Preservation

=__**PRESERVATION**__=

===All social media comes with one overarching issue—It's not permanent. Because of the inherent risk of this medium, when creating the Reality TV Time Capsule, team members specifically opted to upload material directly to the Wiki, rather than relying on external sources. There are a few artifacts that this was not possible for, but in keeping with the collection development policy, this was done when feasible. Due to the fluid nature of this medium, there are other expected preservation issues in addition to permanence. The preservation considerations also include that of format obsolescence and generational deterioration. ===



**__Known Issues__**

 * MP3**-Media obsolescence. The industry has already created MP4, and while older systems have the software to play these files, whenever the industry standard changes, so will software.


 * Facebook page**-Facebook has replaced Myspace as the social media connection, with users from across the world. But this industry is based on the idea of "The Next Big Thing". If and when Facebook closes or has a shift in the way they do business, any hosted content may disappear.


 * Production Company Site**-As they are a business, there is a chance they will close, or that there may be a domain shift if they merge with another company. At that time, there is no guarantee that site content will be maintained.


 * Twitter**-Library of Congress is archiving Tweets, and will be protected, but their availability process is as yet uncertain.


 * Video** (hosted, not uploaded) This issue is two-fold. Most sites such as Youtube and Vimeo are user-created. This means that content is uploaded under a username. If that account is deleted, all the material goes with it. If the site itself is closed, again, all material goes as well.


 * User generated sites**-The internet is full of abandoned free sites that have little to no stability. These sites have the potential to be abandoned. In the interest of server space, many free hosts will delete accounts if they are not logged into for a reasonable amount of time. Other factors include merges with other corporations, or the dropping of services, such as Geocities and Yahoo. Users were given ample time to move their sites, but those that were not moved were deleted.

**__Plans for Access in the Future__**
===Part of the challenge in capturing social media is the dynamic nature of the content, since a single artifact can consist of multiple file formats. To that end, when confronting multiple components of a single artifact, the decision was made to utilize screenshots to capture visual representations of webpages. To help combat the potential loss of content, the team chose services that seemed to possess high potential for longevity. We feel our preservation strategies have provided a reasonable chance of success for the next several years, barring Wikispaces closure. ===

===Wikispaces enabled the team to upload and store individual artifacts, providing the files were under 20MB in size. Because most of these files reside on the wiki’s servers, reliance on external sources is thereby minimized. Where this was not possible, the team chose popular sites such as Vimeo and YouTube, trusting that their combination of strong customer base and user-centered policies would help ensure that the artifacts would remain accessible in the future. ===


 * Images:** The images are formatted in PNG, a format that was designed for Internet use, and accepted as an ISO format in 2004. The team opted to use screenshots to create the images of Facebook and banners; because of the lossless compression, this made it an ideal format for the transfer of images. For access, this greatly assisted in for the future. While a site may not exist in the future, viewers will be able to see what they looked like.


 * MP3:** In 1993, MP3 became an ISO standard. Because it is by the very nature, lossy, it does not make for perfect replication of an audio stream. However, because it is a standard, it does make the availability for the future users more assured. The National Archives and Record Administration, as of 2011, does not have a preferred audio format, due to the changing nature.


 * Twitter:** The Emily Henderson Twitter feed in the time capsule is actually an image file. However, Library of Congress is capturing Twitter feeds as a cultural expression. Feeds from 2004 are captured, and users will be able to access them in their entirety through that particular facility.


 * Video:** As of 2011, SWF files are a dominant format for playing video on the Internet, as it is Flash-based, allowing animated vector images. However, they are not the video files themselves, but rather the player. File types like FLV are actually video file types. Because of the two-fold nature of the process, should one update programming while the other goes dormant, the relationship between the two will fail. This creates high potential for access issues.