Members named to Blue Ribbon Task Force on Sustainable Digital Preservation and Access

International group to address a key challenge of the Information Age:
Economic Models for Preserving and Accessing Digital Data for Future
Generations

DUBLIN, Ohio, January 21, 2008-International leaders offering a variety
of interests and areas expertise have been named to a distinguished Blue
Ribbon Task Force to develop actionable recommendations for the economic
sustainability of preservation of and persistent access to digital
information for future generations.

The Blue Ribbon Task Force on Sustainable Digital Preservation and
Access is co-chaired by Fran Berman, director of the San Diego
Supercomputer Center at University of California, San Diego and a
pioneer in data cyberinfrastructure; and Brian Lavoie, a research
scientist and economist with OCLC, the world's largest library service
and research organization.

"This Task Force is uniquely composed of people with economic and
technical expertise," said Lucy Nowell, Program Director for the Office
of Cyberinfrastructure at the National Science Foundation, in announcing
the members of the task force.  "We believe this rare combination will
enable the group to explore dimensions of the sustainability challenge
that have never been addressed before, and make the societal and
institutional cases for supporting data repositories."

The Task Force members include:

*        Francine Berman, Director, San Diego Supercomputer Center and
High Performance Computing Endowed Chair, UC San Diego. [co-Chair]
*        Brian Lavoie, Research Scientist, OCLC [co-Chair]
*        Paul Ayris, Director of Library Services, the University College
of London, England.
*        G. Sayeed Choudhury, Associate Dean of Libraries, Johns Hopkins
University, Baltimore, Maryland.
*        Elizabeth Cohen, Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences,
Stanford University, Stanford, California.
*        Paul Courant, University Librarian, University of Michigan, Ann
Arbor, Michigan.
*        Lee Dirks, Director of Scholarly Communications, Microsoft Corp.
*        Amy Friedlander, Director of Programs, Council on Library and
Information Resources (CLIR), Washington, D.C.
*        Vijay Gurbaxani, Senior Associate Dean, Paul Merage School of
Business, University of California at Irvine.
*        Anita Jones, Professor of Engineering and Applied Science,
University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia.
*        Ann Kerr, Independent Consultant, AK Consulting, La Jolla,
California.
*        Clifford Lynch, Executive Director, Coalition for Networked
Information (CNI), Washington, D.C.
*        Dan Rubinfeld, Professor of Law and Professor of Economics,
University of California at Berkeley.
*        Chris Rusbridge, Director, Digital Curation Centre, University
of Edinburgh.
*        Roger Schonfeld, Manager of Research, Ithaka, Inc.
*        Abby Smith, Historian and Consulting Analyst to the Library of
Congress, (based in San Francisco, California)
*        Anne Van Camp, Director, Smithsonian Institution Archives,
Washington, D.C.

Using its members as a gateway, the Task Force will convene a broad set
of international experts from the academic, public and private sectors
who will participate in quarterly discussion panels.  The group will
publish two substantial reports with their findings, including a final
report in late 2009 that will include a set of actionable
recommendations for digital preservation, taking into account a general
economic framework to establish those objectives.

With literally every 'bit' of information now being digitally processed
and stored, our computer-centric society is faced with one of the
greatest challenges of our time: how best to preserve and efficiently
access these vast amounts of digital data well into the future-and do so
in an economically sustainable manner.

While the Information Age has created a global network society in which
access to digital information via the Internet and other means has
revolutionized science, education, commerce, government, and other
aspects of our lives, this technology has also spawned some unwanted
side-effects.  Unlike earlier mediums of information-including stone,
parchment and paper-miniscule electronic "data banks" often stored in
memory sticks, hard drives, and on magnetic tape are far more fragile
and susceptible to obsolescence and loss.

The challenge is considerable on several fronts, and epic in proportion.
For this reason, the Blue Ribbon Task Force on Sustainable Digital
Preservation was launched by the National Science Foundation and the
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in partnership with the Library of Congress,
the Joint Information Systems Committee of the United Kingdom, the
Council on Library and Information Resources, and the National Archives
and Records Administration.  Their two-year mission: to develop a viable
economic sustainability strategy to ensure that today's data will be
available for further use, analysis and study.

Simply keeping pace with the rapid change in technology that has made
things such as VCRs and cassette tapes curious antiquities in our own
lifetimes is just one concern to be addressed by the task force.
Establishing economically sustainable infrastructures and global
standards to ensure that massive quantities of digital information are
efficiently migrated to new mediums is also critical. Yet another
challenge will be managing the storage of such vast amounts of data so
that a wealth of scientific, educational and business information is not
lost.  Last but not least, how will we determine which digital data
should be saved?

"NSF and other organizations, both national and international, are
funding research programs to address these technical and
cyberinfrastructure issues," said Nowell.  "This is the only group I
know of that is chartered to help us understand the economic issues
surrounding sustainable repositories and identify candidate solutions."

The first meeting of the Blue Ribbon Task Force on Sustainable Digital
Preservation and Access will be held in Washington, D.C., January 29-30,
2008.  The group will also establish a public Web site to solicit
comments and encourage dialogue on the issue of digital preservation.

 

About OCLC

Founded in 1967 and headquartered in Dublin, Ohio, OCLC is a nonprofit
library service and research organization that has provided
computer-based cataloging, reference, resource sharing, eContent,
preservation, library management and Web services to 60,000 libraries in
112 countries and territories.  OCLC and its member libraries worldwide
have created and maintain WorldCat, the world's richest online resource
for finding library materials.  For more information, visit
www.oclc.org.