Hannes Kulovits, Andreas Rauber Vienna University of Technology Archives and digital repositories in an eGovernment context: When the subsequent bird catches the worm Hannes Kulovits, Andreas Rauber Vienna University of Technology Austria

Agenda

Motivation "Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present, controls the past ... The mutability of the past is the central tenet of Ingsoc. Past events, it is argued, have no objective existence, but survive only in written records and in human memories. The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon.“ [“1984”, George Orwell] What makes (e.g. governmental) archives and their The aim of governmental archives: "A democracy requires accountability, and accountability requires transparency. As Justice Louis Brandeis wrote, 'sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.'" (Freedom of Information Act) By maintaining accurate, reliable, and authentic records, archivists serve the public's interest in accountablilty From paper: “Especially for governmental archives, to serve the public’s interest in accountability, an archivist’s goal is to maintain reliable, accurate and authentic records. With their work they shall represent accountability, open government, diversity, and social justice.”

What needs to be preserved Authenticity Reliability Integrity Usability Accuracy What needs to be preserved and why is it complex.

Objects in context object preservation action preservation plan Policy Organisation Policy Ownership Awareness Responsibility preservation plan preservation action object And … quote from paper: „digital records can be of any data type “

Trustworthiness in digital repositories RLG- National Archives and Records Administration Digital Repository Certification Task Force Trustworthy Repositories Audit & Certification: Criteria and Checklist (TRAC) NESTOR Catalogue of Criteria of Trusted Digital Repositories DRAMBORA: Self-assessment Quote from paper: „setting trust and auditability of governmental records must be considered in every strategy”

Open Archival Information System SIP DIP Administration P R O D U C E N S M queries result sets MANAGEMENT Ingest Access Data Management Archival Storage Descriptive Info. Preservation Planning orders AIP Talk about repositories And … quote from paper: „services provided by archives highly depends on whether the organisation is able to authentically preserve the digital records and provide means of access to its designated community.” SIP = Submission Information Package AIP = Archival Information Package DIP = Dissemination Information Package

Why do we need Digital Preservation? X Why do we need Digital Preservation? What is digital preservation and what is it not! „The goal of Digital Preservation is to maintain digital objects accessible and usable in an authentic manner for a long term into the future.” “to ensure continued access to digital materials... it refers to all of the actions required to maintain access to digital materials beyond the limits of media failure or technological change”

Why do we need Digital Preservation 3 levels of threat / preservation Bit rot – physical preservation / bit preservation Object formats – logical preservation Authenticity, interpretability – semantic preservation

Digital Objects require specific environment to be accessible : Logical Preservation Digital Objects require specific environment to be accessible : Files need specific programs Programs need specific operating systems (-versions) Operating systems need specific hardware components SW/HW environment is not stable: Files cannot be opened anymore Embedded objects are no longer accessible/linked Programs won‘t run Information in digital form is lost (usually total loss, no degradation) Digital Preservation aims at maintaining digital objects authentically usable and accessible for long time periods.

Strategies for Logical Preservation Migration Transform into different format Continually or on demand (Viewer)‏ Widely used Possibility to compare at time of migration Resulting objects are always accessible Possibly undesired changes during migration Needs to be repeated again and again

Preservation Planning 12

Scanned books results

Plan the whole object life-cycle Recommendations Identify need for DP Develop policies Plan the whole object life-cycle Design and integrated, modular, open solution Consider organizational aspects Small is beautiful

Summary

Before migration (MS Word)

After migration (PDF)

LNEC repository DSpace 1.5 extended with: optimized workflow to filter metadata fields according to the document type; front-end configuration; new filters and tabular representations; integration with internal ldap users and authentication

LNEC repository - example

LNEC repository statistics – Number of submissions

LNEC repository statistics – Repository usage

Cape Verde and Mozambique: deployed during 2010/11 PALOP repositories Cape Verde and Mozambique: deployed during 2010/11 Angola: to be installed and deployed in three phases: 1. Staff training: two members of the IT department of LEA (Angola Engineering Laboratory) were trained at LNEC during 2 months in 2011 2. HW acquisition and SW configuration (TBD at LNEC) 3. Deployment at LEA infrastructure and final configuration (TBD)

Integration with RCAAP RCAAP is the Portuguese National Scientific Repository Open access Several organizations Three operation modes: metadata harvest with handles to organizational repositories; specific organization repository; organizations represented by collections inside a Common Repository. LNEC provides scientific publications Holistic and integrated view, including scientific publications from several organizations and scientific domains.

Portuguese National Scientific Repository - RCAAP http://www.rcaap.pt/