This describes the background to the Repositories and Preservation Programme.

background

Definitions

A digital repository is differentiated from other digital collections by the following characteristics:

  • Content is deposited in a repository, whether by the content creator, owner or third party
  • The repository architecture manages content as well as metadata
  • The repository offers a minimum set of basic services eg: put, get, search, access control
  • The repository must be sustainable and trusted, well supported, and well managed
  • Enhancing access to scholarly communications is a major driver but not all repositories support open access.
    They must however enhance access to digital resources. Where there are no legal constraints, they should support open access and provide access to its metadata via harvesting.
  • They might provide new modes of publication and peer review, help corporate records management, support data sharing and reuse, and aid the preservation of digital resource.

    Based on Heery, R and Anderson, S (2005) Digital repositories review

Digital preservation refers to the series of managed activities necessary to ensure continued access to digital materials for as long as necessary.
Jones, M. and Beagrie, N. (2002) Preservation Management of Digital Materials: A Handbook, Digital Preservation Coalition, York: 

Previous work

As well as digital repositories the JISC has been active in the development of digital preservation. For a number of years distinct programmes of activity in digital preservation have been undertaken. However, as far as possible digital preservation should be integrated into other activities that form part of the digital environment for learning, teaching and research. As part of this new programme, Repositories and Preservation, digital preservation will be as integrated as far as possible within the management and use aspects of digital repositories. It is important however to understand that the JISC is not only interested in digital repositories and how they support digital preservation, the JISC’s vision is much wider than this and this programme intends to support other aspects of digital preservation that may fall outside of  digital repositories. The name of the programme reflects the importance of digital preservation as a key element in the management and use of digital assets. 

JISC has supported a number of programmes in the areas of digital repositories and preservation, some of which are still on-going:

Closely related JISC initiatives:

Other relevant JISC programmes:

Other relevant JISC work:

There are also studies funded in the area of images, moving pictures and Sound (MPS) and geospatial data application profiles, and scoping studies funded into what is required for scientific data and Learning materials application profiles.

International context

Research and education are increasingly global, so that repositories need to interoperate at a global level.  Projects will need to show that they have taken into account this need and, where relevant, should seek to work with or learn from initiatives such as DAREnet and LOREnet in the Netherlands and ARROW  in Australia. The JISC has formal strategic partnerships with SURF  in the Netherlands and DEST  in Australia and is therefore particularly interested in sharing and cooperating with SURF and DEST initiatives.
 
An example of the major international initiative in digital preservation is the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP) programme , a collaborative effort led by the US Library of Congress, and its associated Digital Archiving and Long-Term Preservation (DIGARCH) research program, funded by NDIIPP and the US National Science Foundation to stimulate research and build capabilities for long-term management and preservation of digital materials. Projects may build on outputs from this activity.
 
Also of importance is the "Digital Repository Infrastructure Vision for European Research" project. DRIVER  responds to the vision that any form of scientific-content resource, including scientific/technical reports, research articles, experimental or observational data, rich media and other digital objects should be freely accessible through simple Internet-based infrastructures.
 
Of particular relevance to the Interoperability Demonstrators, there is a new initiative by the Open Archives Initiative team that has just been funded by Mellon in the USA. The Object Reuse and Exchange project, OAI-ORE, will develop specifications that allow distributed repositories to exchange information about their constituent digital objects. These specifications will include approaches for representing digital objects and repository services that facilitate access and ingest  of these representations. The specifications will enable development of a new generation of cross-repository services that leverage the intrinsic value of digital objects beyond the borders of hosting repositories.
 
OAI-ORE is funded by Mellon for two years beginning October 2006. It is coordinated by Carl Lagoze of Cornell University Information Science and Herbert Van de Sompel of the Los Alamos Research Library. It will co-exist within the Open Archives Initiative with the Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH), the widely deployed standard for exchange of metadata.  We expect that the naturally more expressive digital object focus of OAI-ORE will complement the  narrower metadata focus of OAI-PMH.  OAI-ORE will benefit from the interoperability experience and depth of the international OAI community.
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