The power of imaginary users: Designated communities in the OAIS reference model

Abstract

This paper explores the Designated Community term within the Open Archival Information System (OAIS) Reference Model. Information practitioners, particularly those who work with varied populations and popular materials such as public-or state-sponsored libraries and museums, complain that this term is counter to their professional, ethical, and legal mandates to serve many types of user. Using interview data from digital preservation practitioners and scholars as well as interview data from OAIS authors, the author examines the meaning and history behind this term and what it prescribes for professional digital preservation practice. This work juxtaposes contentions of digital preservation practitioners with explanations provided by the authors of OAIS about the Designated Community term. The findings in this paper support the author's contention that alternative digital preservation models and metrics are necessary within cultural heritage institutions, like libraries and museums, to meet the professional standards of practice in those areas and to ensure the inclusion of broad populations within the user bases of digital repositories.

Preserving Authenticity in Virtual Heritage

“…Unfortunately, virtual museums do not curate and preserve the models. And, according to Birrell (2019), many projects lack clear plans or even an understanding of who the end-users are (Bettivia 2016).…”

Leveraging digital forensics and data exploration to understand the creative work of a filmmaker: A case study of Stephen Dwoskin's digital archive

“…These end-users make more tangible the archive's "designated community", a concept that has been rather elusive and, by being elusive, has been less than useful in developing preservation strategies (e.g. [12], [61]), since its inception in the Open Archival Information System (OAIS) reference model ( [66], [61]). In our case study, this community comprises those engaged in and/or researching creative practice and associated influences in the context of moving images and sound.…”

“…The research here is carried out on images acquired using Guymager on the BitCurator platform 12 using the EnCase forensic image format. As a record for the archive, basic reports can be generated using bulk extractor [37] and fiwalk (integrated into The Sleuthkit 13 ).…”

From flat file to interface: Synthesis of personas and analytics for enhanced user understanding

“…Long known in human computer interaction (HCI), personas are used across many fields and domains (Alghofaili, 2018;Cooper, 2004;Nielsen & Hansen, 2014;Pruitt & Adlin, 2006), including software design (Anvari & Richards, 2018;Marshall et al, 2015), content creation (Nielsen et al, 2017), marketing (Alekseeva, Stroganova, & Vasilenok, 2019; F I G U R E 1 Example of a flat persona Profile (Image credit: https://launchschool.com/books/agile_planning/read/concept_ to_personas) F I G U R E 2 Example of an interface persona profile that is interactive and provides access to system features and underlying analytics and user data (See https://persona.qcri.org/) Revella, 2015), advertising (Clarke, 2015), and library and information science (Agarwal, 2017;Bettivia, 2016;Burkell & Fortier, 2014;Normore, 2010;Ryan, Cruickshank, Hall, & Lawson, 2017;Turner, Boyd, Burnett, Fisher, & Adlin, 2007). People working in these and other fields (Ali Amer Jid Almahri, Bell, & Arzoky, 2019;Anvari & Richards, 2018;Zagallo et al, 2019) are the stakeholders/end-users/decisionmakers using personas to learn about their target markets or user populations.…”