (1 strengthening, 2 preservation, 3 access). As preservation is our principle focus, I will briefly outline the aspects of 1 and 3 which are relevant to our project, but will focus on 2 in detail. 1 Strengthening is mainly concerned with creating digital content, and focuses on digitization, noting that *a+lthough there has been significant private sector investment in the conversion of legal, news and business information, when compared to other countries, our public and private investment in digitization is not keeping pace. (Pg. 16). It discusses some of the commercial and legal challenges regarding digitization and distribution of content, and the precarious position of market participants who are threatened by the free online culture, but is otherwise unrelated to our project. Interestingly, while the report treats digitization as a major priority, only degrading analog formats (microfilm, etc) are discussed with a sense of urgency. 2 Preservation is discussed in urgent terms from the beginning, with a list of the factors contributing to the fragility of digital content and the dire warning that many feel that much of the digital information being created today will be lost forever. The overarching goal is To develop a robust national capacity to preserve digital content of enduring cultural and scientific value to Canada and Canadians (Pg. 23). One of the key areas cited where preservation must be improved is digital broadcast content, which might interest Abby. The following is an annotated listing of the detailed objectives related to preservation (Pg. 23-30), with my comments in italics:

2.1 Conduct a national appraisal of digital information priorities for long-term retention and preservation, and accelerate capture accordingly. We have an opportunity, based on our review of online news sites, to argue that ours is an area that can and is being lost, and that accelerated capture is necessary 2.1.1 Define and establish, on a national basis, roles and responsibilities for digital information capture and long-term preservation by broad category/type of information. This is where we might be able to assist in the definition of the (online) news category, and we might have a role in its preservation within CDIS, once again showcasing our (very initial) original research into the industry and challenges 2.1.2 Study the need for redundancy and/or dark archives, and to what type of information this need applies. The Swedish model at its current stage constitutes a dark archive, in that theyre preserving content for which they are not the rights-holder in order that it not be lost altogether. Here again, we can make a strong case for this in Canada 2.1.3 Implement legal deposit at national and, if applicable, provincial levels for specific types of published digital content. The broadening of legal deposit laws to include news is one of the areas where the Scandinavian countries are working, and could be interesting 2.1.4 Implement a national approach to web archiving. We could contribute to the news side 2.1.5 Determine roles and develop approaches to selectively capture and preserve: informal content such as blogs, podcasts, online music, and user-created videos and photography; scientific and research data; and digital broadcast content. This is once again very much in-line with our objectives, at least to the extent that this content relates to news 2.2 Develop a distributed network of Trusted Digital Repositories (TDRs) with responsibility to capture, manage, preserve and provide access to Canadas digital information assets, covering: cultural heritage content of all types - scientific data and research - government information. News appears to come under cultural heritage. 2.2.1 Explore and recommend network models appropriate for each sector (cultural heritage, science and research, and government). 2.2.2 Create TDRs and data archives on a national scale. 2.2.3 Develop funding mechanisms to begin to build distributed institutional and technological TDR capacity across Canada with federal and provincial seed funding. 2.2.4 Develop common services as required so that duplications of effort and costs are minimized. 2.2.5 Support standardized TDR development through the promotion of common attributes and open standards; provision of guidance and training; and development and sharing of open source tools. 2.2.6 Build the requirement to archive to a digital repository, and support the costs of that process, into funding programs that produce digital content (see also 1.2.2).

2.2.7 Establish a national TDR certification process to enable digital content depositors, rights holders, and users to recognize trustworthy digital repositories. All discussion of the prospects for our involvement in TDR development is predicated on our potential contributions to 2.1, and on finding out what TDR development for news has already been done 2.3 Foster Canadian R&D that advances the goals of better managing, sustaining and providing access to digital information, and contribute research outcomes to the global effort. 2.3.1 Identify existing strengths and gaps in preservation research in Canada and internationally with a view to developing a collaborative Canadian digital preservation research agenda, including a planned set of digital preservation test bed projects. This would be modeled on the U.S. NDIIP. Ours might already constitute such a project. We can look into the possibility of funding under this program, if it exists 2.3.2 Increase funding available to digital preservation research, and increase the dissemination of research results in both official languages. Same as above 2.4 Develop new workplace skills capacity for digital information management and preservation. 2.4.1 Develop new competencies and positions such as digital curators who would have stewardship responsibility for digital information, whether in an institutional setting or as part of research teams. This is what the Swedish Librarys Allan Arvidson is doing 2.4.2 Develop training and degree programs that will build the skills necessary for digital information curation. 2.5 Raise the public and political profile of digital preservation issues. 2.5.1 Develop a Canadian advocacy strategy for digital preservation issues. 3 Access is largely devoted to increasing access to existing digital archives (reducing costs, making things web-based, etc). Some of the suggestions which could eventually relate to our project are the goal of making the TDRs easily accessible to the public and the research community, and reviewing Crown copyright laws in order to make them more uniform and less complicated for public archiving. The legal side of our project may want to explore this section in greater detail. Part 3 of the report focuses on possibilities for implementation, but basically says that specifics of funding, leadership (TDRs), etc needs to be decided by stakeholders. Part 4 is the conclusion, which again emphasizes the importance of born-digital content. Increasingly, information is digital. The volume of born-digital content is already enormous will continue to grow in scale and complexity (Pg. 46). Overall, while the CDIS report treats Strengthening and Access as laudable goals, it treats Preservation as an urgent problem. The report demonstrates that the Federal government prioritizes born-digital content over digitization (perhaps owing to the costs associated with the latter), and is very concerned

