These slides were presented on November 4 at the DLM Forum members’ meeting in Budapest by Justin Simpson, Artefactual's Managing Director. Although this post is a day too late for WDPD, Kelly Stewart considered the the pace layer model as it applies to the digital preservation community over at the DPC blog yesterday.
Justin's presentation considers how the above model can apply to digital preservation and Artefactual's understanding of how the slow levels below are invigorated by the faster levels above it.
Gartner Research (slide 8) talks about pace layers in technology applications. Many large enterprises struggle with tension between business users of enterprise applications, who want to solve specific problems quickly, and the IT professionals charged with providing these applications, who are trying to standardise a limited set of comprehensive application suites in order to minimize integration issues, maximize security and reduce IT costs. Unfortunately, this is often the root cause of many organizations' inability to adapt their IT architecture to meet changing business requirements.
When different components operate with different rates of change, what happens when one layer rubs against another? How do changes in one layer affect the layers above or below? There can be magic in those spaces; unsettling liminal spaces are a crucial part of system design. And while being 'betwixt and between' can be destabilizing it can also be the real place of transformation if each layer respects the different pace of the others.
Dominant fast layers can result in a good looks being preferred over function (slide 11) but if the slow layer controls everything, innovation and new ideas can be stifled (slide 12).
In digital preservation, Archival Information Packages are a valuable strategy. We think they are a good way to align fast layers with slow ones.
In addition to preserving the outputs of the faster layers (fashion, commerce, governments) which influence slower layers (like culture) to change, by preserving those outputs in system independent and self describing packages, we allow for both slippage and feedback.
Archival Information Packages enable slippage by decoupling content of enduring value from both the systems that produced it and the systems that preserved it. Technological changes at the governance or infrastructure level do not affect the contents of an AIP.
AIPs also provide feedback. They constrain - by requiring the metadata necessary to understand their context to be preserved alongside the content. These requirements bring the constraints of lower layers to the understanding of the outputs of the layers above. By requiring AIPs to include metadata, the lower layers ensure that the technical, legal, and cultural context is communicated across time and space.
The Pace Layer model is a useful tool for enabling long term thinking. And long term is how we must think if we want to ensure that future users can find, understand, and use today's digital materials. The model provides a way of understanding how to design, build, and operate sustainable digital preservation systems, balancing innovation and change with stability and continuity.
