Tallennanic

Tallennanic is a hypothetical open standard and platform for long-term digital preservation and retrieval of electronic records. It is intended to ensure authenticity, integrity, and continued accessibility of stored data across decades by combining resilient storage, rich metadata, and policy-driven preservation actions.

The design emphasizes a modular architecture that separates data storage from metadata and access control. Core objectives include durability against hardware failure, resistance to format obsolescence, interoperability among institutions, and clear provenance for future researchers and auditors.

Key components of the Tallennanic system include a Storage Layer using distributed, erasure-coded repositories; a Metadata Registry that defines preservation metadata and provenance; an Integrity and Audit subsystem that computes and verifies cryptographic checksums; a Preservation Policy Engine that governs versioning, migrations, and emulation when needed; and an Access Layer for controlled retrieval.

Metadata practices draw on widely used preservation schemas and standards, such as property-based metadata for fixity, copyright and access rights, and format registries to guide migration decisions. The framework supports automated monitoring, reporting, and policy-driven decision making to balance preservation obligations with user needs.

As a concept, Tallennanic has seen discussion in academic and archival contexts and is instantiated in ongoing pilot projects and prototypes. It is not a formal, widely adopted standard at present, but it is cited as a reference design for illustrating approaches to scalable, sustainable digital preservation.