HOW TO COMPLETE THIS TASK
You should have read the notes and readings for Topic 1 and Topic 2 and skim-read the notes for Topic 3 before you attempt this task. Please do not try to complete this task in one or two hours. It is a week’s work and you need to allow this much time for it.
Read all the readings on this worksheet. There are 21 questions in all.
Answer the questions from the readings in your own words. Copy the questions below into a new entry in your Learning Journal and enter your answers next to them.
Unless instructed, you do not have to research external sources to answer the questions and do not have to add in-text citations or a reference list. DO NOT CUT AND PASTE DIRECTLY FROM THE READINGS AT ALL, NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT. All questions should be answered in your own words (except question 2).
INTRODUCTION
This topic outlines ways in which information professionals are responsible for continued preservation and secure access to data. There are many methods to do this – from locking away computer servers to prevent physical tampering, through virus protection software, to ensuring that all employees use secure passwords for sensitive corporate information.
All the measures discussed in this topic ensure that data remain uncorrupted and accessible. Even data that are “born digital” have a physical manifestation somewhere. They are stored on a physical server, a physical storage medium, or even distributed across a number of computer servers. Regardless of how this is done, information professionals need to understand how to manage these resources to fulfill their job to connect people and information.
Ethical stewardship of data ensures that systems are in place to prevent unauthorized access or use of data.
Archiving and preservation ensures that data can continue to be accessed into the future and is not corrupted during the storage process. Conservation and preservation is covered in further detail in the unit Conservation and Preservation .
When you are asked to consider a concept with respect to “information services“, this means libraries, archives or records services.
ETHICS
READING ONE
Anderson, C. (2006). Ethics and digital preservation. In Ethical decision making for digital libraries (pp. 81-90). Oxford: Chandos Publishing. Retrieved from http://eres.lis.curtin.edu.au/cgi-bin/gw?url=DC60260496
1. What does LOCKSS stand for? How is it being used in libraries? (2 sentences)
2. What is the *stated* goal of the Internet Archive ? ( 1 sentence)
READING TWO
Anderson, C. (2006). Ethics and access. In Ethical decision making for digital libraries (pp. 91 – 103). Oxford: Chandos Publishing. Retrieved from http://eres.lis.curtin.edu.au/cgi-bin/gw?url=DC60260496
READ ONLY pp. 99 – 103
3. How have some librarians in the United States responded to the possibility that their records may be subpoenaed by federal agencies? (1 sentence)
ONLINE SECURITY
READING THREE
Farrar, R. (2008, September 24). How Secure is a Secure Web Page? Retrieved from http://www.richardfarrar.com/how-secure-is-a-secure-web-page/
4. What is the difference between a web address that includes http and one that includes https ? (1 sentence)
5. When a site has a security certificate that you can view, what does it mean if it is signed by a third party? ( 1 sentence)
6. What are two ways that you can tell if a website is being served using a Secure Socket Layer ? (1 sentence)
READING FOUR
7. Why is there concern about the Firefox Browser extension “Firesheep”? ( 1 sentence)
8. What measures could an information service that provides free public wifi access take to prevent problems associated with Firesheep ? This is asking for measures that could be taken by the information service to prevent Firesheep being a problem for users of the wifi network, not how the organisation can secure browsers on their own PCs or access to information on their own website. (1 sentence)
9. List one advantage and one disadvantage of adding the extension “AdBlock+” to the public access PCs in an academic library (2 sentences)?
READING FIVE
10. When talking about access control, what is the difference between identification, authentication and authorization ? Please give an example of each in an information service context (3 sentences)
READING SIX
The leaky corporation. (2011, February 24). The Economist. Retrieved from http://www.economist.com/node/18226961
11. Which type of information service do you think would be most likely to apply the automated security measures discussed in the article and why? (1 sentence)
12. Which type of information service do you think would be most likely to benefit from corporate transparency of their operations and why? (1 sentence)
PRESERVING DIGITAL CONTENT
READING SEVEN
State Library of Western Australia. (2010, December 17). Creating and keeping your digital treasures: February 2009. . Retrieved October 20, 2010, from http://www.slwa.wa.gov.au/digital_treasures
13. Why is a Microsoft Office .doc file format not acceptable as a preservation format? (1 sentence). You will need to think about this and work it out from the readings
14. If I wanted to be easily able to retrieve it, what is a sensible file name to give the image of a holiday snap of a large fire engine that I took in Broome on 30 January 2012 ? Please use the naming convention schema suggested by the State Library of Western Australia in the reading (1 sentence)
READING EIGHT
Digital New Zealand. (2010, August 3). Preserving digital content – DigitalNZ. Retrieved from http://makeit.digitalnz.org/guidelines/preserving-digital-content/
15. When discussing digital preservation, what is a “migration strategy”? (1 sentence)
BACKUPS
READING NINE
Krogh, P. (n.d.). Backup Overview. American Society of Media Photographers. Retrieved from http://www.dpbestflow.org/node/262
16. List nine threats that could cause data loss. (1 sentence)
17. Which of these threats do you think is most likely in i) a library local history collection or ii) archive of patient records and why? Answer for one type of service.(1 sentence)
18. What is one advantage and one disadvantage of offline storage ? (2 sentences)
19. Why would you perform a trial restoration of a backup? ( 1 sentence)
DISASTER RECOVERY
READINGS TEN
Browse the following three articles. Have a look at the comments as well as the text.
Moses, A., & Grubb, B. (2011, January 12). Digital Armageddon for flood victims. Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved from http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/digital-armageddon-for-flood-victims-20110112-19nfy.html
Birmingham, J. (2011, January 24). When the next flood comes will you grab your life raft or keyboard? Brisbane Times. Retrieved from http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/technology/blogs/the-geek/when-the-next-flood-comes-will-you-grab-your-life-raft-or-keyboard-20110124-1a1uq.html
Cochrane, N. (2011, January 18). Librarians rewrite the book on disaster recovery. itnews for Australian Business. Retrieved from http://www.itnews.com.au/News/245107,librarians-rewrite-the-book-on-disaster-recovery.aspx
20. What would you suggest to someone who asks you how to recover data on a flood damaged hard drive? ( 1 sentence)
21. What would you suggest to the same person to prevent this kind of data loss in the future? ( 1 sentence)
OPTIONAL READING – PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
Substantial work on the animated move,Toy Story 2, was – apparently – dangerously close to being permanently erased due to a combination of insecure access to a server and backup failure. This two and a half minute animated movie explains how it happened and how crisis was averted.
Pixar studio stories – The movie vanishes (full). (2011). Retrieved from http://youtu.be/EL_g0tyaIeE
The readings below are for interest only, and should only be read if you want to know more on the topic.
FURTHER READING – TEXT BOOK
Please read: Protecting Technology and Technology Users: Spam, Spyware, and Security Strips pp. 173-181
FURTHER READING TWO
Why it is not a good idea to plug in a USB drive that you find lying around when you work for the State Government:
Office of the Auditor General for Western Australia. (2011). Information Systems Audit Report: Summary. Perth, Western Australia. Retrieved from http://www.audit.wa.gov.au/reports/pdfreports/insert2011_04.pdf
( Full report at Office of the Auditor General for Western Australia. (2011). Information Systems Audit Report: Full Report (No. 4). Perth, Western Australia. Retrieved from http://www.audit.wa.gov.au/reports/pdfreports/report2011_04.pdf )
Infoventurer 