Economics and Engineering for Preserving Digital Content

Progress towards practical long-term preservation seems to be stalled. Preservationists cannot afford specially developed technology, but must exploit what is created for the marketplace. Economic and technical facts suggest that most preservation ork should be shifted from repository institutions to information producers and consumers. Prior publications describe solutions for all known conceptual challenges of preserving a single digital object, but do not deal with software development or scaling to large collections. Much of the document handling software needed is available. It has, however, not yet been selected, adapted, integrated, or deployed for digital preservation. The daily tools of both information producers and information consumers can be extended to embed preservation packaging without much burdening these users. We describe a practical strategy for detailed design and implementation. Document handling is intrinsically complicated because of human sensitivity to communication nuances. Our engineering section therefore starts by discussing how project managers can master the many pertinent details.

Digital Preservation as an Albatross

‘Digital Preservation’ as a concept is an albatross. The complex and somewhat arcane nature of the practice has kept it from being embraced by those that perhaps need it most. Changes in terminology, misunderstandings of meanings and a lack of direct business planning have brought about a state of affairs that has the digital preservation community fighting the problem of technological obsolescence without sustained support from organisations that supposedly need it most. Organisations care about ensuring their continued existence and profitability. Investment is only undertaken after reflection on business cases. In creating a business case most people focus primarily on cost, but there must be a counter-veiling focus on value. There is no point in making an investment unless it has worth to the investor. A good business case will display a strong understanding of the value of information objects that organisations create. Information professionals must ensure that their desire to ensure longevity of information is tied coherently and explicitly to that of the organisation’s future and detail why the digital materials are of value to it. Exploring value in this way allows engagement with senior management as it wraps the need for action in the terminology of their strategic vision and allows for a strong and successful business case to be made

Components of Financial Stability of Credit Institutions: A New Perspective and New Horizons

The article discloses a financial model characterizing the stability of credit institutions. In addition to the traditional quantitative indicators of the bank's activities, such as capital, assets, profit of the credit institution and others, relative indicators are of particular importance for assessing the effectiveness of banking activities. It is necessary to evaluate both quantitative and qualitative indicators of the activity of credit institutions, the synergy of which will enable them to identify the components of financial soundness and their assessment. An assessment of the financial stability of an individual credit institution is possible only based on the results of a comparison with the industry average components of financial stability. Particular attention is paid to such a component of assessing the financial stability of banks, as the effectiveness of the settlement of troubled debts. The authors of the article developed an alternative system for choosing a strategy for resolving the problem debt of credit institutions based on the qualimetric model.The idea and motivation (idea, purpose, motivation)The idea of the analysis is to study the validity and completeness of the hypotheses in accordance with which a study was made of financial stability of credit institutions and its impact on the willingness of customers and investors of banks to place their funds with them, as well as their possible outflow or counteraction to it depending on compliance their market discipline, the level and quality of risk management, as well as the availability of transparent and reliable information about the financial situation

JISC Preservation of Web Resources (PoWR) Handbook

Handbook of Web Preservation produced by the JISC-PoWR project which ran from April to November 2008. The handbook specifically addresses digital preservation issues that are relevant to the UK HE/FE web management community”. The project was undertaken jointly by UKOLN at the University of Bath and ULCC Digital Archives department

Investing in Curation: A Shared Path to Sustainability

No abstract available

D2.1: baseline study of stakeholder & stakeholder initiatives

To initiate the Engagement work package in 4C, a baseline group of stakeholders was identified and an analysis of significant cost modelling and economics-related work in the field of digital curation has been carried out. Also, a small questionnaire has been sent to stakeholders in order to engage them in the project and to better understand their current state of practice in assessing digital curation costs. As such, this document reports on task 2.1 of the 4C project, i.e. Baseline study of stakeholders and initiatives on the domain of digital curation costs; and includes the results of the following subtasks: 1. A collection of relevant work on cost modelling activities in the context of digital curation; 2. An initial registry of stakeholder groups and contacts; 3. The results of the application of a questionnaire sent to stakeholders to grasp the state of practice and current needs in the field of digital curation costs.Project funded by EC under the call FP7-ICT-2011-

Open Source Integrated Library Systems in Public Libraries

One of the most fundamental decisions a library makes is choosing an integrated library system, or ILS. A public library can remove unwanted outside influence and save money by switching their ILS to free and open source software, or FOSS. This article is an examination of the progress made by FOSS ILSs to become not only contenders against proprietary systems, but also an appropriate choice for financial, functional, and philosophical reasons. Included is a timeline of published evaluations, the milestone of 14% adoption, a summary of the current landscape, and example implementation cases. A functional analysis shows why a public library can now safely make the switch. A philosophical analysis shows why they should do so. Finally, a proposal is made to “Buy Back America’s Libraries, and return ownership of the keystone of our public information infrastructure to the people

Fair Use Challenges in Academic and Research Libraries

Summarizes findings from a survey of librarians on the application of fair use in copyright practice to fulfill libraries' missions of teaching and learning support, scholarship support preservation, exhibition, and public outreach

Environmental and productivity management: the business sustainability syndrome

Original article can be found at: http://www.inderscience.com/ Copyright Inderscience Enterprises Limited. DOI: 10.1504/IJETM.2009.021578Every organisation must ensure that its responsibilities are encompassed within its legal, social and economic domains. Environmental and productivity issues thus need to be entwined to form the foundation of such an effective corporate strategy. The inter-relationships of sustainability, growth and the improvement in quality of life are discussed through a stakeholder approach where "green‟ yardsticks are explored and related to productivity. A framework for analysis is constructed, illustrating the flow from inputs, through processes, to outputs and, ultimately, to outcomes, highlighting impacts on society. Such a perspective can be perceived as the contemporary sustainability vision through sensible resource utilisation.Peer reviewe