We want to talk to you about it!
In an effort to gauge interest in a slate of digital preservation opportunities currently open to our members in CNY, CLRC is asking members (and any interested, additional library and/or archival partners around the state) to participate in a survey on Cooperative Digital Preservation.
As many librarians and archivists are keenly aware, digital preservation is something our communities have been wrestling with for quite some time. Particularly challenging is the-ever changing and ubiquitous nature of digital material, be it a photograph scanned from analog media or a born-digital, machine-dependent item. As we dive ever deeper into the digital world, digital preservation seems to only grow in importance as it protects our investments (of both time and money) and creates opportunities (both imagined and otherwise) for future users.
Right now, CLRC (and possibly its peer ESLN councils) is looking at launching anywhere from one-to-three different initiatives, each with its own benefits and possibilities. If you are interested in discussing these more, please consider filling out the Cooperative Digital Preservation Interest Poll. The first two possibilities involve consortial purchases of a software that CLRC might facilitate and which your organization could manage locally. The third possibility is an initiative currently being explored by our partners at the Southeastern NY Library Resources Council (or SENYLRC), one of our peer organizations in the Empire State Library Network.
For the consortial purchases, the feedback will very much drive the discussion as the more potential for participation we create, the more we can leverage our purchasing power.
The three services are as follows:
From the website:
First deployed in 2006, Archive-It is a subscription web archiving service from the Internet Archive that helps organizations to harvest, build, and preserve collections of digital content. Through our user friendly web application Archive-It partners can collect, catalog, and manage their collections of archived content with 24/7 access and full text search available for their use as well as their patrons. Content is hosted and stored at the Internet Archive data centers.
When we last spoke with them, they expressed a keen interest in working with public libraries and curating local resources, akin to the vertical files of days gone by. Please let us know by calling the office (315.446.5446) or emailing Deirdre Joyce if you are interested in learning more.
From the website:
The ArchivesDirect complete hosted solution for preserving valuable institutional collections and all types of digital resources was developed by Artefactual Systemsand DuraSpace and was publicly released in March 2015.
…Users of ArchivesDirect have access to a robust suite of digital preservation functions via the online dashboard. Archivematica, well known for its ability to produce highly standardized and interoperable Archival Information Packages, automatically transfers AIP packages to DuraCloud for long-term secure archival storage. Some of the key features of Archivematica that are also available in ArchivesDirect include assigning permanent identifiers and checksums, virus checking, identifying and validating file formats, extracting technical metadata, normalizing files to preservation-friendly formats, and generating detailed PREMIS and METS metadata to facilitate inter-repository data exchange. Key features of DuraCloud included in ArchivesDirect are automated health checking of the content, reporting, and storing multiple synchronized copies in both Amazon S3 and Amazon Glacier.
ArchivesDirect is built on Archivematica and DuraCloud which are unique among preservation and archiving solutions because they are both open-source software which is documented and freely available. This means that ArchivesDirect users can download their data at any point. All formats are based on open standards and there is no proprietary formatting/packaging of content.This means that users of the ArchivesDirect service do not have to worry about data or vendor lock-in and the service can be run locally at any time.
More on Features of ArchivesDirect
the DIGITAL DARK ARCHIVE from SENYLRC
This service is similar to the ArchivesDirect solution outlined above but it is administered by SENYLRC staff using Archivematica and Amazon Glacier and not an individual subscription.
Features include:
- Provides another storage location, off-site, for your institution’s master files
- Files organized into meaningful directories (postcard collection, house collection, etc)
- Files will be processed through Archivematica software to generate standard digital preservation metadata and ensure compliance with ISO OAIS model
- A summary of each package processing will be emailed to the institution’s contact person
- In the event the institution experiences a disaster where they lose their master files, a recovery can be scheduled with SENYLRC staff
The solution is not as comprehensive nor as flexible as Archives Direct, but may suit the needs of users interested in storage solutions for their digital objects. At this point, I believe they are only working with digitized images (not born-digital) so that may limit the audience somewhat.
This project is very much in its pilot phase, so please let us know if you have questions. Pilot testing currently underway at the Rochester Regional Library Council (RRLC), the Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO), and SENYLRC.
The poll here and below, will remain open until August 31.