Micky

#oaispunk #dpcfellow and digital preservation nerd at @TIBHannover and beyond. views are my own and not endorsed by my employer or anyone else. Mx. They/them.

pronouns: they/them

Last Notes

2026-09-24 13:01:53 UTC

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carries on by debunking the following USB floppy drive myths:
"You can only read DOS-formatted High-Density Floppy Disks in USB-Floppy Disk Drives"
"USB drives do not respect the physical write/protect features of a 3.5-inch disk"
"USB floppy drives are unsafe for disks"
"reading data from a usb-floppy disk drive returns an unpredictable checksum"
"USB are not useful for digital preservation"
#ipres2026

2026-09-24 12:59:42 UTC

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says "the gold standard is going to be the flux device, but we are asking us here ... what is good enough ... so usb drives are acceptable". #ipres2026

2026-09-24 12:45:03 UTC

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on floppies and mold:
- floppies can get moldy
- moldy floppies can damage drives
- IPA (and that's isopropyl acohol, not india pale ale) may lift some of the binder, but i can be a good cleaning agent when used correctly
#ipres2026

2026-09-24 12:40:51 UTC

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and the last presentation of the session is the winner of the 6th Angela Dappert Memorial Award: "Risks, Myths, and realities of floppy disks" (long paper) by Thorsted, Talboom, Spencer, Barrera-Gomez. They seamlessly pick up where the previous talk left of: "Disclaimer: we are not saying you should do it this way, within your own context this could be very different" #iPRES2026

2026-09-24 12:24:03 UTC

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Whyte's key findings included:
finding #1 the disks nobody else has are the ones most likely to fail
(over 3 times the rate of published materials)
finding #2 age matters - older media fails more often
... BUT if you add filesystem and format to the model, the age effect disappears (p = .26). they're entwined, and age may be telling us only part of the story
#iPRES2026

2026-09-24 12:13:20 UTC

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The good news is that 93% of the carriers were successfully accessed
(4.807 of 5.171 carriers), however Whyte says: "but i have a generous definition of successfully accessed". The worst rates were for USB keys, ZIP and CDR ... however, the number or carriers of those types were really low compared to others #ipres2026

2026-09-24 12:11:17 UTC

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Next up in the session at #iPRES2026 is Jess Whyte with "Success Rates in Digital Media Preservation" short paper.
The paper summarizes findings. Whyte reports on findings of accessing 5.171 media carriers (CD-ROM, CD audio, cd-r, dvd, 3.5 flppy, 5.25 floppy plus zip disks and usk keys). 5 variables are captured:
media format,
filesystem (11 types), age (1-36 years),
collection source (manuscript/ published), success.

2026-09-24 12:00:12 UTC

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Allegrezza stresses that their methodology is not a full preservation workflow - it is a structured, pre-preservation phase - and a bridge to EA-PDF. He concludes by saying that "personal digital archives preservation is not something that begins when the archivist receives the computers. it begins much earlier. it begins with the creator." #iPRES2026

2026-09-24 11:57:17 UTC

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Allegrezza: Bodrato had 2 email accounts. While his alice.it accrount could be recovered, his gmail.com account authentication required required an OTP code sent to a mobile number that was no longer active. Access could therefore not be regained and the data were lost.
For the recoverable email account, the original structure of the mailbox folders "inbox" and "sent mail" plus one aggregation created by the heirs themselves was extracted (11.993 messages, 9 GiB incl. attachments) #ipres2026

2026-09-24 11:51:23 UTC

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Allegrezza: Acquisition was carried out through a forensic copy of the entire device, using ForensiCopy. During this, timestamps were preserved, hash was calculated before and after transfer, the chain of custody was documented in extensive log files generated throughout - documenting the whole operation and supporting the chain of custody. #ipres2026

2026-09-24 11:46:36 UTC

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Allgerezza describes their proposed methodology using the real use-case of Italian politician Guido Brodato, whose personal computer containing texts, photographs, AV documents and email was, after his death, donated by his family in accordance with his own wishes.
#ipres2026

2026-09-24 11:40:49 UTC

Now at #iPRES2026 - Session: "Framing Practice and Fringe Archival Objects" starting with the first long-paper presentation (Long Paper) "Preserving Email of prominent figures: a proposed methodology for acquisition and long-term preservation" by Stefano Allegrezza, Alberto Abis and Fabrizio Stupino. The presentation is given by Stefano Allegrezza

2026-07-17 08:27:41 UTC

* RDM / digipres job alert in Germany *
AWI (Alfred-Wegener-Institut) / PANGAEA is looking for a Data Curator in a Data Resilience Project. Full-time position (but suitable for part-time employment); fixed term (2 years); salary level up to TVöD Bund 13; location: Bremerhaven, Germany.
Strong focus on research data management, Master's degree in natural sciences (preferably with a focus on biosciences) required.
Application deadline is August 13th. All info here:
https://jobs.awi.de/Vacancies/2222/Description/2

2025-05-14 21:21:56 UTC

We’ve downloaded the 10 TB of arxXv … just in case … and are looking into building a proper dark archive arXiv.
Read about the why and what in a recent blog by @npub1268…u2k4 colleagues @npub1d2k…7gyy Holger Israel and me
https://blog.tib.eu/2025/05/14/protecting-science-tib-builds-dark-archive-for-arxiv/

2025-01-13 09:08:37 UTC

*newest addition to the #zenodo #digipres community*
"A Guide to Imaging Obscure Floppy Disk Formats" by @npub1xvs…0z0n @npub1e08…6ee4 [@archivist_Liz](https://digipres.club/@archivist_Liz ) and Chris Knowles. While originally created for an #ipres2024 workshop, the guide is "written for people getting started with imaging floppy disks (...), particularly
smaller institutions or those with tight budgetary constraints".
Check it out here:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13828372

2024-09-12 17:45:06 UTC

*digipres job opportunity at the irish film institute*
IFI is looking for a Digital Deliveries Supervisor. Two-year fixed-term contract (with a 6-month probation period). €35,000-€40,375. Full time. responsible for overseeing & implementing the digipres workflow for all materials delivered under the IFI’s overarching agreements.
all info here:
https://ifi.ie/about/jobs/

2024-08-05 17:29:55 UTC

*latest addition to the #zenodo #digipres community*
"Sustainable Community-Owned Partnerships in Digital Preservation: DPSC Planning Project Final Report" by Educopia, APTrust, Chronopolis, CLOCKSS, lyrasis, MetaArchive and Texas Digital Library.
Great read about present day needs in shared digital preservation services. The report introduces two new services: "advocacy-as-a-service" and "readiness-as-a-service".
https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.11186598

2024-08-05 06:48:03 UTC

Part 2 of @npub1ayx…mhpy blog series on the histroy of Atari ST IGS includes info on earlier graphic attemps like ATASCII, the Enterpoop in Star Wrek and the fascinating story of Larry Mears, the Atari enthusiast who developed IGS for others to make the visuals he was craving ("Mears wasn't an artist, so these first demos were very simple").
Read up on it here:
https://breakintochat.com/blog/2024/08/04/instant-graphics-and-sound-part-2-larry-mears/