Access Management and Openness in Digital Archives and Repositories

Abstract

This paper discusses the access management in digital archives and repositories. Access management consists of technical procedures, solutions and policies such as privileges management, access control, user management, privacy management and metadata. In addition, information ethics regarding sensitive materials needs to be taken into consideration. All of these aspects have an impact on access and management of the archival materials during their lifecycle. Access management becomes more important when both contents and information systems are online. Another hot topic, or even an emerging megatrend, is openness. In this context, it often means open access to the contents. Perhaps they are published via open APIs which are built into open source digital archive systems; and the archival contents could be enriched with open data. Both linked data and open data are examined from a pragmatic point of view. The concept of open data, linked data and open linked data are introduced. They are discussed as both technology and best practices. This paper then focuses on the context of digital archives and repositories. In addition, a compact overview on the challenges and possibilities is presented. The paper covers the data consumer and provider perspectives. It features a couple of examples for practical benefits. Two projects carried out by the Mikkeli University of Applied Sciences are used to demonstrate the developments and the challenges: Open Source Archive and The Karelia Database.