Introduction

The preservation of complex materials and associated environments presents the digital preservation (DP) community in general and the Jisc community in particular with considerable intellectual and logistical challenges. While many of the techniques that have been developed within the context of migration-based DP approaches are of continuing value, others cannot be applied so well, given the extra complexity presented by, for example, interactive videogames. Recent work undertaken in the Planets and KEEP projects has shown that the problems involved in preserving such materials and their associated environments, while substantial, are by no means intractable, but in order to continue to make progress in this area it is important to engage and energize the wider DP community. A vital aspect of this process comprises articulating the state of the art in:

• • simulations and visualizations

• • software art

• • gaming environments and virtual worlds.

Digital preservation strategies for visualizations and Simulations

It can be argued that there are robust and well defined digital preservation strategies to deal with migrating simple digital objects such as single files. The question is: can these strategies extend practically for complex objects in general, and for visualizations and simulations in particular?

During POCOS I, eight challenges were identified and a number of responses suggested.

Challenge 1: Access and long-term use of digital content both depend on the configuration of hardware, software, the capacity of the operator and documentation

• • Migration (changing the file format to ensure the information content can be read) is the most quoted, and most widely used solution. It is typically good for large quantities of data that are well understood and self-contained (with few or no dependencies), within a relatively small number of formats.

• • Emulation(intervening in the operating system to ensure that old software can function and information content can be read) can be used in tandem with migration; in fact migration and emulation both often require, for their realization, deployment of elements of each other. A vital step forward in the preservation debate is to embrace hybrid strategies deploying both migration and emulation, instead of seeing these as rival options.

• • Hardware preservation(maintaining access to data and processes by maintaining the physical computing environment including hardware and peripherals) is less fashionable, more expensive, but effective.