Mapping significance properties in OAIS: A case study with video games extended poster abstract

The term Significant Properties is commonly used in the fields of digital preservation and curation. It is variously defined, which puts it in tension with more precisely delineated standards for preservation, such as the broadly used Open Archival Information System reference model (CCSDS, 2012). This poster proposes mapping properties identified by both creators of video games as significant into the OAIS reference model. This research uses the framework provided by Giaretta et al. (2009), outlined as a clarification about the relationship between OAIS and significant properties, as a starting point. Utilizing data from the Preserving Virtual Worlds II grant and data from interviews with digital preservationists working in libraries and the cultural heritage sectors as case studies, this project aims to provide a real world example of how well user-defined significance maps onto commonly employed preservation models. Data from PVWII suggest that social, surface, and affective attributes of games are considered significant by designers and players. These properties encompass the totality of what really makes a game beyond the code and computing environment, even while they do not appear to fit within the precisely defined categories existent in OAIS. This poster argues that OAIS can be made to accommodate such properties because of its requirement to update archival packages as the base knowledge of the designated community changes over time. Copyright © 2015 by Association for Information Science and Technology