Digital Preservation at the University of Colorado Boulder Libraries

Part of the Western Roundup 2015 panel "Evaluating and Deploying Digital Preservation Systems", put on by SRMA in Denver, Colorado.

Analyzing and evaluating the digital preservation services at one's institution can be a difficult and daunting task; planning and deploying new methods or systems as a result of such investigation can be equally fraught.

Presenters will discuss how they have evaluated (or presently evaluate) their organization's services in this area and how they plan to move forward with improvements. How does one balance resource constraints with the expectations of long term digital preservation? How do digital preservation efforts start, and how do they evolve to changing conditions? This session discusses digital preservation through the lens of four institutions at different stages of implementation and adjustment. Through the presentation and discussion of these projects, participants will better understand how to evaluate their own organization's digital preservation capabilities, ranging from the technical to the administrative components, and to begin addressing possible shortcomings or needed improvements.

Transcript

1. Digital Preservation at the University of Colorado Boulder Libraries ✼ Scope 
 ✼ Done, To Do and Doing 
 ✼ Key Obstacles Western Roundup May 29, 2015
2. Archives, Manuscript & Music “…to collect, preserve and make broadly available original source materials of enduring historical significance. The Archives' goal is to acquire materials on a range of subjects concerning the following principal subject areas: Western Americana, Politics, Labor, Environmentalism and Peace & Justice.”
3. Collections in the Library • Regular digitization projects • Digitized to FADGI standards • Output from these efforts constitute bulk of digital data
4. Research and other campus data • Ongoing efforts and groups to create a research data repository centered at the Library • Other data: • CU Scholar (institutional repository) • Older student theses • University records • Purchased content: e-journals, datasets, etc.
5. 110 Terabytes presently, and many more terabytes to come.
6. What we’ve done • Digital Media Archiving Lab • Remote server backup with RAID5 hard disk redundancy and two tape backup copies off-site • PetaLibrary, NSF subsidized data storage managed through Research Computing group • BagIt for server deposits • File naming & folder organization policies for the servers
7. Still to do • Centralized digital object management solution for internal control • Top candidates: Archivematica and DSpace • Storage infrastructure not centered on “the backup” • Infrastructure centered on OAIS technical functions and policy
8. What we’re doing now • Digital Archive Task Force to recommend and manage centralized digital object management platform • Profiles of existing storage infrastructures (local library servers and PetaLibrary research data repository) • Profile criteria based off: Requirements for digital preservation system: A Bottom-up approach (2005) by Rosenthal, Robertson, Lipkis, Reich & Morabito. • Advocacy in relevant campus groups and Library management
9. Key obstacles • Preservation as derived demand: little interest in it per se, but many keen on what derives from it — future access (and retention of cultural or intellectual capital) ▶︎ • Everyone benefits from digital preservation, but few identify as key stakeholders in the activity ▶︎ Sustainable economics for a digital planet: Ensuring long-term access to digital information (2010)
10. Key obstacles • Invoking authority or applicability of external sources — OAIS, PREMIS, NDSA, etc. • Framing the work of digital preservation outside of the strictly technical
11. Walker Sampson Digital Archivist University Libraries University of Colorado Boulder walker.sampson@colorado.edu Thank you!