Week 8 Readings:
OCLC/RLG Trusted Digital Repositories
TRustworthy Repositories Checklist
Price and Smith - Managing Cultural Assets from a Business Perspective
Moore and Smith - Automated Evalutation of TDR Assesment Criteria
ERPANET Digital Preservation Policy Tool
Clareson - NEDCC Survey of Digtial Preservation Policies and Practices
Trusted Digital Repositories
What is a Trusted Digital Repository?
- OCLC/RLG = A repository whose mission is to provide reliable, long-term access to managed digital resources to its designated community, now and in the future.
- The repository for digital information may be local or through a third-party provider.
All TDR’s Must …
- Accept responsibility for the long-term maintenance of digital resources on behalf of its depositors and for the benefit of current and future users; promise to depositors that they will maintain the objects so long as they are needed
- Have an organizational system that supports not only long-term visibility of the repository, but also the digital information for which it has responsibility.
- Demonstrate fiscal responsibility and sustainability; this is expensive
- Design their systems in accordance with commonly accepted conventions and standards to ensure the ongoing management, access, and security of materials deposited within it;also keeping uptodate with standards and conventions
- Establish methodologies for system evaluation that meet community expectations of trustworthiness; are we doing what we promised to do?
- Be depended upon to carry out its long-term responsibilities to depositors and users openly and explicitly; accountability
- Have policies, practices, and performance that can be audited and measured.
- Meet the organizational, curatorial, and operational responsibilities bestowed upon it.
What is “Trust” for Digital Archiving?
- RLG/CPA, 1996 = “Users of archived information in electronic form need to have assurance that a digital archive is what it says it is and that the information stored there is safe for the long term.”; most places aren't really doing anything about trust, even though they worry about it
- Most cultural institutions are already trusted. Does that trust continue for digital information?
- What happens when we allow third parties to take over the responsibility of preserving and providing access to digital information?
Levels of Trust
- How cultural institutions earn the trust of their designated communities
- How cultural institutions trust third-party providers – how do we get to this point where we don't think our materials are being put at risk
- Trust needs to be established
- Providers should “look like” cultural institutions (be non-profit, care about cultural resources, etc.); are they accountable?
- How users trust the documents provided to them by a repository
- Must provide evidence of authenticity (authentication metadata such as MACs or CRCs).
Attributes of a TDR(according to OCLC/RLG)
Compliance with the OAIS Reference Model (as basis for building repository); Administrative Responsibility; Organizational Stability; Financial Sustainability; Technological and Procedural Suitability; System Security; Procedural; Accountability;
Administrative Responsibility
- “A trusted digital repository will provide evidence that it has a fundamental commitment to implementing the range of community-agreed standards and best practices that affect its operations—particularly those that directly influence its viability and sustainability.”
- Standards for storage environment; Backup/recovery procedures; Security systems; Collection/sharing of data measurements with depositors; Validating/certifying processes and procedures; Risk management and contingency procedures in place
Organizational Viability
- Mission statement reflects commitment to long-term retention, management of, and access to digital cultural assets on behalf of depositors and users.
- Appropriate legal status (non- profit?); Transparent, forthright business practices
Financial Sustainability
Adherence to good business practices; Sustainable business plan accounting procedures; Ongoing commitment to a balance of risk, benefit, investment, and expenditure; Adequate operating budgets and reserves; don't want to take on EXCESSIVE risk
Technological and Procedural Stability
Consider all relevant options and communicate openly about the suitability of various strategies; Have all appropriate hardware and software in place; Policies and plans to deal with technological obsolescence; Compliance with all relevant standards and best practices; Regular external audits on system components and performance
System Security
Meets community requirements for required redundancy of data, authentication systems, firewalls, and backup systems.; Written policies and plans for disaster preparedness, response and recovery
Procedural Accountability
Are we doing what we said we are going to be doing?; Repository practices will be documented and made available upon request.; Monitoring mechanisms for systems will be in place; Preservation strategies (e.g., migration, emulation) will be recorded and justified in context of community-wide best practices; Feedback mechanisms will be in place to support problem resolution and to negotiate evolving requirements (these evolve)
High-Level Organizational and Curatorial Responsibilities
Local requirements; Responsibilities of other organization (i.e., through consortial arrangements, shared user communities); Who does what? How do organizations split up responsibilities?
Factors Which Affect the Organizational Responsibilities
- Scope of Collections
- The more formats you have, the more complex preservation becomes.
- Preservation and Lifecycle Management
- Proactive approach required
- Wide Range of Stakeholders
- Creators, systems developers, custodians, future users
- Ownership of Material and Other Legal Issues
- Licensing agreements--who is responsible for preserving these resources?
- Cost Implications
- Ongoing resource commitments; cooperation with others?
Operational Responsibilities
- Negotiates/accepts appropriate info. from producers and rights holders
- Obtains control of info. provided to support long-term preservation
- Determines scope of user community
- Ensures that info. is “independently understandable” to the designated community
- Follows documented policies and procedures to ensure long-term preservation and provide authentic information
- Makes information available to the community
- Advocates use of standards and standard practices in the creation of digital resources.
Models for Certification of TDRs
- Audit model
- For government records repositories; tends to be rigorous
- Standards model
- More appropriate for most libraries and archives; often is a self check (you do it or 3rd party)
Approaches to Certification
- Individual
- Personnel certification through combo of education, work experience, and competencies examination
- Program/Institution
- Self-evaluation using standardized checklists and criteria, and site inspections; trending towards program/institution + process
- Process
- Assesses methods and procedures subjected to quantitative or qualitative guidelines
- Data
- Internal and external quality control through standards (most common in e-commerce environments right now)
The TRAC Checklist
- Audit Checklist for the Certification of Trusted Digital Repositories
