There is a lot more that goes into a digital repository for preservation than just the technology. Preservation policy is also a key factor in the success of a digital repository. This paper is an in-depth look at Harvard University Library's digital repository and developing preservation plan. The presentation will identify personnel and skill sets, tasks, hardware, software, and networking infrastructure that go into the repository.

The Florida Center for Library Automation (FCLA) is implementing the FCLA Digital Archive as a preservation repository for the use of the libraries of the eleven state universities of Florida. The FCLA Digital Archive is built upon DAITSS software, which is still in development at FCLA. DAITSS is designed to be a “dark archive,” dedicated exclusively to ensuring the long-term viability, integrity, and renderability of archived content.DAITSS software follows the Open Archives Information System (OAIS) model in the implementation and functional separation of Ingest, Data Management, Archival Storage and Dissemination. It supports two levels of preservation, bit-level and full, and implements full preservation using the active strategies of formation normalization and forward format migration. It obtains and maintains detailed technical metadata, tracks complex relationships among objects, and documents digital provenance.DAITSS is currently being used by the FCLA Digital Archive for ingest only. Other functions are still being designed and programmed, and are expected to be completed in calendar 2005. When completed DAITSS will be made freely available for use by the cultural heritage community.

The National Archives of Australia, as the archives and records authority for the Government of Australia, has a requirement to ensure that high value digital records created through the business activity of Australian Government agencies are accessible indefinitely. However, indefinite preservation is extremely difficult when dealing with digital records encoded in proprietary data formats.The National Archives of Australia's digital preservation project, which has been underway since late 2000, aims to develop a methodology for preserving digital records so they will remain accessible over time. The National Archives approach is focussed on the centrality of data formats as the key to viable long-term preservation of digital records. To implement the approach the Archives is developing or adopting a range of open data formats in XML which will be used as schema to transform original digital objects into XML data formats, a process we refer to as ‘normalisation’.The first section of the paper provides the context for the NAA digital preservation project. It will discuss the policy approach developed by the National Archives and the performance model adopted. The second half of the paper will describe briefly the preservation process being trialled at the National Archives.

This paper examines the impact of digitizing historical photographs for online access and considers the following questions: What values are gained or lost in the process of digital reproduction? Are these values important, and, if they are, to whom and at what level?This ongoing study is approached from the perspective of custodians in photographic archives. Over the past two years we have carried out investigations by interview and questionnaire into the comparative values found in digital reproductions of historical photographs. This has produced original data on critical issues raised by current digitization procedures.These studies have revealed that technology is currently placed at the forefront of digitization projects but that the technicians responsible for implementing digital procedures are not always aware of the complex nature of historical photographic materials, and are thereby failing to identify both the material and aesthetic values present in the original photograph. In so doing, we argue that the value of information integral to the original photograph is, at best changed, and at worst, significantly reduced by digitization.

This paper reports on a pilot study that investigates the practices of storage, display, and reproduction of photographic artefacts in government-managed museums in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. Practices at three separate collections are compared, namely the Bensusan Museum of Photography in Johannesburg, the Duggan-Cronin collection in Kimberley, and the South African National Archives in Cape Town. This comparison is necessary to determine which best practices could be applied to preservation policies in the Western Cape.The outcome of the pilot study will inform, inter alia, the formulation of a policy to preserve and digitise the photographic artefacts in Western Cape museums, as well as piloting a programme of digitisation at one museum. The Simon's Town Museum was identified as suitable for a programme of digitisation.A survey among, and visits to museums identified common malpractices as well as good practices in the preservation and digitisation of historic photographs.The author has begun a pilot digitisation project at the Simon's Town Museum.

This paper uses two high profile digitisation projects to demonstrate the way in which effective retrieval strategies can be designed for digital resources. The main theme is the relationship between the accuracy of the natural language of the database and the effectiveness of the various search functions. It will be argued that successful retrieval strategies can only be based on ASCII text of an exceedingly high standard. To reach this standard requires rigorous proofreading and, as such, would appear to call into question the creation of databases comprising millions of words; the projects cited by the author each contain less than one million. If ICT is not a panacea for converting enormous amounts of original historical documents into easily retrievable digital archives, much smaller digital collections can yield results. The circular, as opposed to more traditional linear, media enables the design of content in a multi-layered fashion. Thus, material can be catalogued and tagged for metadata in an academic way but, with the aid of additional multimedia features, can provide different entries of access for people of varying abilities and interests. In this context, highly accurate retrieval systems using both controlled vocabularies and natural language can greatly aid researchers.

