The Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) has released Survey of Canadian and International Data Management Initiatives.

Here's an excerpt from the "Introduction":

Research libraries have a role to play in this emerging data-intensive environment. A 2007 CARL survey found that most CARL members are interested in managing research data, but few have a formal data archiving policy. CARL has formed a Research Data Management Working Group to assist members in collecting, organizing, preserving and providing access to the research data and to formulate a cooperative approach for CARL.

The purpose of this report is to provide an overview of the types of data management activities being undertaken in Canada and internationally. This review documents the various options available for libraries, and will pave the way for a more detailed investigation by the Working Group of the potential roles for libraries.

The Bibliothèque Nationale de France is engaged in the SPAR (A Distributed Archiving and Preservation System) project.

Here's an excerpt from the project's English home page:

After more than a year of study, BnF launched the SPAR project, true digital stack. Its design is based on international standards authoritative in the subject of the sustainability of digital information. In particular, SPAR respects the OAIS standard (ISO-14721:2003), reference model for an open archival information system. . . .

The SPAR project is much more than a simple stack of secure data.

• It makes multiple copies of the digital objects and provides continuous monitoring on the status of the hardware as well as the media containing the recorded files in order to anticipate new copies before a definitive loss.
• Through a precise and complete recognition of the formats of the ingested objects, it also guarantees the continuity of access by making the necessary transformations in case of the technological obsolescence of the access software. Hence, for example, when the JPEG image format will become obsolete, SPAR will be able to transform all the appropriate images in a new and more permanent format. . . .

SPAR is a system serving a community. It must guarantee that the documents given back haven't been modified. To this goal, SPAR marks each object with a digital signature. Moreover, to guarantee the access rights of the disseminated digital objects, SPAR uses a rights management system which calculates the usage licenses of the digital objects and applies the necessary restrictions depending on the user . . .

Read more about it at Bringing Seven Centuries into the Future: Bibliothèque Nationale de France: SPAR Analysis.

The Library of Congress and the California Digital Library have established a new format called BagIt for transferring large data collections between cultural institutions.

Read more about it at "The BagIt File Package Format (V0.94)" and "Library Develops Format for Transferring Digital Content."

The Research Information Network has published To Share or not to Share: Publication and Quality Assurance of Research Data Outputs. The report has a separate Annex file.

This report presents the findings from a study of whether or not researchers do in fact make their research data available to others, and the issues they encounter when doing so. The study is set in a context where the amount of digital data being created and gathered by researchers is increasing rapidly; and there is a growing recognition by researchers, their employers and their funders of the potential value in making new data available for sharing, and in curating them for re-use in the long term.

Portico and Ithaka have released Digital Preservation of E-Journals in 2008: Urgent Action Revisited.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

In September 2005, library directors from 17 universities and colleges met to discuss the current state of electronic journal preservation and endorsed a statement calling for “Urgent Action” to preserve scholarly e-journals. Over two years later in January 2008, in the Portico and Ithaka invited 1,371 library directors of four-year colleges and universities in the United States to respond to a survey examining current perspectives on preservation of e-journals. A strong response has yielded interesting findings that we now share with the community in the hope they will spark useful discussion among library directors, funders, and administrators regarding strategic library priorities.

The survey finds that a large majority of library directors across the spectrum strongly agree or agree that the potential loss of e-journals is unacceptable, and a significant majority believe their own institution has a responsibility to take action to prevent an intolerable loss of the scholarly record. Most larger libraries responding now support one or more e-journal preservation initiatives; however, the majority of respondents from smaller libraries have yet to support any preservation effort and secure permanent access to e-journals for their institutions. The survey shows that this majority is significantly uncertain about their options for e-journal preservation and how urgent is the need to act.

JISC has released Evaluation of the JISC UK LOCKSS Pilot.

Here's an excerpt from the Executive Summary:

This report provides an evaluation of the UK LOCKSS pilot project as it reaches the end of its pilot phase. LOCKSS (Lots Of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) is an international community-based archiving initiative led by Stanford University in the US with over 170 member libraries worldwide, archiving content from over 200 publishers. It is a community-based archiving service operating on open-source software, giving libraries control over their own archived content with the emphasis on low cost and low maintenance.

In March 2006, JISC in partnership with the Consortium of Research Libraries in the British Isles (CURL) funded membership of a collective UK LOCKSS Alliance for 24 selected UK HE libraries. The Digital Curation Centre (DCC) at the department of HATII within the University of Glasgow received funding to set up the UK LOCKSS Technical Support Service to provide technical advice and general support to pilot members and Content Complete Ltd. (CCL) were funded to negotiate with NESLi2 and other publishers to allow LOCKSS-based archiving. The UK LOCKSS pilot is particularly innovative as the first effort to establish a country wide LOCKSS network. The study found that the UK LOCKSS pilot project had achieved its overall aim of setting up a UK LOCKSS Alliance of 30 HE libraries, but that in relation to the detailed aims and objectives there were a number of issues to be addressed if the project was to become self-sustaining at the end of the pilot phase.

The Digital Library Federation has released presentations from its Spring Forum 2008.

