Ensure your digital
records have a future.
Digital preservation
The National Archives holds the
nation’s memory. With many
millions of items, it is more than
a record of government decisions.
It is an archive about people, from
the ordinary to the famous, who
together tell the story of our nation.
It is my story. It is your story.
It is our history.
Preserving digital records
for the future
The National Archives ensures that significant Australian Government
records – including digital records – are preserved and remain
accessible in the future.
Digital records present many preservation challenges. They are at risk
of being lost due to the rapid pace of development in computer
hardware, operating systems and application software, coupled with the
short effective life of most physical storage media.
The National Archives has developed a digital preservation methodology,
supported by software, to ensure that important digital records are
preserved as national archives.
Digital preservation:
a four-step process
To preserve digital records, the National Archives uses
its digital preservation software to convert proprietary
file formats to carefully selected preservation file
formats.
There are four steps in this process:
1.Manifest. A list is created of all digital records
to be preserved.
2.Quarantine. Records are checked for viruses
and integrity.
3.Preservation. Records are converted to preservation
file formats.
4.Storage. Records are stored in the digital archive.
The National Archives’ digital preservation software:
• captures the essential elements of digital records
• a
llows digital records to be retrieved from the digital
archive at any time
• c
ontinually checks the integrity of records
in the digital archive.
National Archives’ software
The National Archives has developed a suite of software,
which includes the applications Xena, Manifest Maker,
Digital Preservation Recorder and Checksum Checker.
When researching and developing our approach to digital
preservation, we made some important decisions about the
software we required.
As a result, the software:
• is licensed under an open source licence (the GNU
General Public License, or GPL)
• c
onverts proprietary file formats to preservation file
formats based on open standards.
Open source development allows the National Archives
to build upon the efforts of other open source projects,
so we can achieve our goals more quickly and with fewer
resources. Australian Government agencies and other
stakeholders benefit too; the software developed by the
National Archives is freely available to download and use.
The National Archives uses preservation file formats based
on open standards, which:
• have full specifications that are publicly documented
• are interoperable with a range of software applications
• a
re not affected by changes in commercial property
rights over software in the marketplace.
Digital records based on open standards thus have a
greater potential lifespan.
Original MS Word document
(.doc/.docx)
Digital archive
Manifest
Xena file
(.xena)
Xena
Xena (Xml Electronic Normalising for Archives) converts
proprietary file formats to preservation file formats. It can
also be used to view and export digital records.
Xena preserves digital records in a three-step process:
1.Xena determines the file format of the digital record.
2.Based on the file format, Xena either converts the
digital record to a preservation file format or, if
the record is already in a preservation file format,
preserves it as is.
3.Xena then stores the digital record, with its
preservation metadata, as a Xena file.
Xena handles a range of formats, including office
documents, email, images and audio files.
Above: An overview of the DPR process, using a Word document
as an example.
Manifest Maker
Manifest Maker supports the transfer of digital records from
agencies to the National Archives by producing a manifest
file. The manifest lists all the digital records that are being
sent to the Archives.
The manifest is used to verify the integrity of digital records
and track them when they are being processed by Digital
Preservation Recorder.
Digital Preservation Recorder
Digital Preservation Recorder (DPR) manages the processing of digital
records into the digital archive.
The main features of DPR are:
• s tep-by-step guided workflow from quarantine to preservation
to storage in the digital archive
• c
onversion of digital records to preservation file formats, using
Xena
• s torage of each original record and its preservation version in the
digital archive
• access to records stored in the digital archive
• audit information about each transfer
• reports on users, transfers and records stored in the digital
archive.
More information
Although the National Archives developed
its digital preservation software for internal
use, we believe that it may also be useful
for government agencies, organisations and
individuals.
Our suite of digital preservation software can
be installed on Windows, Mac OS X or Linux
operating systems.
For more information and to download the
software, visit the following websites:
• Xena – xena.sourceforge.net
• M
anifest Maker –
manifestmaker.sourceforge.net
Checksum Checker
• DPR – dpr.sourceforge.net
The Checksum Checker software monitors the contents of the
National Archives’ digital archive for data loss or corruption.
• C
hecksum Checker –
checksumchecker.sourceforge.net
It continually calculates the checksums of records in the digital archive
and compares them to values stored in the DPR database. If the
checksums do not match, staff are alerted to fix the issue.
Future directions
The National Archives’ development priorities are driven by changes
in technology, standards and our own business processes. We are
continually improving our software so it can handle the exponential
growth in file sizes, and process an increasing variety of file formats
and volumes of digital records.
Contact
Digital Preservation
National Archives of Australia
PO Box 7425
Canberra Business Centre ACT 2610
t +61 2 6212 3600
e [email protected]
w naa.gov.au