Endangered
Digital materials are listed Endangered when they face material technical challenges to preservation or responsibility for care is poorly understood, or where the responsible agencies are poorly equipped to meet preservation needs. This classification includes Vulnerable materials in the presence of aggravating conditions.
3D Digital Engineering Drawings
3D digital engineering models produced as part of building or engineering design processes. The production of such drawings has progressed from a digital analogue of paper to complex digital environments such as BIM (Building Information Modelling) which combine original drawings, libraries of compound objects, and links to external data sets such as about the performance of materials and maintenance of parts.
Born Digital Photographs and Video shared via Social Media or Uploaded to Cloud Services
Digital images or video with no analogue equivalent and where the only copy is online with a social media platform. This entry includes images or videos created and shared as part of personal digital archiving, but also for businesses and others publishing data only via these services. Users of these services will likely lose their data if social media companies fold or make extracting or downloading data difficult.
Cloud-based Services and Communications Platforms
Digital content produced, stored and accessed within commercial cloud-based services and communications platforms. This entry broadly includes services based on a costed subscription and contract business models, premium or institutional versions, and also free online utilities offered at no cost to end-users but with a business model based on gathering and reselling consumer insights.
Collections Information Management Data and Systems
Descriptive information and data, covering both the systems (databases) and the data they contain. This includes information made publicly available, and information only available for internal use.
Completed Investigations Based on Open Source Intelligence Sources
Open source social media and web content that has been used to support the conclusions of crowd-sourced investigation and fact-checking in political or military conflict.
Content on Cloud Video Services Produced by the Service Provider
Video materials, primarily films and television programs, which are produced by companies that maintain their own distribution platforms and are exclusively available through these platforms.
Content Published on the Web Which Cannot Easily Be Captured Through Conventional Web Archiving Practices
Material that is not capturable via conventional web-archiving practices (i.e. remote capture with a non-browser-based crawler). The common characteristic of the material is not so much the type of content, or the context but rather the preservation risk posed to the material as a result of decisions made by the website creators, to use technologies and make design decisions that do not support the capture of the content, combined with the limitations of current web archiving processes.
Contractual Documents and Related Records
Documents, correspondence and other records created in the course of contractual dealings between individuals and agencies, especially where the subjects are of long duration and may be subject to legal scrutiny at undefined points in the distant future.
Corporate Records of Long Duration on Network Drives, Intranets and EDRMS
Records on internal corporate network drives, intranets or document management services where access is limited to a distinct group of users, and in which the lifecycle of the record or the business processes they support is greater than the technology on which they are created or retained.
Current Portable Magnetic Media
Materials saved to magnetic tape, portable hard disks or other magnetic media in the last five years where the reader devices are still supported and can be integrated easily into hardware infrastructure.
Current Portable Optical Media
Materials saved to DVDs, CDs or other optical media in the last five years where the reader devices are still supported and can be integrated easily into hardware infrastructure.
Current Portable Solid-State Media
Materials saved to flash drives or other solid-state media in the last five years where the reader devices are still supported and can be integrated easily into hardware infrastructure.
Custom Online Databases
Data collected, presented and disseminated in custom online databases that is not stored elsewhere, particularly data at risk when it is locked in the database because no export or harvest options are available.
Digital Music and Ephemera Shared on Social Media
Digital materials created by musicians and fans as a by-product of performance or recording, shared on websites and other social media platforms.
Digital Radio Recordings
Primary and/or original recordings of radio broadcasts generated live but often poorly stored thereafter, for example offline recordings on single LTO (Linear Tape Open) Tapes.
Digital Recordings Published via Cloud-based Music Sharing Platforms
Music licensed and playable through corporate platforms protected by rights management and subscription revenues and presented as compressed single-track recordings.
Digitally Published Sheet Music
Sheet music licensed and published in various digital formats, subject to copyright restrictions and often protected by digital rights management technologies.
Electronic Hospital and Medical Records
Personal medical records and records of hospital treatment are increasingly—if not uniformly—born digital. By implication, those records should be retained through the lifetime of the patient, or in some instances longer as required for intergenerational study; and yet there is little evidence of the medical profession participating in the digital preservation community.
Documents, correspondence and other records created in the course of contractual dealings between individuals and agencies, especially where the subjects are of long duration and may be subject to legal scrutiny at undefined points in the distant future.
First Nations Secret/Sacred Cultural Material
This entry refers broadly to digital secret and sacred cultural material and documentation of First Nations peoples’ heritage in all forms of media. This can include born-digital materials directly or indirectly produced as outputs of research, community projects, oral histories, private or personal recordings, and/or data in databases and online platforms which have not been sustained or future-proofed.
Interpretive Materials
Text, graphics, videos, and other content that is used in gallery and exhibition spaces to guide audiences and provide learning experiences.
Legacy Media Art
Media art in storage or not otherwise displayed but where the artists or technicians are available to support installation.
Legacy Video Files
Video files in any format containing moving pictures and sound recordings, particularly those that are proprietary, contain or utilize encrypted Digital Rights Management (DRM) or carrier bound.
Oral Histories
Oral histories including both audio and audiovisual (video and sound), and their accompanying transcripts and/or time-pointed summaries.
Original Digital Music and Sound Recordings
Original recordings of music and other performance from which retail products are derived, typically in multiple tracks and uncompressed high-resolution sound quality.
Orphaned Works
Digital materials where copyright is uncertain, disputed or unknowable, meaning that preservation actions are constrained or prevented.
Pre-Production TV and Movie Materials
Digital records of the creative and production process for film and television, such as initial designs, screenplay and script, on set still photography, rushes or out-takes that are not included in the final production and therefore not available to on-air broadcast archives or film libraries.
Recordings of Video Gameplay Uploaded to Online Platforms
Recordings of game playing and e-sports that show how games are experienced and played, especially multi-user online games and tournaments.
Research Materials and Outputs in Museums and Galleries
Digital material used in, or resulting from, research carried out on materials, digital or otherwise, held in galleries, museums, or similar. Research outcomes may not be formally published, and supporting datasets may not be formally accessioned or archived by an organization or a related organization. Access to these research materials and outcomes may only be made available for internal use, to inform other public outcomes, or for individual researchers.
Semi-Published Research Data
Data sets produced in the course of research and shared between researchers, such as by posting to a website or portal but without preservation capability or commitment. Typically the data remains in the hands of the researchers who have the job of maintaining it.
Virtual Reality Materials and Experiences
Virtual reality (VR) refers to a set of technologies which build on existing 3D rendering technologies, with the aim of creating experiences which completely immerse a user in a virtual environment. The related term of Immersive Media (also known by the acronym XR) refers to a set of technologies used to create experiences, which either completely immerse a user in a virtual environment (Virtual Reality), augment the real world with virtual elements (Augmented Reality) or combine elements of the two (Mixed Reality). Key technologies include headsets, tracking systems, real-time 3D software and 360 video.