Preserving Virtual Worlds
Computer Games & Digital Preservation
Overview
 Digital Preservation Today
 Theoretical Perspectives
 Preservation Strategies
 Data & Metadata / 数据 & 元数据
 Preservation Systems
 Preserving Virtual Worlds
 Who cares about games?
 Game Preservation Problems
 Game Preservation Solutions
 PVW2: Future Research
The Problem
Theoretical Perspectives
 Information Theory
 Sampling & Quantizaton
 Information Loss
Theoretical Perspectives
 Archival Theory
 Authenticity & Integrity
 Diplomatics
 Original Order & Archival Bond
Theoretical Perspectives
 Library Science
Functional Requirements
For Bibliographic Records
Data Model
Theoretical Perspectives
 Open Archival Information System Reference Model
Theoretical Perspectives
 Open Archival Information System Reference Model
Preservation Strategies
 Conservation
 Emulation
 Migration
 Documentation
 Re-enactment
Preservation Strategies
 The Emulation vs. Migration Wars
 Creator Perpective vs. Consumer Perspective
Data & Metadata
数据 & 元数据
 Library of Congress Sustainability Factors
 Disclosure
 Adoption
 Transparency
 Self-Documentation
 External Dependencies
 Impact of Patents
 Technological Protection Measures
Data & Metadata
数据 & 元数据
 Preservation Metadata
 PREMIS
 Technical Metadata (MIX, TextMD)
 Format Registries
 PRONOM  Unified Digital Format Registry
Preservation Systems
 Dspace + Fedora (Duraspace)
 LOCKSS (Stanford University)
 DAITSS (Florida Center for Library Automation)
 Archivematica (Artefactual Systems, Inc.)
 DPSP (National Archives of Australia)
 RODA (Portuguese National Archives)
 iRODS (DICE Center, University of North Carolina)
 Rosetta (Ex Libris)
Preservation Services
 MetaArchive Cooperative
 Portico
 HathiTrust
 OCLC Digital Archive
 DuraCloud (Duraspace)
Preserving
Virtual Worlds 1
PVW Project Goals
 To help develop mechanisms and
methods for preserving digital games
and interactive fiction by
 Investigating preservation issues through a
series of archiving case studies;
 Developing basic standards for metadata
and content representation;
 Archiving key representative content; and
 Building community awareness of issues.
PVW Project Partners
 Graduate School of Library & Information
Science, University of Illinois
 Maryland Institute for Technology in the
Humanities, University of Maryland
 College of Computing & Information
Sciences, Rochester Institute of Technology
 Stanford University Libraries
 Linden Lab
Project Outline
 Phase I: Background research on
preserving interactive behavior and case
set definition
 Phase II: Development of
schema/ontologies necessary for
representation and contextual
information and recommendations for
best practice in use of wrappers
 Phase III: Implementation and testing via
ingest of content at Stanford and UIUC.
You are in a maze of twisty
little passages, all alike.
Problems: Defining a Game
Technically
-/spacewar 3.1 24 sep
000003
3/
000003
600061
jmp
000004
601561
jmp
000005
601556
jmp
62
sbf
a40
a1
p1. 1
/ ignore seq. break
/ use test word for control, note iot 11 00
Problems: Defining a Game
Socially
Problems: Bibliographic
Control (or lack thereof)
C DWARF STUFF
IF(IDWARF.NE.0) GOTO 60
IF(LOC.EQ.15) IDWARF=1
GOTO 71
60IF(IDWARF.NE.1)GOTO 63
IF(RAN(QZ).GT.0.05) GOTO 71
IDWARF=2
DO 61 I=1,3
DLOC(I)=0
ODLOC(I)=0
61DSEEN(I)=0
CALL SPEAK(3)
ICHAIN(AXE)=IOBJ(LOC)
IOBJ(LOC)=AXE
IPLACE(AXE)=LOC
GOTO 71
Problems: Money (or lack
thereof)
Problems: Copyright Law
 “Orphan” works
 Intellectual Property Owners’ Indifference
 U.S. Legal Structure / Digital Millennium Copyright
Act
Solutions: OAIS & FRBR Ontologies
Successor
Whole/part
Transformation
Revision
Translation
Successor
Whole/Part
Transformation
Alternate
Whole/Part
Reproduction
Whole/Part
Context
Work
Expression
Representation Information
Manifestation
Item
Provenance
Solutions: OAIS & FRBR Ontologies
Content Information
Work
Expression
Data Object
Preservation Desc.
Context Information
DOOM 1
Speed Run
Manifestation
Item
DOOM
Binaries
DOOM WAD
DOOM Speed
Run File
Representation Information
MS-DOS EXE
Specification
Intel 486 Dev
Manual
DOOM WAD
Specification
Provenance Information
PREMIS
Record
Solutions: XML Packaging
PVW
Ontology
<descMD>
<mdWrap>
<rdf:Description rdf:about=“File URI”>
<pvw:RepInfo>URI for Rep Info</pvw:RepInfo>
</rdf:Description>
</mdWrap>
</descMD>
<fileSec>
<fileGrp>
<file href=“File URI” />
</fileGrp>
</fileSec>
<ore:aggregates rdf:resource=”File URI”>
<rdf:Description rdf:about=“File URI”>
<pvw:RepInfo>URI for Rep Info</pvw:RepInfo>
</rdf:Description>
Solutions: Users as Curator
Video courtesy of Internet Archive’s Archiving Virtual
World’s Moving Image Collection
http://www.archive.org/details/virtual_worlds
Solutions: User as Curator
Solutions: Representation
Information
 No Existing Solution
 Unified Digital Format Registry is not sufficient.
 Solution requires:
 Copies of Standards Documents…
 …treated as first class objects of preservation…
 …including their own representation information and
context information.
 Economies of scale.
Solutions: Play Well With
Others
Metadata is expensive to produce.
Archiving modern games is
demanding of storage.
So, avoid needless replication of
effort by institutional specialization
and sharing content & metadata.
Solutions: Hire a Lobbyist
 Restore libraries’ and archives’ ability
to make preservation copies even in
the face of DRM technologies.
 Provide a safe harbor arrangement to
enable libraries and archives to
provide access to orphan works.
 Persuade game authors that their
work has value beyond its
commercial sale and that they should
work with us to preserve it.
Preserving
Virtual Worlds 2
PVW2 Project Goals
To determine the significant
properties of games that must be
preserved
To provide guidance to
preservationists regarding the
appropriate strategy to maintain
significant properties
PVW2 Project Partners
 Graduate School of Library & Information
Science, UIUC
 Maryland Institute for Technology in the
Humanities, University of Maryland
 College of Computing & Information
Sciences, Rochester Institute of
Technology
 Stanford University Libraries
Project Outline
Phase I: Significant Properties
Investigation
 Content Analysis of Game Case Set
 Interviews with Game Creators,
Users & Curators
Phase II: Strategies for Preservation
 Emulation Experiments
 Migration Experiments
PVW2: Content Analysis
谢谢
Thank you!
Prof. Jerome McDonough
Graduate School of Library & Information Science
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
jmcdonou@illinois.edu
Translation by Ms. Yan Wang
Graduate School of Library & Information Science
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign