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Worldwide (English) Change

Members Council Digital Libraries and Research Interest Group

Discussion Summary Report

February 2004

Sharon Bosarge, Recorder

  1. Summary of topics & discussions

    2. Day 1

    • Brian Lavoie of the OCLC Office of Research presented a session entitled "Protecting the Investment: Economic Challenges of Digital Preservation" and led a discussion.

      • The presentation focused on the economic challenges of building sustainable digital preservation solutions. Securing the long-term persistence of culturally significant digital materials is a key issue facing libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural heritage institutions. As institutions begin to consider practical strategies for preserving the digital materials in which they, and their users, are stakeholders, the economic challenges of digital preservation become increasingly apparent.

      Brian introduced a simple framework for thinking about the economic infrastructure necessary to support sustainable digital preservation activities. The framework includes three components: responsibilities, incentives, and organization. Building sustainable digital preservation solutions requires an appropriate allocation of preservation responsibilities, sufficient incentives for decision-makers to act on these responsibilities, and strategies for organizing and using scarce preservation resources as efficently as possible. Brian discussed how the characteristics of digital materials and digital preservation create challenges in each of these areas. He then described two real-world digital preservation examples - the JSTOR access/preservation model for electronic journal content, and various efforts to preserve the World Wide Web - and discussed how each presents issues of responsibility, incentives, and organization.

      The following were key points made during the discussion:

      • The group discussed the need to consider "controlled" or "planned" redundancy when preserving digital materials. There was an acknowledgment that although the goal is to minimize duplication of preservation projects, more than one copy is needed. The question is how many?
      • The group felt that the JSTOR economic model had been successful primarily because the pricing combines access with preservation, thereby "building in" the preservation when the underlying desire is access.
      • The urgency and resources needed for digital preservation is not as clear cut as it is for preservation of physical materials because "we can't see it deteriorating."
      • The group felt that within their institutions that the responsibility for preservation of faculty-authored digital resources is clearly the role of their libraries. Responsibility for the preservation of cultural heritage collections is not always as clear-cut.
      • Ultimately, the group felt that for the most part, libraries are not ready to undertake the financial responsibility for digital preservation, but there is a growing realization and acceptance by librarians that libraries must take on the responsibility.

      Brian's presentation is available at http://www.oclc.org/research/memberscouncil/2004-02/lavoie_mc2004.ppt (PowerPoint:87.5K/17slides).

    Day 2

    • Pam Kircher presented an overview of PREMIS: Preservation Metadata Implementation Strategies.

      • PREMIS is a working group convened by OCLC and the Research Libraries Group to focus on implementing preservation metadata. PREMIS builds upon the work of the initial OCLC/RLG Working Group on Preservation Metadata. The goals of PREMIS are to define core preservation metadata and identify and evaluate strategies for encoding, storing, managing, and sharing.

      Additional information is available on the PREMIS web site: http://www.oclc.org/research/projects/pmwg/default.htm.

      Pam's presentation is available at http://www.oclc.org/research/memberscouncil/2004-02/kircher_premis.ppt (PowerPoint:1.23MB/9slides).

    • Judy Cobb and Susan Westberg presented an overview of the Digital Library Federation initiative to create a registry of digital masters.

      • The Digital Library Federation (DLF) has been working with staff at OCLC to create a platform for a digital registry of digital masters. The purpose is to provide a means for libraries to coordinate their efforts to digitize materials with the goal of achieving less duplication of effort. The registry is intended to record or link to key information regarding digitization, preservation, and access. DLF's user requirements are for digitization to adhere to standards and best practices and be stored in a professionally managed way, with the intent to preserve for decades or centuries. OCLC's role is to provide digital registry participants with tools to record and/or access information about digital masters or the intent to digitize non-digital materials. The registry also includes information about rights management, technical specification of the digitization process, and other related information. The implementation of the digital registry at OCLC uses WorldCat and current MARC fields; the records become part of WorldCat. Because the digital registry will include records for both materials actually digitized, as well as materials that libraries have an "intent" to digitize, the group questioned the impact of the "intent to digitize" records on library contribution to WorldCat and membership status.

      Additional information about the digital registry is located at: http://www.diglib.org/collections/reg/reg.htm.

      Judy and Susan's presentation is available at http://www.oclc.org/research/memberscouncil/2004-02/cobb_dlfregistry.ppt (PowerPoint:63K/20slides).

  2. List 1-2 significant issues that the group wants to communicate to Members Council and OCLC.

    • The interest group would like OCLC to present a holistic view of its various preservation-related services and initiatives. The group feels that they, and the membership at large, are lacking a clear, integrated picture of the various metadata projects, the digital registry, preservation products and services such as ContentDM, related services such as netLibrary, and OCLC's traditional services and how they fit together within the framework of digital preservation. The group would also like OCLC to suggest a viable economic model for the long-term preservation of digital collections. This economic model would be a "straw-man" for discussion and refinement by Members Council.
    • Because the current implementation of the Digital Registry is limited to OCLC members, the group would like OCLC to explore ways that the registry can be opened to commercial entities and non-members in the future to further reduce redundancy of digital preservation projects.
    • ยท The group would like OCLC and Members Council to undertake discussions about the implications that Digital Registry contributions have for the concept of contribution as it relates to OCLC membership status.

Please send all inquiries to: Robert Bolander