Software emulation is an important tool for preservation of digital artworks because it allows researchers to experience complex digital materials in their native creation environments, and can thereby enable full access to “software dependent content,” the term offered by Euan Cochrane, Digital Preservation Manager at Yale University, for content that is integral to the overall meaning of a work, but which “requires a particular and limited range of software environments in order to be interacted with, rendered, viewed or consumed.” The Emulation as a Service framework provides a streamlined user experience for accessing a number of different emulated software environments, and the AMIA panel provided an opportunity to examine this approach alongside other recent projects.
