Preservation for Institutional Repositories: practical and invisible

With good prospects for growth in institutional repository (IR) contents, in the UK, due to the proposed RCUK policy on mandating deposit of papers on funded work, and internationally due to the Berlin 3 recommendation, it is timely to investigate preservation solutions for IRs. The paper takes a broad view of preservation issues for IRs - based on practice, experience and visions for the future - from the perspective of Preserv, a JISC-funded project. It considers preservation in the context of IRs. Based on the OAIS preservation model, an architecture is proposed to support distributed preservation services for IRs. Work performed so far involves adapting the IR user deposit interface in a pilot version of EPrints software for building IRs, and determining accurate file format information using Pronom software. The paper looks ahead briefly at the role of preservation service providers, working for the IR, within this architecture. The strategy is to take practical steps that are, as far as possible, invisible to all but those concerned with the preservation process for IRs

Investing in value: a perspective on digital preservation

No abstract available

LIFE3: A predictive costing tool for digital collections

Predicting the costs of long-term digital preservation is a crucial yet complex task for even the largest repositories and institutions. For smaller projects and individual researchers faced with preservation requirements, the problem is even more overwhelming, as they lack the accumulated experience of the former. Yet being able to estimate future preservation costs is vital to answering a range of important questions for each. The LIFE (Life Cycle Information for E-Literature) project, which has just completed its third phase, helps institutions and researchers address these concerns, reducing the financial and preservation risks, and allowing decision makers to assess a range of options in order to achieve effective preservation while operating within financial restraints. The project is a collaboration between University College London (UCL), The British Library and the Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute (HATII) at the University of Glasgow. Funding has been supplied in the UK by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) and the Research Information Network (RIN)

espida Bibliography

This is the bibliography pulled together during research for the espida Project

Preserving Open Access Journals: A Literature Review

This literature review addresses certain questions concerning the preservation of free, born-digital scholarly materials. It covers recent thinking on the current state of preservation efforts of born-digital materials; the range of actors involved in significant preservation initiatives of these artefacts; the perceived barriers preventing open access materials from benefiting from existing preservation efforts; initiatives that may enable local, small-scale preservation efforts to be undertaken; the challenges and opportunities posed to preservation by new models of scholarship such as open access datasets, reference sharing and annotation, collaborative authoring and community peer review. The review identifies representative international collaborative preservation initiatives, describes their goals and results, their specific preservation strategie, and their applicability to the preservation of born digital open access materials

LIFE: bibliography

The following bibliography came out of the research which formed the first phase of the joint British Library-UCL LIFE (Lifecycle Information for E-Literature) project. The references are not an exhaustive review of digital preservation activities, they are a reflection of the aims of the LIFE project. Any suggestions for additions or comments can be emailed to [email protected]

The world is all grown digital.... How shall a man persuade management what to do in such times?

Understanding and communicating the cost and value of digital curation activities has now been recognised by a number of projects and initiatives as a very important factor in ensuring the longterm survival of digital assets. A number of projects have developed costing models for digital preservation but there remains a major problem with information assets (digital or otherwise) in that their value is difficult to express in terms that are readily understood by all the stakeholders, especially those who might fund their preservation. This paper introduces a range of issues concerning information value and business models for sustained funding of digital preservation, with particular reference to the espida Project recently completed at the University of Glasgow. This project has developed a model of information value that builds on the Balanced Scorecard approach to business performance developed by Kaplan and Norton. This model casts information curation as an investment where current and ongoing expenditure is incurred in order to produce future returns, benefiting a range of stakeholders. In this formulation, value is seen as multifaceted and, from the point of view of the individual or organisation funding the curation, explicitly related to the funder’s strategic goals. It also recognises that benefits may only accrue over the long term and that there is a risk that information that is preserved may fail to deliver any return. Examples discussed in the paper concern the establishment of an institutional repository and the establishment of an e-thesis service for an educational institution. It concludes that a deconstruction of benefits of this kind can be more quickly and fully understood even by stakeholders not necessarily expert in the curation field. This facilitates the production of a well-constructed case that clearly articulates information value and the benefit that accrues from its curation, which in turn allows senior management or other funders to make funding decisions based on understandable information: the basic premise of good practice in management. This is a commonly understood idea and one that the espida methodology helps fulfil

espida Bibliography

This is the bibliography pulled together during research for the espida Project

I stand, they don't deliver: or why the highwayman approach to funding digital preservation doesn't work

No abstract available