of a word processing document, or a piece of recorded audio, or a Web page, or results from a

database query, or any other kind of digital object depending on the way the data is encoded
and on the actions the tools are programmed to perform. We expect that if we apply the same
tools to the same data we will get a repeat performance each time.

Digital preservation must work in the same way, somehow re-presenting what are judged to
be the essential elements of the original performance when required at some later time.

Conceptualised in this way, digital preservation can be seen as straightforward. Indeed,

copying data from carrier to carrier, and providing the right tools to recreate the intended
performance will preserve continuity of access to most digital objects.

However, this simple model encompasses great complexities: it may be hard to define the
performance that must be re-presented; it is usually difficult to work out what tools are needed
once the original ones have been lost; the tools themselves typically rely on other tools that
also may have been superseded; and it may be difficult to find tools that will create the
required performance in a reliable, cost-effective and timely way, especially in the context of
many thousands, millions or more of digital objects.

Despite such underlying complexities, the performance model helps in recognising what
digital preservation programmes must aim for: the best means of re-presenting what users
needs to access.

7.5 Understanding the materials being preserved

Preservation programmes must deal with digital objects in four guises:
As physical objects, consisting of inscriptions (usually binary states of on-ness or
off-ness) on carrier media such as computer disks or tapes. (Despite the impression
of that they exist in cyberspace, even online resources must exist on physical carriers
somewhere)
As logical objects consisting of computer readable code, whose existence at any
particular time depends on the physical inscriptions but is not tied to any particular
carrier
As conceptual objects that have meaning to humans, unlike the logical or physical
objects that encode them at any particular time. (This is recognisable as the
performance presented to a user)
As bundles of essential elements that embody the message, purpose, or features for
which the material was chosen for preservation.

This multi-layered nature of digital objects has profound implications for digital preservation.
Preservation means different things for each layer. 2

Preservation programmes for non-digital heritage have traditionally worried about preserving
the physical object as the embodiment of the objects meaning. However, individual physical
manifestations of a digital object are almost inevitably lost, one after another, because the

2
This concept is adapted from Thibodeau K (2002).

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