Dr David Holdsworth I am now retired, but still hold the unpaid status of Senior Visiting Researcher at Leeds University Information Systems Services. I am working on preserving historic software so that it can be demonstrated to future generations of computer users. This is draws on my work in digital preservation in the CEDARS and CAMiLEON projects. e-mail: D.Holdsworth@Leeds.ac.uk

Some Areas of professional activity:

• Long-Term Digital Storage
  For a long time I was involved in long-term digital storage, particularly with the CEDARS Project and the CAMiLEON Project. Each of these was concerned with different aspects of preservation of our digital material. These collaborative projects involve the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford and Michigan. (more detail)
• X.509 and LDAP (more detail)
  During 2001 I was part of a project investigating the application of Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) in higher education. This is part of the US/UK Internet2 initiative.
• Software preservation (more detail)
  As a part of my long-term storage activities, I am part of the Computer Conservation Society Committee, looking particularly at the preservation of software (especially systems software) in such a way that we can recreate the experiance of using yesterday's computers on current hardware.
• Year 2000 Project Manager, Leeds University
  During 1998 and 1999 I was the manager of the the Leeds University Y2k work. Our early creation of a web site tracking the state of the software in use in our university, led many others to link to our site.
• Programming Languages (Java entertainment is available)
  Throughout my career in computing, I have had a particular interest in programming languages. I am a passionate believer in the power of abstraction in the management of the complexities of computation (as evidenced by the title in the paper below).
• Robotic File Archive
  The Low-cost Everlasting Extensible Data Store is very much my creation, and has been in operation since 1991.
• British Computer Society
  I have been a long-serving member of the committee of the West Yorkshire Branch of the BCS. From Oct 1992 until Oct 98 I held office as Vice-President (Branches), and served as an elected member of the BCS Council until 2001. I was again elected to Council for the term 2002 to 2005.

Recent(?) Publications:

Holdsworth, D. History, Nostalgia and Software Making the History of Computing Relevant IFIP WG 9.7 International Conference HC 2013 June 2013

Holdsworth, D. & Wheatley, P.R. Long-term Stewardship of Globally-distributed Representation Information NASA/IEEE MSST2004, 12th NASA Goddard/21st IEEE Conference on Mass Storage Systems and Technologies Long-term Stewardship of Globally-distributed Storage April 2004, presented as a 2 hour tutorial

Holdsworth, D. & Wheatley, P.R. Emulation, Preservation and Abstraction
RLG DigiNews, Volume 5 Issue 4, August 2001 (mirror)

Coming from the CEDARS Project:

Holdsworth, D. & Sergeant, D.M. A Blueprint for Representation Information in the OAIS Model (PDF)
Eighth NASA Goddard / Seventeenth IEEE Conference on Mass Storage Systems and Technologies, March 2000

Coming from work on robotic file archive systems:

These two papers describe different perspectives on the Robotic file archive, see above. The first paper is more end-user oriented, while the second is directed at an audience familiar with the technology.

Holdsworth, D. Towards a tera-byte
Axis, Volume 4 Number 1, 1997

Holdsworth, D. The Medium is NOT the message.
Fifth NASA Goddard Conference on Mass Storage Systems and Technologies
NASA publication 3340, September 1996