Skip to main content
  • Textbook
  • © 2018

Cinderella's Stick

A Fairy Tale for Digital Preservation

  • Explains problems and solutions related to digital preservation using examples based on a modern version of the Cinderella fairy tale

  • Introduces the notion of patterns to describe potential problems, possible solutions, and practical lessons learned to avoid related issues

  • Accompanied by a website providing links to various tools, updates, teaching materials – and the contents of Cinderella’s “real USB stick”

Buy it now

Buying options

eBook USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book USD 69.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check for access.

Table of contents (21 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xxi
  2. A Few Words About Digital Preservation and Book Overview

    • Yannis Tzitzikas, Yannis Marketakis
    Pages 1-12
  3. The Fairy Tale of Cinderella

    • Yannis Tzitzikas, Yannis Marketakis
    Pages 13-14
  4. Daphne (A Modern Cinderella)

    • Yannis Tzitzikas, Yannis Marketakis
    Pages 15-19
  5. Reading the Contents of the USB Stick

    • Yannis Tzitzikas, Yannis Marketakis
    Pages 21-28
  6. First Contact with the Contents of the USB Stick

    • Yannis Tzitzikas, Yannis Marketakis
    Pages 29-38
  7. The File Poem.html: On Reading Characters

    • Yannis Tzitzikas, Yannis Marketakis
    Pages 39-47
  8. The File MyPlace.png: On Getting the Provenance of a Digital Object

    • Yannis Tzitzikas, Yannis Marketakis
    Pages 49-59
  9. The File todo.csv: On Understanding Data Values

    • Yannis Tzitzikas, Yannis Marketakis
    Pages 61-82
  10. The File destroyAll.exe: On Executing Proprietary Software

    • Yannis Tzitzikas, Yannis Marketakis
    Pages 83-93
  11. The File MyMusic.class: On Decompiling Software

    • Yannis Tzitzikas, Yannis Marketakis
    Pages 95-103
  12. The File yyy.java: On Compiling and Running Software

    • Yannis Tzitzikas, Yannis Marketakis
    Pages 105-111
  13. The File myFriendsBook.war: On Running Web Applications

    • Yannis Tzitzikas, Yannis Marketakis
    Pages 113-121
  14. The File roulette.BAS: On Running Obsolete Software

    • Yannis Tzitzikas, Yannis Marketakis
    Pages 123-132
  15. The Folder myExperiment: On Verifying and Reproducing Data

    • Yannis Tzitzikas, Yannis Marketakis
    Pages 133-145
  16. The File MyContacts.con: On Reading Unknown Digital Resources

    • Yannis Tzitzikas, Yannis Marketakis
    Pages 147-153
  17. The File SecretMeeting.txt: On Authenticity Checking

    • Yannis Tzitzikas, Yannis Marketakis
    Pages 155-164
  18. The Personal Archive of Robert: On Preservation Planning

    • Yannis Tzitzikas, Yannis Marketakis
    Pages 165-187
  19. The Meta-Pattern: Toward a Common Umbrella

    • Yannis Tzitzikas, Yannis Marketakis
    Pages 189-223
  20. How Robert Eventually Found Daphne

    • Yannis Tzitzikas, Yannis Marketakis
    Pages 225-231

About this book

This book explains the main problems related to digital preservation using examples based on a modern version of the well-known Cinderella fairy tale. Digital preservation is the endeavor to protect digital material against loss, corruption, hardware/software technology changes, and changes in the knowledge of the community.


Τhe structure of the book is modular, with each chapter consisting of two parts: the episode and the technical background. The episodes narrate the story in chronological order, exactly as in a fairy tale. In addition to the story itself, each episode is related to one or more digital preservation problems, which are discussed in the technical background section of the chapter. To reveal a more general and abstract formulation of these problems, the notion of pattern is used. Each pattern has a name, a summary of the problem, a narrative describing an attempt to solve the problem, an explanation of what could have been done to avoid or alleviate this problem, some lessons learned, and lastly, links to related patterns discussed in other chapters.


The book is intended for anyone wanting to understand the problems related to digital preservation, even if they lack the technical background. It explains the technical details at an introductory level, provides references to the main approaches (or solutions) currently available for tackling related problems, and is rounded out by questions and exercises appropriate for computer engineers and scientists. In addition, the book's website, maintained by the authors, presents the contents of Cinderella's “real USB stick,” and includes links to various tools and updates.

