Our digital preservation publications
Read research papers and presentations related to digital preservation, published by the members of the Digital Preservation and Data Capability team at the National Library of New Zealand.
Get in touch
Please contact the team for a copy of a publication if there is no link in the listing below. Email us at ndha.admin@dia.govt.nz
2022
Gengenbach, M. (2022, November 2). Reviving Digital Preservation Policies at National Library of New Zealand Blog post on Digital Preservation Coalition website.
2021
Gattuso, J. 2021. The tip of the validation iceberg (Video, 10 mins), Presentation given at ipres2021, 20 Oct. 2021,
Gattuso, J. 2021. Is this this image? (Video, 8 mins), Presentation given at ipres2021, 22 Oct. 2021.
Gattuso, J. 2021. Is this image that image? Asserting integrity beyond the fixity. Conference paper given at iPRES 2021, 19-22 Oct 2021.
2020
Goethals, A. Home and Away for Digital Preservation. Blog post on Digital Preservation Coalition website. 4 November 2020
Alsabbagh, L. 2020. National Library’s web and twitter collections for research (pdf, 160KB), Presentation given at eResearch 2020, Dunedin, New Zealand, Feb. 13.
Goethals, A. 2020. A potential digital preservation service for New Zealand (pdf, 385KB), Presentation given at eResearch 2020, Dunedin, New Zealand, Feb. 13.
2019
Goethals, A. A Couple of Views from New Zealand Blog post on Digital Preservation Coalition website. 25 October 2019
O’Brien, B., Hoeven. J.V., & Goethals, A. 2019. The Web Curator Tool (WCT) Relaunch. Poster (pdf, 1.65MB) presented at iPRES 2019, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Goethals, A. 2019. NZ DOI Consortium (pdf, 530KB) Presentation given at Figshare Fest 2019, Auckland, New Zealand.
Wu, C. 2019. The National Library and Digital Storage (pdf, 1.24MB) . Lightning Talk given at the National Digital Forum 2019, Wellington, New Zealand.
Zierau, E., Schaefer, S., McGovern N., & Goethals, A. 2019. An Overview of the Digital Preservation Storage Criteria and Usage Guide. Presentation given at iPRES 2019, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Zierau, E., Schaefer, S., McGovern N., & Goethals, A. 2019. An Overview of the Digital Preservation Storage Criteria and Usage Guide.conference paper given at iPRES 2019, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
O'Brien, B., Lenfesty, K., Goethals, A., Hoeven. J.V., Knight, S., Rohrbach, T., & Koppelaar, H. 2019. WCT Technical Uplift: A Collaboration between the NLNZ and KBN (pdf, 790KB). Poster presented at the IIPC Conference , Zagreb, Croatia, 6–7 June.
2018
Goethals, A. What Do We Need & What Can We Do Without for Digital Preservation Storage? Blog post on Digital Preservation Coalition website. 20 November 2018.
Preservation Research & Consultancy team. (2018, November 28). Happy World Digital Preservation Day from New Zealand!
Sajwan, S., Goethals, A & Wu. C. 2018. Preserving the past and present for the future: Digital Preservation Programme at the National Library of New Zealand (pdf, 50MB) Brochure
Goethals, A. & O'Brien, B.. 2018. Web Curator Tool 2.0 (pdf, 110KB)
Goethals, A. & Wu, C. 2018. Preservation Storage Criteria (pdf, 1.1MB), presentation given at the Australasia Preserves event, Aug 29.
Sajwan, S. & Goethals, A. 2018. Results of the 2018 PRC Survey (pdf, 3.5MB)
Sajwan, S. & Goethals, A. 2018. PRC Survey and Roadmap 2018 (pdf, 1MB), presentation given at the ATL team meeting, Aug 24.
McKinney, P., 2018. A Draft Code of Ethics for Digital Preservation (pdf, 745KB) — This code of ethics defines standards for the ethical behaviour of professionals that are involved in digital preservation activities.