about the preservation of perishable born-digital content before it is lost. Both of these overarching themes are good news for our project. In addition, many of the specific objectives of Preservation (2) are very much in-line with our own, and offer us numerous potential entry points into the CDIS conversation. Preservation-related research into online news media could be a particular area of opportunity for us, especially if nobody else has taken the lead on this, and leadership in the research of this area could result in management of the Canadian news TDR based at Concordia Journalism down the road. Even if this doesnt happen, we can make a strong case for our research to be brought under the umbrella of CDIS, with commensurate funding and access to collaborative resources, etc.

Shearer, Katherine. 2009. Survey of Digital Preservation Practices in Canada http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/digital-initiatives/012018-3100.01-e.html This report presents the results of a survey commissioned in 2008 by LAC on digital preservation practices in Canada. The intent was to determine existing practices and resources for digital preservation as well as to identify gaps and challenges, and the results were supposed to inform the CDIS process. 61 organizations provided full responses, but all were from the government and non-profit sector. Although invitations were sent to several organizations in private industry, no responses were received from this sector. This means our survey of the digital preservation practices of private sector news organizations in Canada, though limited, represents some of the best information out there at the moment. The survey was divided into five sections: (I) Information about the respondent, (II) Information about the repository, (III) Preservation practices, (IV) Preservation resources, and (V) Challenges. (I) The breakdown of respondents to the survey are as follows: 39 libraries, 16 archives, 16 government agencies, 6 other types, 5 research institutes, and 5 museums, for a total of 61, with some belonging to more than one category. 27 identified themselves as within the research or academic sector, 20 are federal government, 13 are provincial government, 7 are "other", and 2 represented the municipal government sector. (II) The key finding about the repositories, for our purposes, is that only 18 of 61 respondents are preserving webpages, and only 16 are preserving newspapers in some form. Considering 39 are libraries, the newspaper number in particular seems low. 95% characterized their content as predominantly Canadian. (III) From a planning and policy standpoint, nearly half said they have no digital preservation policy whatsoever: 55% said they have or are implementing digital preservation policy, with 17% implemented, and 38% not yet implemented. Again, that only 17% of these types of institutions have an operational policy for digital content is surprising.

When asked to characterize their organizations approach to digital preservation, nine out of 61 said their program qualified as sustainable, and only one said their program was robust, whereas 17 said no action has been taken. (IV) When asked to characterize their resources for digital preservation, just over 50% of respondents indicated that they have sustainable funding mechanisms. The average number of staff members working at the repository is 2.4 full-time employees, and 54% of respondents said that there are staff member(s) with specific responsibility for digital preservation. 70% of respondents indicated that there is technical expertise to develop/manage a digital preservation program at the repository, but 83% said there are also gaps in preservation expertise. Respondents also said that their digital preservation activities must compete for resources with other organizational activities, like content acquisition, digitization, etc. (V) Some of the specific challenges cited by respondents which could be relevant to our project included: Proliferation of born-digital materials, storage capacity, dealing with multimedia formats, capturing and preserving complex documents, and copyright issues. This is another argument for the Library of Sweden dark archive approach, because the comprehensive snapshot of relevant domains removes the necessity of fixing and vetting each item at the acquisition end, relying instead on emulation on the viewing end to deal with most of the issues. It also frees up human resources, which respondents claimed were the biggest bottleneck in terms of both time and money. Several respondents also said that they felt that they were working in isolation and believed a centralized entity could provide leadership to discuss issues and strategies and to better define roles and responsibilities amongst the distributed network of repositories in Canada. As LAC has characterized their leadership role as having largely ended following the Final Report of Consultations with Stakeholder Communities, it is unclear from where this leadership will originate.