The second phase of the Preserving Virtual Worlds project, which explored methods for preserving digital games and interactive fiction, has been awarded a National Leadership Grant of $785,898 by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).
Preserving Virtual Worlds II: Methods for Evaluating and Preserving Significant Properties of Educational Games and Complex Interactive Environments (PVW2) is led by GSLIS Assistant Professor Jerome McDonough in partnership with the Rochester Institute of Technology, the University of Maryland, and Stanford University. PVW2 plans to help improve the capacity of libraries, museums, and archives to preserve computer games, video games, and interactive fiction.
The original Preserving Virtual Worlds project, funded by the Library of Congress’s National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIP), investigated what preservation issues arose with computer games and interactive fiction, and how existing metadata and packaging standards might be employed for the long-term preservation of these materials. PVW2 will focus on determining properties for a variety of educational games and game franchises in order to provide a set of best practices for preserving the materials through virtualization technologies and migration, as well as provide an analysis of how the preservation process is documented. PVW2 is a two-year project, to be conducted between October 2010 and September 2012.
The final report from Preserving Virtual Worlds is available in IDEALS, the Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship.
Listen to McDonough discuss the project, which was shortlisted for Digital Preservation Award 2010.