Differing Ideas of Digital Preservation

Photo by Cristina Zaragoza on Unsplash

As a developing field, what digital preservation means can be different depending on the type of organization. Consider the data created in different disciplines such as the various sciences and humanities.  What do these disciplines expect to preserve?

Consider a personal field of interest and the data produced.  Briefly discuss the data that needs to be preserved.  (Examples of fields of interest: art, photography, geology, chemistry, history, sociology, genealogy, dance,  language, literature --- choose what interests you!)

Before starting UNT, I was a research assistant in a psychology laboratory. One of the projects we were working on was called Selfies for Science. The goal of the project was to help human facial recognition by creating an ethnic, diverse database. Participants would sign a waiver, answer a questionnaire, come into the lab, scan their student ID, and then we would take headshots of them in various lighting, poses, and facial expressions. We’d take video of them moving their head from left to right and walking down a hallway. Finally, we’d ask them to submit two selfies (without a filter) that were taken at least six months apart.  

In this situation, each participant had 96 items (e.g., photos, video) that corresponded to them but that had to be anonymized. Data we had to save included the person’s name, randomized participant number, all 96 items, student ID, and signed waivers. Metadata we had to be sure was also included was the distance the camera was set away from the participant (e.g., close, medium, far); the facial expressions of the participant (e.g., happy, sad, scared, angry, neutral); the lighting condition (e.g., bright, neutral, dark); facial pose (e.g., front, profile, slightly turned). In addition to the metadata of the photos, we also need to save the participant features data (e.g., hair color, length, distinguishing marks). There are probably other data I’m forgetting now.  

In this case, as much information as possible is expected to be preserved because the lead researcher is interested in sharing the data with other researchers. Though the Selfies for Science project was aimed at creating a more diverse, ethnic facial database, other projects that can be done with the data are numerous. In order to make research easier for others, (meta)data is preserved so that those who use to use or download the data can use the items for their research accordingly.