Where museums, libraries, and archives intersect Toward a System of Trusted Digital Repositories Robin L. Dale IASSIST Conference 26 May 2006

NSF Cyberinfrastructure Panel (1 of 2) “A significant need exists in many disciplines for long-term, distributed, and stable data and metadata repositories that institutionalize community data holdings … likely need to include additional types of resources such as federated data repositories.”

NSF Cyberinfrastructure Panel (2 of 2) “Repeatedly the Panel heard members of the research community citing the need for trusted and enduring organizations to assume the stewardship for scientific data… each discipline is likely best suited to creating and managing such repositories and tools, interoperability with other disciplines is essential, through the creation and adherence to standards, and other means.”

Breaking it down… A network (or system)… of trusted digital repositories … each discipline is likely best suited to creating and managing such repositories

Networks, Infrastructure & Semantics Source: Dodge, 2003

Networks, Systems and Teams  “The Panel also recommends the creation of teams that would work on discipline- specific metadata standards, data formats, tools, access portals, etc.”  Self-identified teams?  Involvement of existing expert initiatives (i.e., DDI)?  Existing network relationships? – International, national, regions, etc.

…of Trustworthy Repositories  Trustworthy & Transparent  Repositories in network should be able to prove capabilities  Repositories should convey and prove content coverage  Network should incorporate audit & certification

Why Certification? “Stewardship is easy & inexpensive to claim; it is expensive and difficult to honor, and perhaps it will prove to be all too easy to later abdicate.” Clifford Lynch

Trusted, Certified Repositories  Enforces, strengthens system of trusted repositories  Repositories will differ, but good practice and reliable, technical infrastructure are universal  Use RLG-NARA Audit Checklist for repository planning, self evaluation  Look to CRL Auditing and Certification of Digital Archives project for audit/evaluation process – Understand certification outcomes/products

Discipline-based Repositories  Social Science Data Archives  E-journal Archives/Repositories  Government archives  Familiarity with data, formats, significant properties  Familiarity with needs of designated communities, potential uses of data

Articulate Roles & Responsibilities  Digital preservation as a responsibility!  Selection: audit and contextualize the content to be preserved  Coordinate responsibilities – Sufficient coverage of content? – Different preservation strategies? – Trusted inheritors?

A Network of TDRs  A system of networks – Data archives, academic content, e-journal archives, government archives, etc  Based on responsibilities, roles, content – Discipline-based TDRs – Content-based TDRs – Build in redundancies; optimize options  Develop common set of policies, practices, and expectations

“Well curated data repositories are increasingly important to science and engineering research, allowing data gathered and created at great expense to be preserved over time and accessed by researchers around the world, including by disciples of other disciplines.” NSF Cyberinfrastructure Report

Questions? Thank you. References: Dodge, Martin. An Atlas of Cyberspaces, Report of the National Science Foundation Blue-Ribbon Advisory Panel on Cyberinfrastructure,