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