Reviews

“‘Cinderella’s Stick’ is an excellent book for all readers in research libraries. It provides the right concepts in a very smart and innovative way, and it underlines that the amount of digital information that we alone produce is immense and the challenges of fragility are here to stay.” (Giannis Tsakonas, Liber Quarterly, Vol. 29(1), 2019)

“An out of the box approach to describe the main issues generated by the obsolescence of the digital material and its surroundings as well as the methods and actions for digital preservation. The exploration of the digital preservation space is given through a nice fairy tale that facilitates the understanding of advanced concepts and complicated computer science methods. The chapters of the book correspond to correlated patterns - particular digital preservation problems and the corresponding policies for their resolution - creating paths - sets of policies - to confront issues in an integrated way. A very creative combination of homogeneity, modularity and fiction!” (Christos Papatheodorou, Professor, Department of Archives, Library Science and Museology, Ionian University)

“A wide range of digital preservation actions are covered in the book in a comprehensive and creative way. Comprehensive, as it provides in depth coverage of computer science solutions for a wide range of digital preservation problems. Creative, as it uses the imagery of the long and winding road of a fairytale towards a happy ending.” (René van Horik Data Archiving and Networked Services –DANS-KNAW)

“It is a well-structured, easy-to-read book, ideal for understanding basic terms and aspects of digital preservation, even suitable for people with other than technical background. I really liked the concept of pattern!” (Katerina Lenaki, University of Crete Library, Greece)

“A good start for those who want to get a global view of Digital preservation and get basic information about where they can find further material”. (Panos Georgiou, University of Patras Library & Information Center, Greece)

“Where a fairytale of the past meets a modern version of it, where contemporary Digital Preservation topics addressed to scientists and researchers touch on the everyday life of the average user of new technologies, a narrative with elements of the myth that could nevertheless be true, unfolds with examples the technical background to solve the problems that arise. An enjoyable reading, undisturbed interest, stimulates curiosity and sheds plenty of light thanks to its original style and its perfect structure.” (Tonia Dellaporta, French Language and Literature Teacher)

Authors and Affiliations

  • Computer Science Department, University of Crete, Vassilika Vouton, Heraklion, Greece

    Yannis Tzitzikas

  • Institute of Computer Science, Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas, Vasilika Vouton, Heraklion,, Greece

    Yannis Marketakis

About the authors

Yannis Tzitzikas is Associate Professor of Information Systems in the Computer Science Department of the University of Crete (Greece) and Affiliated Researcher in the Information Systems Lab (ISL) at FORTH-ICS (Greece) and coordinator of the Semantic Access and Retrieval group (http://www.ics.forth.gr/isl/sar). His research focuses on semantic data management, exploratory search and digital preservation. Over the last years he had an active role to several EU projects (iMarine, BlueBRIDGE) including the digital preservation-related projects CASPAR, SCIDIP-ES and APARSEN NoE where he was the leader of the work package on interoperability. He has published more than 120 papers in refereed international conferences and journals and received two best paper awards.


Yannis Marketakis works as an R&D Engineer in the Information System Laboratory at FORTH-ICS (GR). His main interests include: information systems, conceptual modeling, knowledge representation using Semantic Web technologies, data integration and object-oriented languages. He has been involved in several EU and national projects (including iMarine, BlueBRIDGE, VRE4EIC and others) as well as in the digital preservation-related EU projects CASPAR and SCIDIP-ES. He has participated as an author in more than 35 scientific publications.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Cinderella's Stick

  • Book Subtitle: A Fairy Tale for Digital Preservation

  • Authors: Yannis Tzitzikas, Yannis Marketakis

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98488-9

  • Publisher: Springer Cham

  • eBook Packages: Computer Science, Computer Science (R0)

  • Copyright Information: Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2018

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-98487-2Published: 11 December 2018

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-98488-9Published: 29 November 2018

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XXI, 249

  • Number of Illustrations: 97 b/w illustrations, 13 illustrations in colour

  • Topics: Information Storage and Retrieval, Natural Language Processing (NLP)

Buy it now

Buying options

eBook USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book USD 69.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access