  Through an NEH-funded initiative, Cornell University Library is creating a
technical, curatorial, and managerial framework for preserving access to
complex born-digital new media objects. The Library's Rose Goldsen Archive of
New Media Art provides the testbed for this project. This collection of complex
interactive born-digital artworks are used by students, faculty, and artists
from various disciplines. Interactive digital assets are far more complex to
preserve and manage than single uniform digital media files. The preservation
model developed will apply not merely to new media artworks, but to other rich
digital media environments. This article describes the project's findings and
discoveries, focusing on a user survey conducted with the aim of creating user
profiles and use cases for born-digital assets like those in the testbed
collection. The project's ultimate goal is to create a preservation and access
practice grounded in thorough and practical understanding of the
characteristics of digital objects and their access requirements, seen from the
perspectives of collection curators and users alike. We discuss how the survey
findings informed the development of an artist questionnaire to support
creation of user-centric and cost-efficient preservation strategies. Although
this project focuses on new media art, our methodologies and findings will
inform other kinds of complex born-digital collections.