The Library of Congress has been collecting web content since 2000, first through its MINERVA project and, since 2004, as part of a broader Internet capture project. In addition to providing access to some collected content, we have begun to develop tools and techniques to better understand and preserve what we are collecting. When compared with other digital collections, content from the Web has some unique characteristics, such as naming issues and the varying types of relationships between items; nevertheless, when considered at the level of individual items, existing digital preservation approaches are entirely applicable.In this article, we describe some initial results from examining some selected content from this perspective, including the tools used in our analysis of the Library's Web collections, the approaches taken, and directions for further analysis. We intend that this information will be useful for guiding future web harvest and preservation efforts both within and outside the Library. Our goals include:• Identifying and measuring the content types in the collection;• Assessing the variation in file types and validity of “wild” Internet content; and• Determining typical attributes of various file types, to generate predictors for future web harvests.We describe web collections as a specific case of a collection of heterogeneous digital content, focusing on the content as received. We will not address issues relating to acquiring the content, such as retrieval problems and link detection during the web crawl, as these issues have been addressed in detail elsewhere and are ultimately orthogonal to preservation issues.

Among the digital material considered for preservation at the National Library of Medicine (NLM) are TIFF, PDF and HTML files of biomedical journals, laboratory notebooks, correspondence of major figures in biomedical research, and similar documents. Although most of these materials are already in digital form (either as born-digital information, or converted to digital form through scanning), preservation of these materials involve complex administrative and technical issues, such as obtaining and storing adequate levels of metadata for a preserved resource, assuring intellectual integrity of the contents, and avoiding technical obsolescence of encoded information. An R&D project has been initiated at NLM to develop a prototype system that would help investigate the key technical functions required to effectively preserve NLM's digital resources over the long term. This system, named the System for Preservation of Electronic Resources (SPER) has had its initial design and implementation phase completed. Here we describe the main functions of SPER, and the strategies adopted in designing the system to meet these functionalities in a modular and cost-effective manner. In particular, an automated metadata extraction subsystem is designed to minimize manual entry, using string matching and machine learning techniques. Also given are preliminary performance assessments of the subsystems in this prototype. We discuss the overall system architecture, automated metadata extraction techniques, and file migration in the SPER system.

The fading of inkjet imagery has been the subject of many studies. This study follows on from one presented at the previous Archiving conference, expanding on the investigation of colorimetric changes during fading processes.The aim of this study is to illustrate the important issues to consider in the restoration of dye based inkjet images. As such images make their way into museum collections these issues become important when preserving the cultural heritage. This study will also identify where inkjet media and ink technology is not yet up to the task and illustrate the archival properties and colour science of such imagery.The influence of media type, printed colour and ink load are the primary variables explored. The correlation of the fading characteristics with ink coverage and penetration are also included.Whilst this study picks on a single ink set as an example, two very different types of media have been studied in order to illustrate the wide range of results that can be achieved. This will emphasise the importance of the inkjet media in both the fading process and in any restoration envisaged.The characteristics of the cyan, magenta and yellow in this ink set will be shown to be very different. The implications of these differences in the fading of these images will be explored. In addition to pure CMY colours, the effects on RGB combinations will also be considered.Whilst this study concentrates on the light fading of a dye based ink set the results are compared and contrasted with gas fading and light fading of pigmented inks.

This paper reports data on CTA base film stability obtained at 21°C and −16°C. Results demonstrated the potential of subfreezing storage temperatures for stabilizing CTA films that have already started to decay. After six and a half years of storage at −16°C, no change in free acidity was observed for film pre-degraded to the onset of vinegar syndrome. Data obtained by natural aging at 21°C, 50% RH indicated that film acidity at least doubled within five years. These results were consistent with earlier predictions and reaffirmed the inappropriateness of film storage near normal room conditions. Data on the effect of changing temperature/RH on CTA base stability are reported. Results did not reveal that changing conditions caused extra CTA base decay. The data reinforced the potential value of the TWPI model in informing storage decisions.