A Repository Year: Planning and Implementing a Digital Repository at the Computer History Museum Paula Jabloner, CHM Katherine Kott, Consultant ALCTS PARS Digital Preservation Interest Group, January 27, 2013

Topic summary Project background Creating functional requirements Selecting repository software Selecting storage infrastructure Future plans “…we will define the digital repository as the systems and workflows that support digital asset management and digital preservation.” Digital Repository Best Practices for Cultural Heritage Institutions

Computer History Museum by the numbers 1 st permanent exhibit opened in terabytes of digital objects including our truly unique historic software collection 15 terabytes anticipated yearly rate of growth 500+ oral histories 3,000 moving images 5,000 linear feet of archival materials 10,000 photos 35,000 artifacts

CHM Ecosystem MIMSY collections management system for permanent collection HD video production team needs Website for discovery ~ 50 FTE

5 Assumptions based on immediate needs & time constraints Use existing tools and systems Open source software No additional resources Preservation layer will be built on common commodity storage hardware that are modular and extensible Creation of a digital repository is an on-going commitment by CHM No punch cards!

The Digital Repository Team Katherine Kott, Ton Luong, Heather Yager, Paula Jabloner, Al Kossow, Vinh Quach.

Project Charter Year One 7 ObjectiveDeliverable Understand the scope of CHM digital collections√Inventory of current digital holdings Stabilize interim storage for digital collections1/2New interim storage system installed Identify and document best practices√ Consultant’s report Establish policies and procedures for managing and preserving digital collections √Policy and procedure manual Ensure staff are familiar with digital collection management policies and procedures Training & education program for collections staff based on policy & procedures manual Evaluate and select software (digital asset management) system √ Core Team software recommendation Evaluate and select digital preservation (storage infrastructure) management system √ Core Team preservation system recommendation Model and test implementation of digital object management and preservation workflow √Prototype system in place to support all phases of digital object lifecycle Share project findings with other organizations√Present papers, share findings through blog posts, etc.

Gather Requirements from Stakeholders OAIS Framewok: Four activity categories Creation and Ingest Metadata Management Storage and Archival Publishing and Information Retrieval

Define functional and non- functional requirements Functional requirement example: –Does the system support manual entry of minimal metadata? Non-functional requirement example: –What are the infrastructure (hardware and software) requirements?

Software selection Evaluation of five open source software packages against functional requirements resulted in selection of…

11 Storage numbers Base 72 TB Plus 96 TB Storage Infrastructure

Lessons learned-- recommendations It is possible to get a prototype system up and running in one year Hardware procurement was trickier than anticipated A similar process/solution could be helpful for: –Small stand-alone museums and archives with limited resources –Cultural heritage organizations within larger institutions—especially those with diverse content

Future plans Additional funding from google.org will enable CHM to: –Complete testing of prototype infrastructure –Create procedures and workflows –Ingest 35+ terabytes of diverse content –Incorporate metadata for digital assets into discovery layer

Thank you Backplane wiring of the CDC 7600 supercomputer, c The wiring was done by hand and had to be precise to within a fraction of an inch to optimize the speed of the machine Paula Jabloner Katherine Kott ----