Scalable Preservation Environments for Identification and Characterisation

Training course at Archaeological Museum of the Martins Sarmento Society, Guimarães, Portugal

One of the biggest initial challenges to digital preservation is file format identification. While there has been a lot of work in this area, the ever changing nature of digital formats realistically means the problem will never be “solved”. This first SCAPE training course will give you the knowledge and experience to confidently choose file formation identification and characterisation tools, which have been developed or extended during the SCAPE project.

As well as introducing you to a range of tools and their capabilities, you will learn about integrating tools into your own scalable systems and workflows, drawing on the expertise of the SCAPE trainers.

With more businesses and organisations actively deploying preservation services, there is a critical need for more knowledge to be shared, and services to be developed in order to inform of change. Panels and open discussion sessions will provide a valuable space for voices to discuss the latest preservation services to monitor change.

Learning Outcomes

by the end of the training event the attendees will be able to:

1. Distinguish between different file types and identify the requirements for characterising each of them.
2. Carry out a number of identification, characterisation, and duplication detection experiments on example files.
3. Critically evaluate characterisation and identification tools and assess their advantages and disadvantages when used in different scenarios.
4. Compare and contrast the differences in running characterisation and identification tools both stand-alone and within workflows.
5. Envisage a system that combines workflows with identification, characterisation and validation tools to suit a variety of scenarios.
6. Conduct an in-depth analysis of large volumes of identification and characterisation data and find representative sample records suitable for preservation planning experiments.

Who should attend?

Digital preservation practitioners; digital librarians and archivists, digital curators, repository managers, or anyone with a responsibility to manage digital collections.

Developers who actively deploy such systems are also encouraged to attend.