The main
problem and cost item in current born-digital archiving is the lack of
standardisation in the way source systems and digital repositories interact
with each other.
As a result agencies across the world currently invest significantly
into developing dedicated solutions for exporting their records and
metadata from source systems, transfer to digital repositories and reuse. Unfortunately,
these solutions cannot be reused in other jurisdictions.
To reduce the need for development and therefore cost of
born-digital archiving, it is crucial to standardise the key components in
the records archiving and reuse workflow:
export functionality for source systems;
formats for data submission, preservation and access (SIP, AIP and
DIP formats)
interfaces for the access and reuse
of archived records.
Achieving a critical level of technical standardisation would allow
software providers to introduce native export and archiving functionality
into their records management and information systems and therefore reduce
significantly the cost of archiving for single organisations or
jurisdictions.
To undertake such standardisation the European Commission has funded
a project called E-ARK which aims towards analysing current best practices,
provide relevant standards and implement these in a set of tools resulting
in a reference implementation to showcase the full workflow from exporting
records from source systems to reusing these in a variety of access
scenarios, thus covering the full OAIS model functionality.
This presentation will present the first findings of the E-ARK
project – a best practice review of current solutions in Europe and beyond;
and present a set of practical aspects in standardisation based on the
review.
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