File formats and information technology are continually evolving. In order to preserve your digital objects, you may need to perform preservation actions. Preservation action tools are software programs that act on a digital object to ensure its continued accessibility. To select the right tool, you need to know which tools are available.
Planets has wrapped a number of preservation action tools into the Planets framework.
The project has also conducted a survey of cultural heritage institutions and created an inventory of commonly used file formats and compiled a list of preservation action tools that exist to preserve them. The analysis has made it possible to identify gaps in provision.
During the analysis, it became clearer that the search for gaps in tool provision cannot be confined to availability of tools for the most occurring file formats. There are many specialized formats that need support from specialized preservation action tools, and research on this has been done through case studies.
The results of the analysis provide an important insight into the status of digital preservation and the status of digitization. More importantly, a regular analysis of the gaps in tool provision can be used to identify the need for new research and/or development of new tools. If a gap analysis shows that no tool for a specific preservation action exists, there is a gap in tool provision and a new tool should be developed.
The full Gap Analysis report can be found here: http://www.planets-project.eu/docs/reports/PA2D3gapanalysis.pdf
To comment or ask a question about Planets and the Gap Analysis, please e-mail us at: info@planets-project.eu