Smith. K. 2018. Update on activities of the Rosetta Working Group (pdf, 930KB), presentation given at IGeLU 2018 conference, Prague, Aug 20-23.
2017
Gattuso, J. 2017, Preservation actions: Where we started and, where do we go from here? (pdf, 415KB) SAGE Journals. (This links to a pre-published version of the paper). Available at SAGE Journals
McKinney, P., 2017. Introduction to PREMIS (pdf, 1.90MB) presentation given at the NSLA Community of Practice, Jul.
2016
Knight, S., 2016. Digital preservation, provenance and Rosetta (pdf, 170KB), presentation given at the Rosetta Advisory Group meeting, 6-8 June 2016, New York, USA.
Mosely, S., Moran, J., McKinney, P., Gattuso, J., 2016. Conceptualising Optimal Digital Preservation and Effort (pdf, 440KB), conference paper given at iPRES 2016, Bern, Switzerland.
Mosely, S., 2016. Digital preservation and provenance: A discussion paper (pdf, 1.5MB), paper presented at the Rosetta Advisory Group meeting, 6-8 June 2016, New York, 2016.
Kulathinal, M. 2016. Wowza as a Streaming Media Service at the National Library of New Zealand Blog post on ExLibris’ Developer Network website.
2015
Moran, J. & Gattuso, J. 2015. Beyond the Binary: Pre-Ingest Preservation of Metadata, (pdf, 560KB), conference paper given at iPRES 2015, Chapel Hill, USA.
Oliver, G. & Knight, K., 2015. Storage is a Strategic Issue: Digital Preservation in the Cloud . D-Lib Magazine, Vol 21 (2), Number 3/4.
2014
Gattuso, J. & McKinney, P., 2014. Converting Wordstar to HTML 4 (pdf, 1.5MB), conference paper given at iPRES 2014, Melbourne 6-10 October 2014.
McKinney, et al. 2014, Reimagining the Format Model: Introducing the Work of the NSLA Digital Preservation Technical Registry (pdf, 2MB). New Review of Information Networking, Vol 19 (2). p 96-123. (This links to a pre-published version of the paper.)
McKinney, et al. 2014, A next generation technical registry: moving practice forward, paper (pdf, 550KB), and presentation given at iPRES 2014, Melbourne 6-10 October 2014.
Rosin, L. & Smith, K., 2014. Then and Now: The Evolution of Digital Preservation and Collecting Requirements Over a Decade (pdf, 70KB) conference paper given at iPRES 2014, Melbourne 6-10 October 2014.
Wu, C., 2014. Storage architecture and challenges at the National Library of New Zealand (pdf, 910KB), presentation given at the Library of Congress Storage Architecture 2014 meeting in Washington DC, Sept 22-23.
2013
McKinney, P., 2013. Preserving webharvests at the National Library of New Zealand (pdf, 2MB), presentation given at the Technological development of web resources and using digital preservation Conference. Beijing, China.
Rosin, L., 2013. Applying theoretical archival principles and policies to actual born digital collections (pdf, 195KB), paper given at the LIBER 42nd Annual Conference. Munich, Germany.
Sajwan, S., 2013. Securing the future: Digital Preservation at the National Library of New Zealand (pdf, 740KB). Brochure
Wu, C., 2013. Adoption of Infrastructure-as-a-Service at the National Library of New Zealand. paper, (pdf, 630KB) and presentation (pdf, 1MB) given at IS&T Archiving 2013.
2012
Gattuso, J., 2012a. Evaluating the historical persistence of DROID asserted PUIDs (pdf, 3.1MB).
Gattuso, J., 2012b. Full results for DROID version 6 ''Max Byte Scan'' tests (pdf, 3.5KB).
Gattuso, J., 2012c. Main results of the DROID verson tests, (pdf, 6MB).
Gattuso, J., 2012d. 'Persistently' Identifying Formats PRONOM, DROID and the NDHA (pdf, 1.5MB), presentation given at Preservation and Archiving Special Interest Group. Dublin, Ireland.