Here's a selection of the presentations:

• Building a Large-Scale Preservation Repository Based on aDORe
• The Challenges of Applying Traditional Cataloging Standards to Non-Traditional, User-Created Descriptive Metadata in Digital Library Projects
• DLF Environmental Scan: Issues and Solutions for Archives in a Digital World
• DSpace Foundation: Charting a Course to Support the DSpace Community and Advance the DSpace Open Source Software Platform
• Introducing BibApp 1.0
• The NEW IUScholarWorks at Indiana University: Repositories, Journals, and Scholarly Publishing
• An OAI-ORE Aggregation for the National Virtual Observatory

The Preservation and Reformatting Section of the Association for Library Collections & Technical Services, a division of the American Library Association, has published its formal definition of digital preservation.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The definition was developed to promote an understanding of digital preservation within the library community, as well as our allied professions and the user communities we exist to serve. This definition is presented to mark our current understanding of digital preservation and encourage further development of these ideas.

This definition grew out of a conversation held at the Digital Preservation Discussion Group at the ALA Midwinter Meeting in 2007. An ad hoc task force crafted language that was shared with a number of constituencies during the spring and early summer of 2007. The definition was discussed and approved by the PARS Executive Committee during the 2008 Midwinter Meeting in Philadelphia. The ALCTS Board of Directors approved it during Midwinter, and the definition was presented to and accepted by Council as an informational document. The definition is being incorporated into the forthcoming revision of the current ALA Preservation Policy currently being undertaken by PARS.

The working group studied a number of resources to familiarize itself with the critical elements of digital preservation identified by a broad selection of individuals and agencies. These ideas were cast into language that speaks to a wide variety of stakeholders while also being consistent with the core preservation concepts that have developed in the library and archival communities.

The core concepts are presented in a short, medium and long version to accommodate a variety of needs. The long version includes a number of currently accepted best practices but is not intended to be an exhaustive list. As more is learned about implementing digital preservation programs, the definitions should be reviewed and revised on a regular basis.

The definition will be reviewed and updated as needed.

OCLC has announced the availability of a Digital Archive service.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The service provides a secure storage environment for libraries to easily manage and monitor master files and digital originals. The importance of preserving master files grows as a library's digital collections grow. Libraries need a workflow for capturing and managing master files that finds a balance between the acquisition of both digitized and born-digital content while not outpacing a library's capability to manage these large files. . . .

The Digital Archive service is a specially designed system in a controlled operating environment dedicated to the ongoing managed storage of digital content. OCLC has developed specific systems processes and procedures for the service tuned to the management of data for the long term.

From the time content arrives, the Digital Archive systems begin inspecting it to ensure continuity. OCLC systems perform quality checks and record the results in a "health record" for each file. Automated systems revisit these quality checks periodically so libraries receive up-to-date reports on the health of the collection. OCLC provides monthly updated information for all collections on the personal archive report portal.

For users of CONTENTdm, OCLC's digital collection management software for libraries and other cultural heritage institutions, the Digital Archive service is an optional capability integrated with various workflows for building collections. Master files are secured for ingest to the Digital Archive service using the CONTENTdm Acquisition Station, the Connexion digital import capability and the Web Harvesting service.

For users of other content management systems, the Digital Archive service provides a low-overhead mechanism for safely storing master files.

Presentations from the JISC/British Library/Digital Preservation Coalition What to Preserve? Significant Properties of Digital Objects Workshop are now available.

TAPE (Training for Audiovisual Preservation in Europe) has published Audiovisual Research Collections and Their Preservation.

Here's an excerpt from the introduction:

Digital technology has conquered audiovisual production, post-processing, and archiving. Audio has totally become part of the IT world, and video is about to follow the same way. All dedicated audio formats are dead, and soon the same will be the case for video formats. The pace by which dedicated audio and video formats are becoming obsolete is breathtaking. The problem is not so much the survival of the original documents, but the availability of highly specialised replay equipment which disappears from the market soon after a format has been abandoned commercially. Today audiovisual archives associations estimate the time window still open for the transfer of dedicated analogue and digital carriers into digital repositories to be not more than just 20 years.

The PREMIS Editorial Committee has released PREMIS Data Dictionary for Preservation Metadata, Version 2.0. A draft XML schema, which will be reviewed for a month before being released in final form, is also available.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

This document is a revision of Data Dictionary for Preservation Metadata: Final report of the PREMIS Working Group, issued in May 2005. The PREMIS Data Dictionary and its supporting documentation is a comprehensive, practical resource for implementing preservation metadata in digital archiving systems. Preservation metadata is defined as information that preservation repositories need to know to support digital materials over the long term.

This document is a specification that emphasizes metadata that may be implemented in a wide range of repositories, supported by guidelines for creation, management and use, and oriented toward automated workflows. It is technically neutral in that no assumptions are made about preservation technologies, strategies, syntaxes, or metadata storage and management. Members of the PREMIS Editorial Committee revised the original data dictionary based on comments and experience from implementers and potential implementers since its release. The Editorial Committee kept the preservation community informed about issues being discussed, solicited comments on proposed revisions, and consulted outside experts where appropriate. . . .

Major changes in this revision include:

• Expanded rights metadata
• More extensive significant properties and preservation level information
• Mechanism for extensibility for a number of metadata units