Status Report of the DPHEP Study Group: Towards a Global Effort for Sustainable Data Preservation in High Energy Physics

Data from high-energy physics (HEP) experiments are collected with significant financial and human effort and are mostly unique. An inter-experimental study group on HEP data preservation and long-term analysis was convened as a panel of the International Committee for Future Accelerators (ICFA). The group was formed by large collider-based experiments and investigated the technical and organisational aspects of HEP data preservation. An intermediate report was released in November 2009 addressing the general issues of data preservation in HEP. This paper includes and extends the intermediate report. It provides an analysis of the research case for data preservation and a detailed description of the various projects at experiment, laboratory and international levels. In addition, the paper provides a concrete proposal for an international organisation in charge of the data management and policies in high-energy physics

The case for preserving our knowledge and data in physics experiments

This proceeding covers tools and technologies at our disposal for scientific data preservation and shows that this extends the scientific reach of our experiments. It is cost-efficient to warehouse data from completed experiments on the tape archives of our national and international laboratories. These subject-specific data stores also offer the technologies to capture and archive knowledge about experiments in the form of technical notes, electronic logs, websites, etc. Furthermore, it is possible to archive our source code and computing environments. The paper illustrates these challenges with experience from preserving the LEP data for the long term.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figur

Four Decades of Computing in Subnuclear Physics - from Bubble Chamber to LHC

This manuscript addresses selected aspects of computing for the reconstruction and simulation of particle interactions in subnuclear physics. Based on personal experience with experiments at DESY and at CERN, I cover the evolution of computing hardware and software from the era of track chambers where interactions were recorded on photographic film up to the LHC experiments with their multi-million electronic channels

Bringing self assessment home: repository profiling and key lines of enquiry within DRAMBORA

Digital repositories are a manifestation of complex organizational, financial, legal, technological, procedural, and political interrelationships. Accompanying each of these are innate uncertainties, exacerbated by the relative immaturity of understanding prevalent within the digital preservation domain. Recent efforts have sought to identify core characteristics that must be demonstrable by successful digital repositories, expressed in the form of check-list documents, intended to support the processes of repository accreditation and certification. In isolation though, the available guidelines lack practical applicability; confusion over evidential requirements and difficulties associated with the diversity that exists among repositories (in terms of mandate, available resources, supported content and legal context) are particularly problematic. A gap exists between the available criteria and the ways and extent to which conformity can be demonstrated. The Digital Repository Audit Method Based on Risk Assessment (DRAMBORA) is a methodology for undertaking repository self assessment, developed jointly by the Digital Curation Centre (DCC) and DigitalPreservationEurope (DPE). DRAMBORA requires repositories to expose their organization, policies and infrastructures to rigorous scrutiny through a series of highly structured exercises, enabling them to build a comprehensive registry of their most pertinent risks, arranged into a structure that facilitates effective management. It draws on experiences accumulated throughout 18 evaluative pilot assessments undertaken in an internationally diverse selection of repositories, digital libraries and data centres (including institutions and services such as the UK National Digital Archive of Datasets, the National Archives of Scotland, Gallica at the National Library of France and the CERN Document Server). Other organizations, such as the British Library, have been using sections of DRAMBORA within their own risk assessment procedures. Despite the attractive benefits of a bottom up approach, there are implicit challenges posed by neglecting a more objective perspective. Following a sustained period of pilot audits undertaken by DPE, DCC and the DELOS Digital Preservation Cluster aimed at evaluating DRAMBORA, it was stated that had respective project members not been present to facilitate each assessment, and contribute their objective, external perspectives, the results may have been less useful. Consequently, DRAMBORA has developed in a number of ways, to enable knowledge transfer from the responses of comparable repositories, and incorporate more opportunities for structured question sets, or key lines of enquiry, that provoke more comprehensive awareness of the applicability of particular threats and opportunities

Libraries in Switzerland

Ausgehend von einem historischen Überblick schildert der Beitrag die Entwicklung der Schweizer Bibliotheken in der Zeit von 1970 bis 2010: soziopolitischer Kontext, Struktur des Bibliothekswesen, technischer Wandel, wichtigste Akteure und aktuelle Herausforderungen. Starting with a brief history of libraries in Switzerland, this report focusses on the development of Swiss libraries from 1970 to 2010: socio-political context, structure of the Swiss library sector, change driven by technology, main actors, and challenges at the beginning of the new millennium. Suite à un aperçu historique, l'article décrit le développement des bibliothèques suisses dans la période de 1970 à 2010: le contexte socio-politique, la structure du secteur des bibliothèques, les changements technologiques, les principaux acteurs et les défis actuels