Gattuso, J., 2012e. Throughput efficiencies and misidentification risks in DROID (970KB).
Gattuso, J. & McKinney, P., 2012. Proposal for new PREMIS semantic unit: Provenance Note (pdf, 2.5MB) — A proposal and justifications for providing a capacity to capture structured provenance notes in PREMIS. Contains change form for PREMIS Data Dictionary and Schema revisions, Proposed Data Model, Data Model Semantic Unit Map, Provenance Data Model Examples, an Example XML implementation Preconditioning Policy, and an Initial assessment.
Jailani, H. & McKinney, P., 2012. Compliance Conundrums: Implementing PREMIS at two National Libraries (pdf, 130KB), paper given at the Archiving 2012 conference. Copenhagen, Denmark.
Knight, S. (2012). A short story about XML schemas, digital preservation and format libraries. International Journal of Digital Curation. Vol. 7, No. 1, pp 72-80.
Knight, S., 2012a. Digital Preservation and the Role of UNESCO: 10 Years On (pdf, 1.5MB), presentation given at The Memory of the World in the Digital Age: Digitization and Preservation. Vancouver, Canada.
Knight, S., 2012b. National Library of New Zealand, Digital Preservation and the Role of UNESCO (pdf, 165KB).
Knight, S., 2012c. Digital Preservation: 10 years on (pdf, 1.5MB). Keynote presentation given at iPres 2012 conference Preserving for the future. Toronto, Canada.
McKinney, P., 2012 From Hobbyist to Industrialist. Challenging the DP Community available here (pdf, 190KB)
NDHA Team, 2012. Rosetta demonstration presentation slides (pdf, 2.5MB), presentation given at Future Perfect. Wellington, New Zealand.
Wu, C., 2012. Embedding Digital Preservation across the Organisation: A Case Study of Internal Collaboration in the National Library of New Zealand (pdf, 700KB), paper given at IS&T Archiving. Copenhagen, Denmark.
2011
Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kawanatanga & National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, 2011. Joint Digital Preservation Strategy (pdf, 430KB).
McKinney, P., 2011. Preservation MD at National Library of New Zealand (pdf, 2MB), presentation given at the 8th International Conference on Preservation of Digital Objects. Singapore.
Wu, C., 2011. Conference Review – ARCHIVING 2011 (pdf, 95KB).
2010
DeVorsey, K. & McKinney, P., 2010. 'Digital Preservation in Capable Hands: taking control of risk assessment at the National Library of New Zealand' (pdf, 480KB). Information Standards Quarterly, 22(2), pp.41–44.
Knight, S., 2010. Developing a digital preservation programme at a national library (pdf, 230KB), INTL-DPIF '10 Proceedings of the 1st International Digital Preservation Interoperability Framework Symposium, Article 2.
McKinney, P., 2010a. Preservation Planning: A Comparison between Two Implementations (pdf, 1.5MB), presentation given at the 7th International Conference on Preservation of Digital Objects. Vienna, Austria.
McKinney, P., 2010b. You did what to it? The concept of acceptable change in a preservation repository (pdf, 5MB), presentation given at the Future Perfect Conference. Wellington, New Zealand.
2009
DeVorsey, K., McKinney, P. & Wu, C. 2009. Risk and Reward. A method of for measuring format obsolescence in a preservation repository (pdf, 4.5MB), poster presented at the Sixth International Conference on Preservation of Digital Objects. San Francisco, USA.
DeVorsey, K. & McKinney, P., 2009a. One Man's Obsoleteness is Another Man's Innovation: A Risk Analysis Methodology for Digital Collections (pdf, 1.5MB), paper presented at IS&T Archiving. pp. 101–106. Washington D.C., USA.
DeVorsey, K. & McKinney, P., 2009b. "What is it and what the hell are we supposed to do with it ?” A happy-go-lucky walk through preservation functionality (pdf, 2.5MB), paper presented at International Perspectives on Digital Preservation. Wellington, New Zealand.
