Long-term Stewardship of Globally-distributed Representation Information

ion is Vital We can be confident that the concept of information will survive the passage of time, and even the concept of digital information. We need to bridge the longevity of the information concept to the certain mortality of the media on which the data lives. Our approach is to ensure that everything is represented as a sequence of bytes. We have confidence that the ability to store a sequence of bytes will survive for many decades, and probably several centuries. Current technology usually does this by calling this sequence a file, and storing it in a file system. There are many files in today's computer systems that had their origins in previous systems. The challenge that remains is to maintain the ability to extract the information content of such byte-streams. The knowledge of the formats of such preserved data is itself information, and is amenable to being represented digitally, and is thus amenable to preservation by the same means as we use for the data itself. By taking this focus on the storage of a stream of bytes, we divide the problem into two. 1. Providing media for storage, and copying byte-streams from older technology to newer technology. 2. Maintaining knowledge of the data formats, and retaining the ability to process these data formats in a cost-effective manner. The OAIS representation net is the means by which the knowledge is retained. By treating all data as an abstract byte-stream at the lowest level, we have a common frame of reference in which we can record representation information, independent of any particular data storage technology, and any particular data storing institution. We have a framework in which representation information will be globally relevant.