Friday 29 March 2024
Location: LIFE homepage » Blog

Conference Highlights

LIFE2 Logo

The LIFE Team hosted another successful project conference on Monday. We’re hoping to have video as well as powerpoints available sometime next week. In the meantime, I think it’s worth highlighting some comments made by Paul Ayris (Director of Library Services at UCL) in his closing remarks:

The key to sustainable preservation is demand; and demand is prompted by a perception of value. We should not let cost determine what we preserve. These were the messages which I picked up from Paul Courant’s keynote paper

  1. Paul Wheatley has shown us a new version of the LIFE model, with further elaborations, which will develop into version 2 of the model in the LIFE 2 Report
  2. Bo-Christer Björk has examined the LIFE1 model and found no  flaws; but he does have some suggestions on what to do about issues such as inflation and depreciation
  3. We have seen successful implementations of the LIFE model in the Royal Library and National Archives in Denmark, which has led to some significant changes to the presentation of the model in those countries
  4. We have been presented with reports from a number of Case Studies in the LIFE2 project with varying results. This seems to suggest  that we are still learning what digital preservation means in practice
  5. The final Question and Answer session has been lively:
  6. The LIFE Team, and members of the audience, have suggested that we need a predictive LIFE tool; is this LIFE3?
  7. There is interest in more case studies - scenario building is critical
  8. It would be important, using the LIFE methodology, to establish the cost of digital preservation as a shared service and compare that sum with the cost of undertaking digital preservation at a local level
  9. There is interest in the community in a pilot digital preservation service in the UK.  Why does the UK not have something like the Dutch e-Depot in the Netherlands?

Thanks should go to everyone involved in the day from the speakers, through to the 100+ delegates who contributed to the valuable discussions that took place throughout the day.

3 Responses to “Conference Highlights”

  1. Tom Lee Says:

    When will we have LIFE3 avaliable?

  2. Richard Davies Says:

    The LIFE Team is currently seeking funding for a third phase. Once we have funding, we will post more information and what LIFE3 will involve, as well as timescales.

  3. Dov Says:

    The predictive LIFE tool would be a huge benefit and building case studies. I look forward to the updates.


Error - unable to connect to database server