Contents:
- About the National Digital Stewardship Alliance
- Defining Fixity and Fixity Information
- Limits of Fixity and Uses of Fixity Information
- Reasons to Collect, Check, Maintain, and Verify Fixity Information
- General Approaches to Fixity Check Frequency
- Considerations for Fixity Check Fixity
- Characteristics of Common Fixity Check Instruments
- Where to Store and Reference Fixity Information
- Further Reading
- Information About Relevant Standards and Specifications
This eight page publication from the National Digital Stewardship Alliance Standards and Practices and Infrastructure working groups is designed to help stewards of digital objects understand what fixity is and why they should be checking it. It is written in a way that makes it easier for them to understand it within the context of their organization and helps them make choices based on their needs and resources. The document includes helpful information on the following topics: Definitions of fixity and fixity information; eleven reasons to collect, check, maintain and verify fixity information ; seven general approaches to fixity check frequency; six common fixity information-generating instruments compared against each other; four places to consider storing and referencing fixity information.
This is a practical and useful document with all the answers on why fixity is important and how to manage its implementation in a digital preservation environment. Answering the questions how, when and how often, it is essential reading for staff responsible for ensuring the integrity of digital collections. Although not specifically about audiovisual digital collections, some of the many contributors to the work are audiovisual archive specialists and have ensured that this type of material is referenced in the guidelines. Not only do the guidelines provide arguments on why fixity information must be incoporated into basic preservation workflows, it also provides different approaches on how to do so, from the most basic (and least robust) to the more advanced. This approach aligns with the NDSA’s Levels of Digital Preservation guidelines.