Metaphors We Work By: Reframing Digital Objects, Significant Properties, and the Design of Digital Preservation Systems

Abstract

Much digital preservation research has evolved around the idea of authentic digital objects and their significant properties. However, the nature of digital preservation work continues to be ill-defined. This paper unpacks definitions of digital objects and their significant properties to deconstruct misleading conflations. I review how the use of the terms digital object and significant properties has evolved in digital preservation, and I identify conceptual inconsistencies. By critiquing the system boundaries assigned by different writers to the term digital objects, I explore the metaphorical nature of the concept and show that the discourse routinely ignores the role of computation in favour of artifact-centred concepts of bits and records. As a consequence, I illustrate category errors around what it means to migrate and preserve digital objects. I suggest a reformulation of both terms based on their metaphorical nature and discuss how this reformulation aligns with insights from research on electronic records and digital preservation. The discussion shows that digital objects are best understood as a metaphorical concept that allows us to articulate the emergent properties of computed performances relying on data, software, and hardware. Significant properties are best understood as mechanisms that allow curators to specify shared understandings of what constitutes authentic reproductions of digital objects. At the core of digital preservation is the design of software-based information systems intended to reproduce authentic digital objects. The article thus contributes to a reframing of the nature of digital preservation and emphasizes the importance of the conceptual frame of computing and systems design in archival education and practice.