Digital Preservation Matters - 4 August 2009

OpenWMS: Workflow Management System for Digital Objects. Rutgers. August 2009.

Rutgers has released their OpenWMS software for creating metadata for analog and digital materials. It is platform-independent and open source. The web-accessible system that can be used as a standalone application or integrated with other repository architectures. It provides a complete metadata creation system with services to ingest objects and metadata into a Fedora repository and can export these objects and metadata, individually and in bulk in a METS/XML Wrapper.

RODA Open Source Repository for Archives. July 2009.

RODA is an open source digital repository specially designed for Archives, with long-term preservation and authenticity as its primary objectives. Created by the Portuguese Directorate-General for the Portuguese Archives and the University of Minho, it was designed to support the most recent archival standards and become a trustworthy digital repository. Try an online demo at http://roda.di.uminho.pt

To download the full installation package or sources go to: http://redmine.keep.pt/wiki/roda-public#Download

To register and participate in discussion forums and report issues http://redmine.keep.pt/account/register

Digital Preservation Survey. Fedora Commons. July 2009.

The Fedora Preservation Solutions Community survey was created to gather information about and examples of digital preservation developments, practices, and needs, regarding the management of digital content in repositories, specifically using open source software like Fedora. The results were not specific to Fedora users. The results of the survey were shared at the Open Repositories Conference (May 18 – 21, 2009) in Atlanta, GA. The survey and the results are available from this site. Some items of interest in the results:

• 55.7% who answered are currently archiving and preserving digital materials
• 36.9% are planning to preserve digital materials
• 71.6% are using an open source platform for their digital archive
• 45.0% use Fedora, 43.3% use DSpace

The Preservation and Archiving Solution Community posted these above three items on the Fedora Commons website. The wiki and listserv are open to all who are interested in archiving and digital preservation.

The Research Library’s Role in Digital Repository Services. A report of the ARL Digital Repository Issues Task Force. Association of Research Libraries. January 2009. [52p. pdf]

Digital repositories are a key element of research cyber infrastructure. The repository services are built on a foundation of content, context, and access, which need to be balanced. They are still developing. Digital is not just a new way to collect and distribute, but it has brought new kinds of content and services. Institutions produce large and ever-growing quantities of data, images, multimedia works, learning objects, and digital records. The repositories should not be managed as isolated collections. They are about the users as much as the content, and services need to be developed to meet the needs. “As research libraries embark on repository service development, they enter a brand new business in many ways.”

Sustainability is about the institutional commitment and the ability to create persistent structures. Libraries have a key role in the new informational structures. Libraries should look at these areas:

1. Understand needs of users and creators in order to develop repository-related services.
2. Use a life-cycle management framework to guide services and policies.
3. Express the value of repository services to justify resources, promote partnerships, efforts.
4. Integrate collections into emerging services that are outside of library-managed repositories.
5. Participate in shaping the technology of repositories and service mechanisms.

Important actions for libraries include:

1. Build new kinds of partnerships and alliances, within and between institutions.
2. Develop service strategies based on assessment of local needs
3. Develop outreach and marketing strategies to connect others to the library environment
4. Define responsibilities to guide the development of repository services for different types of content.

Books Online:

Amazon deal to reprint rare books. BBC News. 22 July 2009.

Amazon is working with the University of Michigan to provide reprints of 400,000 rare, out-of-print and out-of-copyright books. The books will be printed in soft cover editions. Items that have been out of print for years will “be able to go back into print, one copy at a time”.

Harvard U. Press to Sell 1,000 Books Online. Marc Beja. The Chronicle of Higher Education. July 22, 2009.

Harvard University Press created a profile with Scribd, and the press has already posted hundreds of works for download. They are charging for the materials. Others, such as New York University and MIT have also posted items on the website, but do not charge.