Yale University: Project Revives Old Software, ‘Preserves Born-Digital’ Data (Emulation as a Service)
UPDATED POST March 6, 2018 Yale Announces Software Recovery Project (via Yale Daily News)
From YaleNews:
Digital preservationists at Yale University Library are building a shareable “emulation as a service” infrastructure to resurrect thousands of obsolete software programs and ensure that the information produced on them will be kept intact and made easily available for future access, study, and use.
Funded through a pair of $1 million grants from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the project will enable access to at least 3,000 applications, including operating systems, scientific software, office and email applications, design and engineering software, and software for creative pursuits like video editing or music composition.
[Clip]
The project is scheduled for completion in June 2020. The library’s preservationists are collaborating on the project with the Software Preservation Network, an association of digital preservationists committed to ensuring long-term access to software. They will also work with OpenSLX, a firm that is widely considered a leading developer of the technology underpinning the shareable infrastructure the library is building.
Read the Complete Announcement
See Also: Mellon Foundation Funding Announcement
See Also: Sloan Foundation Funding Announcement
See Also: Emulation & Virtualization as Preservation Strategies (by David S. H. Rosenthal; 2015)
Filed under: Academic Libraries, Data Files, Funding, Libraries, News, Preservation
About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.