Physical Object Preservation Challenges and Opportunities Part 2 - Can we make any recommendations for Data Collection Structure?

During this two-part breakout session, we will discuss the major challenges and obstacles to physical object preservation (both legacy data and newly collected data). Some of these issues include media degradation, lack of resources, and lack of training and/or standards. The goal will be to discuss ways in which ESIP is already providing opportunities for better preservation and ways in which ESIP can further enhance its role in this process. This is meant to be highly interactive, so come with your ideas!

In Part 2, we will take a preliminary look at data collection structure with respect to data preservation. Some examples of physical object data collection structures will be presented, with the purpose of defining what constitutes an object in a collection, and what attributes are needed to define such an object. We will compare these data collection structures to current digital data collection structures, and hold a discussion on what we can learn from these. This is preliminary work, with the long-term goal of developing recommendations for collection structure to assist in data discovery and access, as well as developing consistent metadata.

We plan to conclude these sessions with a discussion of how what steps might be taken to incorporate issues of physical object and related data into the current ESIP recommendations, as well as what next steps are needed in examining data collection structure to make better recommendations for curation and archival practices relating to cyberinfrastructure needs.