Re: [-empyre-] Introducing the InterPARES 2 project

[Luciana Duranti <luciana@interchange.ubc.ca>]

Hello Everyone:

This is my opening statement about the InterPares Project.

InterPARES (International research on Permanent Authentic Records in 
Electronic Systems), is a research endeavor that aims to develop the 
theoretical and methodological knowledge essential to the permanent 
preservation of authentic materials generated and/or maintained 
electronically, and, on the basis of this knowledge, to formulate model 
policies, strategies and standards capable of ensuring that preservation. 
At the end of its first phase, which ran from 1999 to 2001, InterPARES 
issued, in addition to methods and activity models of selection and 
preservation, a series of authenticity requirements for materials that, 
although digital, were very similar to their analog counterparts, 
especially in that they had a fixed form. The requirements developed by 
InterPARES 1 can be found on the project's website at 
http://www.interpares.org/book/interpares_book_k_app02.pdf

Increasingly, however, organizations and individuals have been generating 
works of a dynamic, experiential, or interactive nature, which will need 
different, and perhaps work-type specific, authenticity requirements and 
selection and preservation strategies. Thus, InterPARES 2 began in 2002 and 
is scheduled to continue till 2007. The goal of InterPARES 2 is to ensure 
that the portion of society's recorded memory that is digitally produced in 
dynamic, experiential and interactive systems in the course of artistic, 
scientific and e-government activities can be created in accurate and 
reliable form, and maintained and preserved in authentic form, both in the 
short and the long term, for the use of those who created it and of society 
at large, regardless of digital technology obsolescence and media fragility.

Research objectives

To develop an understanding of dynamic, experiential and interactive 
systems and of the materials produced and maintained in them, of their 
process of creation, and of their present and potential use;

to formulate methods for ensuring that these digital objects are generated 
and maintained by the creator in such a way that they can be trusted as to 
their content (that is, are accurate and reliable) and as works (that is, 
are authentic);

to formulate methods for selecting among them those that have to be kept 
after they are no longer needed by the creator because of their social or 
cultural value;

to develop methods and strategies for keeping the materials selected for 
continuing preservation in authentic form over the long term;

to develop processes for analyzing and criteria for evaluating advanced 
technologies for the implementation of the methods listed above in ways 
that respect cultural diversity and pluralism; and

to identify and/or develop specifications for policy, metadata, and 
automated tools necessary for the creation of an electronic infrastructure 
capable of supporting the creation of accurate and reliable, and the 
preservation of authentic digital objects.

Membership

InterPARES 2 involves 20 countries and 100 researchers (plus about 50 
graduate research assistants) in 5 continents. About one third of the 
researchers are archivists. The rest are artists, scientists, 
administrators, computer engineers, and experts from a wide range of 
disciplines, like law, history, librarianship, etc.

Methods

Case studies, surveys, modeling, diplomatic analysis, design of prototypes, 
textual analyses, etc.

Products to date (accessible for a while only to the researchers)

Models of the Chain of Preservation, 19 Case studies reports (some of them 
with models of the creation process and the diplomatic analysis), Metadata 
Sets Register (database), and related guidelines for analysis, etc., 
Terminology Database, Surveys of digital photographers and musicians 
practices, analyses of the concepts of accuracy, reliability and 
authenticity in each disciples involved, identification and analyses of 
existing policies in each area affecting preservation of digital material, 
such as copyright and authentication.

Well, this sums it up. I realize it was a long summation, but the project 
is really big and has been going on for a long time.

Looking forward to our discussions,

Luciana Duranti