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It's friday, and I'm out of ideas on this one ;-) The problem: we have some non-linear digital objects - basically they are databases built on proprietary non-open technology, but they could just as easy be computer games, or a dynamically generated web sites, and we need to think about the long term preservation. While we can back up and conserve the one's and zero's with no problem, a lot of the intellectual value of the resouce comes from its non-linearity ie the relation between various objects and the ability to ake different paths through it, ie we need to do more than just back up the content, we also need to conserve the execution environment In the ideal world, you would buy a box with operating system x on it and database y on it and maintain it for ever - realistically this won't work as things break and you can't get replacement parts. Emulation is a possible answer, but what we are seeking to emulate seems to be an order of magnitude more complex than any of the successes of emulation so far. The question: This looks to be a problem people are putting in the 'too hard' box. Does anyone have any pointers to recent work on this topic? -Doug -- Doug Moncur Digital Asset Management System Project Manager AIATSIS GPO Box 553 Canberra ACT 2601 Australia ph: +61 2 6246 1102 fx: +61 2 6246 4285 web: www.aiatsis.gov.au