eCommons

 

Repositories

Permanent URI for this collection

Session Moderator: Simeon Warner, Research Associate, Digital Library and Information Technologies, Cornell University Library.

Browse

Recent Submissions

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
  • Item
    Fedora: Complex Objects, Information Networks, and the Challenges of Digital Preservation
    Payette, Sandy (2006-10-27T16:51:10Z)
    Fedora: Complex Objects, Information Networks, and the Challenges of Digital Preservation -- We are at a point where the scope, definition, and uses of digital libraries and institutional repositories are changing along with the process of creating and disseminating scholarly and scientific information. It is not enough to just store documents, datasets, images, and other resources in repositories where they can be searched and accessed. The networked landscape in which we live inspires more and calls upon us to develop information architectures that promote (1) the creation of complex digital objects that consist of both local and remote content, (2) the ability to interconnect digital objects that reside in distributed repositories, (3) the ability to re-use objects or their components in the creation of new resources. All of these requirements have implications for how we build digital libraries, repositories, and scholarly information systems in the future, and they also present significant challenges for digital preservation. In this talk I will discuss how the Fedora Project is approaching the digital preservation problem. In particular, I will highlight key aspects of the Fedora repository system and service framework that are preservation-enabling. I will also review current work undertaken by the Fedora Project in collaboration with the Fedora Preservation Working Group. This work entails the use of message-oriented middleware to facilitate alerting of preservation-noteworthy events and the development of services to respond to such events.
  • Item
    DAITSS and the Florida Digital Archive
    Caplan, Priscilla (2006-10-27T16:47:32Z)
    The Florida Digital Archive (FDA) is a digital preservation repository run by the Florida Center for Library Automation (FCLA) for the use of the eleven public universities of Florida. The FDA went into production in November 2005. It ingested 108,607 files (2.2 TB) in the first 6 months of operation. The FDA uses a locally developed software application called DAITSS to support the repository functions of ingest, data management and dissemination, and the preservation functions of format normalization and format migration. Functionally, DAITSS consists of a set of services. The Ingest Service performs format validation, extraction of technical metadata, creation of derivative files through normalization and/or migration, and storage preparation. Storage Maintenance assures that stored masters remain good copies on readable media. The Access Service is responsible for access control, reporting, and building Dissemination Information Packages in response to requests. Other services include Withdrawal and Repository Management. The system does not support discovery functions for end-users or real-time online access to archived materials. It can, however, be used as a preservation back-end to institutional repositories, publishing systems, digital libraries, or other user oriented applications. Following the OAIS reference model, DAITSS assumes a community of Producers who select, prepare and submit materials for preservation. In the FDA context, these are the libraries of the public universities of Florida, which have negotiated archiving agreements with the repository. To date, most submissions have been preservation masters from local digitization projects, and electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs). This presentation will give an overview of the Florida Digital Archive and the underlying DAITSS application, which is targeted for release as Open Source Software in 2006.
  • Item
    Repository Institutionalization: What makes it worth becoming infrastructure?
    Galloway, Patricia (2006-10-27T16:44:50Z)
    Repository Institutionalization: What makes it worth becoming infrastructure? Since the advent of inexpensive or open-source institutional repository software, libraries and other institutions have attempted to wrestle with delivering services that could justify supporting the repository through chargebacks of some kind; yet a major problem has been persuading people to fill the repositories with content of adequate value to prospective user communities. Since 2003 we have been running DSpace repository software in the School of Information, University of Texas at Austin, at first simply as a testbed for student work but since spring of 2005 as an institutional archival repository. In the course of this experience, following the ?seed-evolve-reseed? model developed by Gerhard Fischer at the University of Colorado for collaborative development of computing environments, we have begun to demonstrate the value of such a repository in several different directions: fulfilling the state of Texas statutory requirements for preserving official documents (in which the official version of administrative information is posted on the School?s website); providing faculty (and students) with preprint and postprint exposure of their work; providing secure storage for learning objects, including presentations and tutorials; providing secure archiving for digital materials of historical value both to the School and to the discipline; providing an environment for students to work on the problems of digital archiving, populated with objects that will over time and in their turn demonstrate further problems of digital archiving; and providing the Information Technology service with a secure archive for versions of installed software and content. These uses within the School alone are beginning to weigh securely enough in the balance to warrant commitment of funding for the provision of infrastructure to the tasks of administering and delivering educational services.