Knight, S., 2009. Early learnings from the National Library of New Zealand's National Digital Heritage Archive project (pdf, 134KB). World Library and Information Congress: 75th IFLA General Conference and Council.
Knight, S., 2009. From OAIS to DPS to NDHA (pdf, 365KB). In Archiving 2009: Preservation Strategies and Imaging Technologies for Cultural Heritage Institutions and Memory Organizations: Final Program and Proceedings: General Chair, William LeFurgy, p. 1-3. Society for Imaging Science and Technology, Springfield, VA.
2008
DeVorsey, K. & McKinney, P., 2008. National Library and Digital Preservation (pdf, 2MB) presentation given at the National Digital Forum 2008, 27-28 Nov 2008, Auckland, New Zealand.
Knight, S., 2008. From theory to practice: Digital preservation at the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Matāuranga o Aoetaroa (doc, 223KB). World Library and Information Congress: 75th IFLA General Conference and Council.
Pre-2008
Knight, S., 2007. Web archiving from your desktop? (pdf, 415KB) InfoRMAA Quarterly, Vol 23 (2), p 40-43.
Knight, S., 2006. Networking for digital preservation: Current practice in 15 national libraries. IFLA Publications; 119. p 155 -166 (pdf, 360KB).
Knight, S., 2005. Preservation metadata: National Library of New Zealand experience (pdf, 270KB). Library Trends, Vol 54 (1). p 91-110.
Knight, S., 2004. Preservation: The urgency? A case study from the National Library of New Zealand. In F. M. Bischoff, H. Hofman, & S. Ross (Eds.), Metadata in preservation: Selected papers from an ERPANET seminar at the Archives School Marburg, 3–5 September 2003 (Veröffentlichungen der Archivschule Marburg, Institute für Archivwissenschaft, Nr. 40) (pp. 39–58). Marburg: Archivschule.
Knight, S., 2003. A brief introduction to digital preservation (pdf, 135KB), paper presented at the Oceans of Opportunity Whakawhitihia te Moana: Annual Conference of the Library and Information Association of New Zealand Aotearoa.
Knight, S., 2001. Digitisation, Knowledge, and Metadata: The National Library of New Zealand as a Case Study (pdf, 725KB). Auckland University of Technology. Working Papers in Communication Research, Vol 1 (1).
National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, 2003. Metadata Standards Framework – Preservation Metadata (Revised) (pdf, 2MB).
National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, 2003. Metadata Standards Framework – Metadata Implementation Schema (pdf, 1MB).
Legacy documents
Our digital preservation system is based on a series of business requirements and documents developed by the National Library from 2004 to 2006.
NDHA Business Requirements Specification (pdf, 580KB)
NDHA Business Requirements Specification Appendices (pdf, 310KB)
NDHA Functional Requirements Specification (zip, 3MB)
For more background information please refer to the following documents:
Digital Library Development review report (pdf, 2.1MB)
Digital Library Development Recommendations(2003) (pdf, 45KB)
NDHA Programme Fact Sheet July 2008 (pdf, 390KB)
NDHA Factsheet October 2008 (pdf, 125KB)
Sun Microsystems Case Study: Digital Preservation at the National Library of New Zealand (pdf, 295KB)
NDHA in the news
13 June 2022 — Conference and Meetings World (CMW)
Wellington set for 2025 international digital conference
New Zealand’s capital city is set to host the iPRES 21st International Conference on Digital Presentation, which will take place in 2025 at Tākina, Wellington’s Convention and Exhibition Centre. iPRES, the oldest international conference about long-term digital preservation, is an annual event that brings hundreds of researchers and practitioners from across the world to discuss the latest research and practice for protecting and making accessible digital collections.
