Frequently asked questions

Digital Archive frequently asked questions

General questions

• Does the Digital Archive help with digital preservation of CONTENTdm collections?
  
  Yes. The Digital Archive is the perfect complement to CONTENTdm for digital preservation. The Archive provides a managed storage environment for the high-resolution digital masters created during your scanning projects for CONTENTdm. Adding content to the Archive is integrated into the full-resolution workflow for building CONTENTdm collections. As you generate archival volumes from the Acquisition Station they can be sent to OCLC for loading into the Archive. Through the full-resolution workflow each item added to the Archive is assigned a unique identifier that is stored in CONTENTdm in the full resolution field for that item. CONTENTdm stores descriptive metadata and the unique identifier for the items you’ve archived. The Digital Archive stores the items and their associated technical and administrative metadata
• Does the Digital Archive help with digital preservation in DSpace, Fedora, Greenstone, DigiTool, or similar systems?
  
  Yes. The Digital Archive is easy to integrate into the workflow of these systems to support digital preservation. The Archive provides a managed storage environment for the high-resolution digital masters or digital originals created during your scanning projects. You save masters and originals during your project and send them to OCLC for loading into the Archive. Your content management software stores the descriptive metadata and an identifier for items that are archived. The Digital Archive stores the items and their associated technical and administrative metadata.

Format Migration and Emulation

• Does the Digital Archive provide format migration and emulation services?
  
  No. OCLC’s Digital Archive service keeps your content in the same format you sent to us so you are prepared for future developments in digital preservation. Whether you need to migrate your content to a new data format or process your content using an emulation system the OCLC Digital Archive will have your content there for you
• What do you mean by format migration and emulation services?
  

  As technology has advanced we’ve all seen occurrences of data format obsolescence. For example, what system or software would you use today to read a document produced by WordStar?

  There are at least two schools of thought about preserving the readability of data formats over time. One popular notion is “format migration”, or copying data from one file format to another so the content can be processed with current systems technology. Another popular notion is “technology emulation” which allows newer systems to emulate older operating environments and applications for processing older data formats.

  The prerequisite for using either of these future capabilities is keeping your content alive and readable in whatever data format you’ve selected.

  OCLC’s Digital Archive service keeps your content in the same format you sent to us so you are prepared for future developments in digital preservation. Whether you need to migrate your content to a new data format or process your content using an emulation system the OCLC Digital Archive will have your content there for you.

Standards

• Does the Digital Archive support PREMIS (Preservation Metadata Implementation Standard)?
  

  Yes. The PREMIS Data Dictionary for Preservation Metadata version 2.0 was issued in March 2008 (http://www.loc.gov/standards/premis/v2/premis-2-0.pdf). The data dictionary defines core metadata elements (semantic units in PREMIS terms) which are "things that most working preservation repositories are likely to need to know in order to support digital preservation". The Digital Archive supports the mandatory elements listed in the PREMIS Data Dictionary:

  OBJECT Entity

  1.1 objectIdentifier. The Digital Archive encodes a unique identifier for each object stored in the system.

  1.2 objectCategory. There is a single object category in the Digital Archive. Objects are all considered a "file."

  1.5 objectCharacteristics. Characteristics of each object in the Digital Archive are recorded automatically during Ingest.

  1.7 storage. The Digital Archive currently uses disk storage for all objects.

  EVENT Entity

  2.1 eventIdentifier. The Digital Archive records events for every action taken within the system and associates it with an object.

  2.2 eventType. The Digital Archive records the types of events that occur within the system.

  2.3 eventDate. The Digital Archive records the timestamp of the occurrence of each event within the system.

  AGENT Entity

  3.1 agentIdentifier. The Digital Archive has software agents within its systems that perform the functions of the system. Agents are either automated/scheduled or are ad-hoc requests from a human actor that drive a software agent. Agents perform functions that are recorded as events in the system.

  RIGHTS Entity

  There is no requirement in PREMIS for supporting rights metadata. The Digital Archive neither generates nor records rights metadata in its internal systems.

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