title: Future-Proof Preservation of Complex Software Environments
creators: Klaus Rechert Dirk von Suchodoletz Isgandar Valizada
abstract: Emulation evolves into a mature digital preservation strategy providing authentic access to a wide range of digital objects using their original creation environments. In contrast to migration, an emulation approach requires a number of additional components, namely the full software-stack required to render a digital object, and its configuration. Thus, independent of which emulator is chosen, contextual information of the original computer environment is always needed.
  To overcome this knowledge gap, a formalization process is required to identify the actual building blocks for an authentic rendering environment of a given object. While the information gathering workflow relies heavily on user knowledge and manual interaction during ingest, the workflow is coupled with a feedback loop so that both a complete emulation environment and preservation of desired properties for later access are ensured.
keywords: ischool toronto canada emulation digital preservation