10291 Abstracts Collection – Automation in Digital Preservation

Abstract

Digital Preservation has evolved into a specialized, interdisciplinary research discipline 
of its own, seeing significant increases in terms of research capacity, results, but also 
challenges. However, with this specialization and subsequent formation of a dedicated subgroup 
of researchers active in this field, limitations of the challenges addressed can be observed. 
Digital preservation research may seem to react to problems arising, fixing problems that exist 
now, rather than proactively researching new solutions that may be applicable only after a few 
years of maturing. 
 
Recognising the benefits of bringing together researchers and practitioners with various 
professional backgrounds related to digital preservation, a seminar was organized in Schloss 
Dagstuhl, at the Leibniz Center for Informatics (18-23 July 2010), with the aim of addressing 
the current digital preservation challenges, with a specific focus on the automation aspects 
in this field. The main goal of the seminar was to outline some research challenges in digital 
preservation, providing a number of “research questions” that could be immediately tackled, 
e.g. in Doctoral Thesis. The seminar intended also to highlight the need for the digital 
preservation community to reach out to IT research and other research communities outside the 
immediate digital preservation domain, in order to jointly develop solutions.