Preservation for IRs

Keep IR preservation in perspective You can't preserve an empty archive. Don't discourage deposits by making them more difficult. Self-archiving of peer reviewed papers is a parallel activity - journals are preserving the originals, e.g. At Koninklijke Bibliotheek intable=1&Article_ID=990 intable=1&Article_ID=990 LOCKSS (Lots Of Copies Keep Stuff Safe)

Digital preservation: a broad view Long-term preservation is an issue that confronts those who are responsible for repositories of digital materials This is a very current issue Contentious statements are made about preservation: digital materials will not disappear overnight; we are not facing a doomsday (or even a BBC Domesday) scenario

Digital repositories trustworthy The proliferation of experience, research, and infrastructure throughout the cultural heritage community has made trustworthy digital repositories conceptually realistic." (RLG-NARA 2005) Trustworthiness needs organisational planning as well as technology E.g. Cornell tutorial on Digital Preservation Management

Trusted repositories What is a trustworthy digital repository? Is an IR trustworthy? Does it need to be? Can preservation be supported as an external service?

Open Archival Information System OAIS is the standard reference model for digital preservation

IRs as an OAIS preservation model An IR model looks similar to the OAIS model: The input interface can be adapted for formal preservation ingest; An IR supports Data Management and Access The main differences are the Archival Storage and Preservation Planning functions

Archival Storage What activities might be involved in Archival Storage? E.g. storage media, media refreshing, reformatting, backups and disaster, recovery, environment, audit, security, preservation strategy, migration, technology preservation, emulation, records management, etc.

PRESERV Project Adapting EPrints to support preservation as an external service Automating file format identification at deposit using PRONOM software from the National Archives Delivering content via an OAI harvesting interface to a preservation service provider. In PRESERV the British Library is an exemplar service provider

PRESERV: a preservation architecture

PRONOM in OAI export from EPrints

What do researchers want? Some anecdotal evidence Q: What Would It Mean To Preserve Your Research? A1: "One would want to understand the context - the whys and motivation for the work - both personal and in terms of the calls for research proposals. A2: "Capture a copy of everything I have ever published: in context, i.e. including a copy of the thing in which my article was published."

What IRs can do now Here are some things you can do to plan for preservation: Find out what your users want Review range of file formats for deposited materials. Is it feasible to restrict to a specified subset? Educate, but dont frighten users Specify some initial requirements Think about business models and cost Watch for developments from PRESERV

Conclusions There is no silver bullet. Take small steps Preservation is not a show-stopper - you should not wait for all the problems to be solved Carry on filling your IR