Introduction

The participants for each POCOS session were drawn from a wide range of professional contexts concerned with digital preservation (DP), including: scientific and cultural heritage projects; private consultancies; digital assets management, including creating digital preservation policy for, inter alia, 3D models and architectural drawings; digital repository management; DP research and development; development of research-based open-source tools; digital tool preservation; long-term digital preservation; emulation research; historical research; digital humanities research; and digital imaging and digital media technologies. With this eclectic mix of contributors from a variety of user and stakeholder communities, it was important not to make assumptions about prior DP knowledge, as some participants might be very knowledgeable about DP in general but be unaware of visualization and simulation initiatives, and vice versa. With this caveat in mind, William Kilbride reviewed the main categories of challenges regarding visualizations and simulations in the DP domain, and suggested initial key responses. The groups then discussed their ideas.

The main DP challenges and key responses

The first challenge to be faced is that the issue will not go away, nor will it resolve itself. A salutary note on this subject is delineated by Gartner's Hype Cycle on the introduction of new technology, which charts levels of optimism over time. The cycle starts on the trigger point of ‘not my problem’; moves on through ‘how hard can it be’ to the Peak of Inflated Expectations; descends into misery at the Trough of Disillusion, when the scale of the task becomes apparent; then advances onto the Slope of Enlightenment followed by the Plateau of Productivity, when realistic progress is eventually realized. To avoid this roller-coaster experience, it is vital that DP plans be set out at the start of the project.

In general, digital objects such as software, simulations, visualizations and documents have value (however such ‘value’ is calculated), and they create opportunities. However, access to such objects depends on software, hardware and human intervention, and these are liable to change over time, thus resulting in technology creating barriers to re-use. Therefore it is vital to manage data in the long term to protect digital assets and create opportunities for their re-use. In particular, DP is not just about isolated topics such as ‘data’, ‘access’ and ‘risk’: rather it is paramount that DP is understood to be about outcomes, especially regarding people and opportunity.