A model for digital preservation repository risk relationships

The paper introduces the Preserved Object and Repository Risk Ontology (PORRO), a model that relates preservation functionality with associated risks and opportunities for their mitigation. Building on work undertaken in a range of EU and UK funded research projects (including the Digital Curation Centre , DigitalPreservationEurope and DELOS ), this ontology illustrates relationships between fundamental digital library goals and their parameters; associated rights and responsibilities; practical activities and resources involved in their accomplishment; and risks facing digital libraries and their collections. Its purpose is to facilitate a comprehensive understanding of risk causality and to illustrate opportunities for mitigation and avoidance. The ontology reflects evidence accumulated from a series of institutional audits and evaluations, including a specific subset of digital libraries in the DELOS project which led to the definition of a digital library preservation risk profile. Its applicability is intended to be widespread, and its coverage expected to evolve to reflect developments within the community. Attendees will gain an understanding of the model and learn how they can utilize this online resource to inform their own risk management activities

The Preservation of Digital Objects in German Repositories: Die Archivierung digitaler Objekte in deutschenRepositorien: Drei Fallstudien: Three Case Studies

Taking its cue from the increasing amount of digital content deposited into institutional and subject repositories as well as the open question of repositories'' role in long-term preservation, this study presents case studies of three German institutional and subject repositories all of which are in a different stage of establishing a (cooperative) framework for the long-term preservation of their digital collections. Drawing on different sets of criteria for trustworthy repositories, it is investigated which strategies the selected repositories pursue to preserve the digital assets in their collections, and how these strategies are implemented with the help of both human repository staff and the repository software used. The following repositories are considered: pedocs (Deutsches Institut für Internationale Pädagogische Forschung), JUWEL (Forschungszentrum Jülich), and Qucosa (SLUB Dresden). In that the latter can be regarded as examples for common types of (German) repositories, the results of this study might on the one hand serve as a guideline for repositories that intend, similar to the ones described here, to explore questions of long-term preservation in the near future, or are even taking their first concrete steps in this field. On the other hand, it is hoped that this work can at least give some hints as to the stage and status of long-term preservation in the German repository landscape

Eprints and the Open Archives Initiative

The Open Archives Initiative (OAI) was created as a practical way to promote interoperability between eprint repositories. Although the scope of the OAI has been broadened, eprint repositories still represent a significant fraction of OAI data providers. In this article I present a brief survey of OAI eprint repositories, and of services using metadata harvested from eprint repositories using the OAI protocol for metadata harvesting (OAI-PMH). I then discuss several situations where metadata harvesting may be used to further improve the utility of eprint archives as a component of the scholarly communication infrastructure.Comment: 13 page

The ABC ontology and model

This paper describes the latest version of the ABC metadata model. This model has been developed within the Harmony international digital library project to provide a common conceptual model to facilitate interoperability between metadata vocabularies from different domains. This updated ABC model is the result of collaboration with the CIMI consortium whereby earlier versions of the ABC model were applied to metadata descriptions of complex objects provided by CIMI museums and libraries. The result is a metadata model with more logically grounded time and entity semantics. Based on this model we have been able to build a metadata repository of RDF descriptions and a search interface which is capable of more sophisticated queries than less-expressive, object-centric metadata models will allow

Designing a Preservation Survey: The Digital Library of Georgia

Since the mid-1990s, libraries have been digitizing cultural-heritage resource materials for access purposes. The digital medium provides additional opportunities for innovative approaches to scholarship and the creation of new collections through the aggregation of geographically distributed materials of similar provenance or theme. According to Donald Waters, formerly head of the Digital Library Federation, “the promise of digital technology is for libraries to extend the reach of research and education, improve the quality of learning, and reshape scholarly communication.” Accordingly, the cultural-heritage community has widely embraced digitization

Preservació digital i les actuacions bibliotecàries: antecedents i estat actual

Les biblioteques han vist com el format digital ha desplaçat el paper al llarg dels últims vint anys. Malgrat que totes les institucions han hagut de fer front als reptes que representa aquesta transició, només una part s’ha preocupat pel problema de garantir l’accés futur als recursos digitals, tant als adquirits a fonts externes com als produïts internament. Aquest article pretén donar a conèixer els antecedents, els diferents components de l’amenaça, els reptes actuals —tecnològics, econòmics, institucionals i legals— i algunes de les iniciatives per cercar solucions per a la preservació de revistes científiques en format digital i material en web. També es comenta la importància de les metadades de preservació considerades imprescindibles per a la identificació, recuperació, gestió i ús dels recursos digitals a llarg termini. | Las bibliotecas han visto como el formato digital ha desplazado al papel a lo largo de los últimos veinte años. A pesar de que todas las instituciones han tenido que hacer frente a los retos que representa esta transición, sólo una parte se ha preocupado del problema de garantizar el acceso futuro a los recursos digitales, tanto a los adquiridos a fuentes externas como a los producidos internamente. Este artículo pretende dar a conocer los antecedentes, los distintos componentes de la amenaza, los retos actuales —tecnológicos, económicos, institucionales y legales— y algunas de las iniciativas que se llevan a cabo para buscar soluciones para la preservación de revistas científicas en formato digital y material en web. También se comenta la importancia de los metadatos de preservación, considerados imprescindibles para la identificación, recuperación, gestión y uso de los recursos digitales a largo plazo. | Libraries have watched as digital formats have displaced paper over the past twenty years. In spite of the fact that all organisations have had to face the challenges that this transition represents, only a fraction of them have focussed on the problem of guaranteeing future access to digital resources, both those acquired externally as well as those produced internally. This article presents the background, different components of the threat, current challenges —technological, economic, institutional and legal— as well as some current initiatives seeking solutions for preserving scholarly e-journals and material on the Web. Also discussed is the importance of preservation metadata, considered essential for the long-term identification, retrieval, management and use of digital resources