Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
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the risk to the continued ability of users to understand and use it, especially since
intimate knowledge of the instruments is needed, and, as we will see, this knowl-
edge is not widespread. Much is contained in Web sites, which are probably
ephemeral.
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the likelihood that the software currently used to access and analyse the data will
not be supported in the long term
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the provenance of the data depends on the what is in the head of the repository
manager
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the funding of the archives is by no means guaranteed and yet, because much
knowledge is linked to key personnel, there is a risk that it will not be possible to
hand over the data/information holdings fully to another archive.
19.3 Preservation Aims
After discussion with the archive managers and scientists it was agreed that the
preservation aims should be to preserve the ability of users to extract from the data
and understand in sufficient detail to use in scientific analyses, a number of key
measurements.
The knowledge base of the Designated Community will be somewhat lower
than the experts, but still include the broad disciplinary understanding of the
subject.
In order to be in a position to hand over its holdings, some example AIPs must be
constructed. Note that we do not attempt to construct AIPs for the whole archive,
nevertheless the Representation Information and PDI we capture are applicable to
most of the individual datasets. With the ability to create AIPs, the archive would
be in a position to hand over its holdings to the next in the chain of preservation if
and when this is necessary.
19.4 Preservation Analysis
We structure the analysis of the detailed work around constructing the AIP.
A number of strategies were considered. Of those eliminated it is worth mention-
ing that emulation was not regarded as useful by the archive scientists because it
restricted the ways in which they could use the data. Similarly transformation of the
data might be an option in future but only when other options became too difficult.
In order to understand this, a preservation risk analysis was conducted which allows
the archive managers to assess when this point is likely to arrive.
19.5 MST RADAR Scenarios
Four scenarios are detailed here, for two different instruments. IN the interests of
brevity we list the actions carried out in each scenario, including where appropriate
the use of the Key Components and toolkits.
