OAIS Open Archival Information System

“Content creators, systems developers, custodians, and future users are all potential stakeholders in the preservation of digital materials, and this complicates the determination of responsibilities…” OAIS Research Libraries Group. Attributes of a Trusted Digital Repository: Meeting the Needs of Research Resources An RLG-OCLC Report DRAFT FOR PUBLIC COMMENT. Mountain View, California : RLG, Inc., August OCLC. Some Context

OAIS Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System (OAIS) CCSDS B-1 Consultative Committee for Space Data System “Blue Book” ISO 14721:2003 International Organization for Standardization OAIS

“The term ‘Open’ in OAIS is used to imply that this Recommendation, as well as future related Recommendations and standards, are developed in open forums, and it does not imply that access to the archive is unrestricted.” OAIS

“An OAIS is an archive, consisting of an organization of people and systems, that has accepted the responsibility to preserve information and make it available for a Designated Community. OAIS

What is a “Reference Model”? Not an implementation Provide framework Provide concepts Provide terminology Provide a foundation OAIS

What is a “Reference Model”? OAIS modelimplementation

What is a “Reference Model”? It does not prescribe how to build an archive. It gives you the terminology to describe what you do and how you do it. It defines “responsibilities.” OAIS

What is a “Reference Model”? It does not make decisions for you. OAIS

What is a “Reference Model”? It helps you identify the decisions you must make. It helps you choose wisely among alternatives. It helps you define what you do. OAIS

How to use OAIS For planning, review, and evaluation For communication OAIS

How to use OAIS For communication With producers Within your own organization Colleagues Management With other archives and partners With users OAIS

Simplicity OAIS

Generalizable Although it focuses on the digital, it is applicable to any archive: “The information may, in general, be submitted using a wide variety of common and not-so- common forms, such as books, documents, maps, data sets, and moon rocks using a variety of communication paths including networks, mail, and special delivery.” (3.2.1) OAIS

Generalizable The model is even applicable to facilities that hold information temporarily. (1.2) The information being maintained has been deemed to need Long Term Preservation, even if the OAIS itself is not permanent. (1.1) OAIS

Generalizable Applicable both to archives that have steady input streams and to those that have “aperiodic” inputs. It includes archives that provide a wide variety of sophisticated access services as well as those that support only the simplest types of requests. (2) OAIS

Who has used OAIS? NEDLIB, DSEP (Deposit System for Electronic Publications) British Library, Digital Storage Project Library of Congress National Archives Harvard University Stanford University RLG and OCLC National Library of Australia, Pandora Archive Royal Library of the Netherlands UK Data Archive (UKDA) at the University of Essex ICPSR OAIS

Generalizable OAIS

OAIS Functional Model Ingest OAIS Functional Model Archival Storage Access

Information Packages SIP OAIS Information Model AI P DIP

Information Packages SIP: Submission Information Package AIP: Archival Information Packages DIP: Dissemination Information Package (2.2.3) These focus on functions - not format, or media, or files. OAIS Information Model

OAIS Functional Model

OAIS Functional Model (4.1) Ingest Archival Storage Access Data Management Administration Preservation Planning OAIS Functional Model

Generalizable …to systems where the Producer role and the archive role are the responsibility of the same entity. Notes that producer/archivists must realize that “Long Term Preservation activities may conflict with the goals of rapid production and dissemination of products to Consumers.” (2) OAIS

Long Term “Indefinitely” “Permanently” OAIS

Long Term It is specifically applicable to organizations with the responsibility of making information available for the Long Term. (1.2) And… Not just ‘bit storage’ -- but long-term information preservation and access. (2) OAIS

Conforming to OAIS Obtain sufficient control of the information provided to the level needed to ensure Long- Term Preservation. physical ownership or possession of Content Information ownership of intellectual property rights in this information OAIS 3.1 MANDATORY RESPONSIBILITIES

OAIS and Trusted Repositories Trustworthy Repositories Audit & Certification Criteria and Checklist

TRAC Trustworthy Repositories Audit & Certification Criteria and Checklist In 2003, RLG and the National Archives and Records Administration created a joint task force to specifically address digital repository certification. The goal of the RLG-NARA Task Force on Digital Repository Certification has been to develop criteria to identify digital repositories capable of reliably storing, migrating, and providing access to digital collections. The challenge has been to produce certification criteria and delineate a process for certification applicable to a range of digital repositories and archives, from academic institutional preservation repositories to large data archives and from national libraries to third-party digital archiving services.

TRAC TRAC is a checklist based on OAIS criteria. TRAC provides a mechanism for measuring compliance of an archive with OAIS. “Stewardship is easy and inexpensive to claim; it is expensive and difficult to honor, and perhaps it will prove to be all too easy to later abdicate” Lynch, Clifford A. February “Institutional Repositories: Essential Infrastructure for Scholarship in the Digital Age.” ARL BiMonthly Report 226.

TRAC Vardigan, Mary, and Cole Whiteman, ‘ICPSR Meets OAIS: Applying the OAIS Reference Model to the Social Science Archive Context’, Archival Science, 7 (2007),