Presented as part of "Realising the Opportunities of Digital Humanities" (#RODH2012) Oct 23-25, 2012, Ireland. More info: www.dri.ie/programme

1. Realising the Potential of
the Digital Humanities
Potential is long-term
Potential is distributed
Impact needs long-term thinking
Impact needs capacity to link
Why do we need to save the bits?
www.dpconline.org

2. Digital preservation typically makes bleak reading …
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3. Let’s restate the problem …
•Digital stuff has value. It is an asset.
•It has potential and creates new opportunities.
•Use gives rise to direct and indirect outcomes.
...but...
•Deployment depends on software, hardware and people.
•Software, hardware and people change.
...therefore...
•Access is not guaranteed without (some) action
•Value, opportunity, impact not guaranteed
www.dpconline.org

4. Let’s restate the problem …
•Data loss is not necessarily a problem
...but...
•Data loss should not be led by coincidental obsolescence
…in other words…
•Digital preservation means we can delete confidently
www.dpconline.org

5. Why Digital Preservation?
Digital preservation is not just about ‘data’:
Safer Smarter
Digital preservation is not just about ‘access’:
Digital preservation is not just about ‘re-use’:
It’s about
Healthier
people and
Wealthier
opportunity
Greener Fairer www.dpconline.org

6. Has Kilbride lost his marbles?
What’s the connection between all
this infrastructure and changing
the world?
www.dpconline.org

7. 1. Transparent
e.g. Data Protection, Freedom of
Information … childcare, human tissue
Why preserve in the 2. Safer
public sector … e.g. preparedness, detection, disaster,
recovery, audit
3. Smarter
e.g. access to heritage, social knowledge,
innovation, research, connected
4. Wealthier
e.g. more efficient, exploitation of IP,
skills, surrogate access
5. Healthier
e.g. managed life history, research and
safe innovation, identity, heritage
6. Greener
e.g. environmental policy development,
efficient retention
www.dpconline.org

8. 1. Legal Compliance
e.g. Sarbanes-Oxley, Data Protection
2. Regulatory Compliance
Why preserve for e.g. power generation, aviation, banking,
pharmaceuticals
business?
3. Legal protection
e.g. patents, mis-selling, detection, audit
4. Unanticipated exploitation
e.g. petro-chemical, music, broadcast
5. Business continuity and improvement
e.g. product recall, disaster recovery
6. Business Value
e.g. getting the right information to the
right people at the right time in a format
they can use
www.dpconline.org

9. What are the benefits
of preservation?
It can be hard be hard to see the wood
from the trees
No access without (some) preservation
No preservation without (some) access
But what’s the value?
Keeping Research Data Safe
http://www.beagrie.com/krds.php
www.dpconline.org

10. Value of digital objects …
vs
Value of books
vs
Value of museum objects
vs
Value of archives
vs
Value of the historic environment
Vs
Value of core business data
www.dpconline.org

11. What’s a collection worth anyway?
www.dpconline.org

12. Digital preservation can feel like
an unfunded mandate
Need to articulate value
Need to embed within
social, cultural, organisational
mission
www.dpconline.org

13. And we could always do nothing…
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…and spend that money over and over again
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14. Realising the Potential of
the Digital Humanities
Many benefits
Benefits are real world and significant
But
We need to articulate value
DP needs to be ‘business as usual’
william@dpconline.org
@williamkilbride
www.dpconline.org