With a Little Help from OAIS: Starting down the Digital Curation Path

Abstract

Embarking on a digital curation programme can be a daunting prospect as it is thought to be an expensive and complex endeavour, beyond the capability and resources of most archives. Added to this is the fact that the overabundance of resources now available is almost as much of a deterrent to those entering the field as the lack of resources was 10 years ago. This article, based on a paper given to the Society of Archivists' Conference in 2010, will discuss why the fear might be, to a certain extent, unjustified, and how organizations can take the first steps towards developing systems and procedures for managing digital objects in their care. Using work carried out at the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland as an example, it will focus on issues relating to the development of ingest systems and procedures and will raise a number of questions relating to acquisition and appraisal of digital collections that would benefit from further discussion within the archival community.

Notes

 [1] Rusbridge, ‘Excuse Me… Some Digital Preservation Fallacies?’

 [2] Dunbar, ‘The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland: The First Eighty Years’, 18.

 [3] RCAHMS, Future RCAHMS, 3.

 [4] More information on ULCC's DPTP is available at http://www.dptp.org/ and for the DCC's Digital Curation 101 at http://www.dcc.ac.uk/training/digital-curation-101.

 [5] Bailey, Charles W., Jr. ‘Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography.’

 [6] http://www.dpconline.org/newsroom/whats-new/

 [7] CCSDS, Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System (OAIS).

 [8] DigitalPreservationEurope, DPE Repository Planning Checklist and Guidance DPE-D3.2: Planning Tool for Trusted Electronic Repositories, 9.

 [9] The National Archives, ‘Digital Preservation Policies: Guidance for Archives’, 6.

[10] TNA Digital Preservation Policies, 14–15.

[11] Digital Preservation Europe, DPE Repository Planning Checklist and Guidance DPE-D3.2: Planning Tool for Trusted Electronic Repositories.

[12] TNA Digital Preservation Policies, 6.

[13] RCAHMS' Digital Archive Policy is available to view here: http://www.rcahms.gov.uk/freedom-of-information1.html

[14] RCAHMS' Digital Archive Policy, 11.

[15] CCSDS, Reference Model of an Open Archival Information System (OAIS), 1–1.

[16] CCSDS, Reference Model, 3–1.

[17] Lavoie, The Open Archival Information System Reference Model: An Introduction, 4–5.

[18] The open Archival Information System Reference Model, 7.

[19] The open Archival Information System Reference Model.

[20] Unfortunately the complexity of the diagram makes it unsuitable for reproduction at a scale suitable for this publication. The complete diagram can be found in CCSDS, Reference Model of an Open Archival Information System (OAIS), Appendix F.

[21] Ayre, The Right to Preserve: The Rights Issues of Digital Preservation.

[22] http://www.dcc.ac.uk/resources/tools-and-applications/data-asset-framework