11 January 2020 — RNZ
Preserving our history with the National Library’s digital archive
Collecting the web — how's that for an impossible sounding task. Steve Knight and Jessica Moran gather online material that is a record of the social, cultural, and political expression of New Zealanders but there are tricky issues like sites promoting hate and other offensive material. They look at gathering tweets and other social media in the way the library used to collect famous people's journals and letters.
24 August 2019 — Stuff
How the National Library preserves New Zealand's digital heritage
‘The National Library began experimenting with web archiving back in 1999, but has been sucking up websites in earnest since 2008. It's a two-pronged programme – with both broad and targeted collecting. Every year a web crawler vacuums up the whole New Zealand domain, taking copies of every website ending in .nz…’
17 May 2019 — Scoop
Taking retro tech lovers back to the future
Jay Gattuso, a digital preservation specialist, will talk about the complexities of collecting, preserving and providing access to a range of complex ‘born digital’ objects and the experiences they create. Learn about how the library is coping with the fact that by 2020, it’s estimated that 1.7MB of data will be created every second for every person on earth…'
3 August 2016 — Scoop
Born Digital 2016: National Library of New Zealand celebrates inaugural digital preservation week
'The National Library of New Zealand together with libraries across Australia will celebrate the inaugural digital preservation week, Born Digital 2016, from August 8–12. Born Digital 2016 aims to raise awareness of the importance of preserving digital content for the public good and as a record of New Zealand’s and Australia’s history in digital form.'
29 October 2014 — Scoop
The New Zealand Gazette Moves into the Digital Age
'Michele Clarke, The Gazette’s Chief Publisher and Team Leader said, “The project brought together the National Library’s Digital Preservation and Collection teams to formulate the procedure to seamlessly load published notices into the National Digital Heritage Archive. This fulfils the legislative requirement for Gazette preservation and is an example for the growing demand for preserving information that is digitally generated.”'
18 June 2013 — The Dominion Post
Snap-happy but easy come, easy go
'Natalie Marshall, the Alexander Turnbull Library's photograph curator, thought the National Digital Heritage Archive, launched in 2009, would help to keep New Zealand's digital heritage safe. The archive stores CDs, DVDs and digital materials, including images.'
9 April 2013 — Computerworld
National Library ahead of UK in web harvesting
'New Zealand’s National Library is well ahead of UK efforts to harvest and preserve web content. Six libraries in the UK, including the national institution, the British Library, will now start collecting, preserving and providing long term access to the nation's digital output - including blogs, e-books and the entire UK web domain. The key step has been to get legal and regulatory apparatus in place to provide for “legal deposit”. New Zealand, however, has had legislation in place since 2003 and appropriate regulations since 2006…'
1 October 2012 — New Zealand Future Five
NZ National Library collects millionth digital Pic
'An image of an exuberant, expectant group of fans waiting for the 2011 Rugby World Cup victory parade has become the one millionth digital ‘object’ to be added to the National Library’s collection of digital heritage material. Through a collection of photographs (it’s identified as No. 19) relating to the Rugby World Cup 2011, images donated by Wellington photographer and librarian Dylan Owen made the milestone…'
5 January 2011 — The Library of Congress
New Zealand Develops New Tools, Policies for Digital Preservation
'While the saying "New Zealand is far from everywhere" may be true, distance is not an issue regarding its digital cultural collections and how efficiently the National Library of New Zealand makes them available over the Internet. For a small country (population approximately 4,367,700 as of June 2010), it has made wise choices that have resulted in an exemplary cyberinfrastructure and national digital library. Over recent years , the NLNZ has moved towards aggregating its online collections and high-tech resources under an initiative called the National Digital Heritage Archive…'
4 November 2008 — Ex Libris
The Ex Libris Digital Preservation System Goes Live at the National Library of New Zealand
'The Digital Preservation System is the keystone of the National Library of New Zealand project to preserve the nation’s cultural heritage for the benefit of future generations. Jerusalem, Israel and Wellington, New Zealand – November 4, 2008. Ex Libris™ Group is pleased to announce that after a successful beta-testing period at the National Library of New Zealand…'