1. 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

2. Agenda

3. 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.”

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

5. 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 “

6. 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”

7. 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

8. 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”

9. 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

10. 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.

11. 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

12. Preservation Planning12

13. Scanned books results

14. 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

15. Summary

17. Before migration (MS Word)

18. After migration (PDF)

19. 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

20. LNEC repository - example

21. LNEC repository statistics – Number of submissions

22. LNEC repository statistics – Repository usage

23. 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)

24. 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.

25. Portuguese National Scientific Repository - RCAAP