Final session of todays conference. Chris Rusbridge from DCC is introducing it, saying quite a lot of what we thought we knew about Digital Preservation is wrong – and implies that quite a lot of what we think we know now is also wrong.

Some discussion about how case studies might inform real costings or estimates in costings in the future? Suggestion that LiFE will look at this in the write up. Desire for a tool to assess.

Always difficult to write up these discussion sessions – not least because they are more interactive from my point of view (i.e. I take part in the discussion).

Some stuff coming up:

• Need to have better links between value and economic costs – if we can put a figure on ‘value’ we will stand a better chance of getting funding
• Need tools to help us make decisions regarding digital preservation
• Why is metadata handled as separate part in the LiFE model?

In closing Paul Ayris summing up:

• Key to sustainable preservation is demand – which is driven by ‘perception of value’, and we should not be driven by cost of preservation
• New LiFE model was used in Case Studies described today, and there have been comments from an economist on this suggestion some ways of handling inflation and deprecation
• If we are looking at developing a generic model, we need to look at the Danish examples, and see how it might apply in different scenarios
• We are still in the process of learning what ‘digital preservation’ means, and what the costs truly are

Paul’s summarised the following from the panel discussion:

• LiFE (if it can continue into a new phase) would like to develop a predictive tool to determine costs to help decision making
• Interest in more case studies
• Roles and Responsibilities are crucial in digital preservation, and certainly in the UK still need to debate this

Paul says he can’t understand why the UK is so far behind some of the best European examples.