Digital Information Infrastructure Research Articles

Expanding the Preservation Network: Lessons from Portico

Portico, a digital preservation archive for the scholarly community and a National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP) partner, has successfully extended the NDIIPP network to include a diverse and broad set of publishers and libraries through the development of a model that encourages institutions of all sizes to participate in digital preservation. Over the past two and a half years of archive operations, Portico has learned a number of lessons—most importantly that responsiveness to community needs is key to successful preservation.

Transformative Effects of NDIIPP, the Case of the Henry A. Murray Archive

This article comprises reflections on the changes to the Henry A. Murray Research Archive, catalyzed by involvement with the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP) partnership, and the accompanying introduction of next generation digital library software. Founded in 1976 at Radcliffe, the Henry A. Murray Research Archive is the endowed, permanent repository for quantitative and qualitative research data at the Institute for Quantitative Social Science, in Harvard University. The Murray preserves in perpetuity all types of data of interest to the research community, including numerical, video, audio, interview notes, and other types. The center is unique among data archives in the United States in the extent of its holdings in quantitative, qualitative, and mixed quantitative-qualitative research. The Murray took part in an NDIIPP-funded collaboration with four other archival partners, Data-PASS, for the purpose of the identification and acquisition of data at risk, and the joint development of best practices with respect to shared stewardship, preservation, and exchange of these data. During this time, the Dataverse Network (DVN) software was introduced, facilitating the creation of virtual archives. The combination of institutional collaboration and new technology lead the Murray to re-engineer its entire acquisition process; completely rewrite its ingest, dissemination, and other licensing agreements; and adopt a new model for ingest, discovery, access, and presentation of its collections. Through the Data-PASS project, the Murray has acquired a number of important data collections. The resulting changes within the Murray have been dramatic, including increasing its overall rate of acquisitions by fourfold; and disseminating acquisitions far more rapidly. Furthermore, the new licensing and processing procedures allow a previously undreamed of level of interoperability and collaboration with partner archives, facilitating integrated discovery and presentation services, and joint stewardship of collections.

Distributed Digital Preservation: Private LOCKSS Networks as Business, Social, and Technical Frameworks

The Library of Congress' National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP) has helped underwrite the development of highly targeted collaborative preservation networks among content sites with common interests in specialized subject areas. Today, institutions worldwide have tapped the LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) Program's innovative approach to distributed digital preservation to accomplish a variety of business, social, and technical pursuits. LOCKSS technology enables nontechnical administrators to create and manage their own preservation network via a "Private LOCKSS Network" (PLN). A PLN is a scaled down version of the public LOCKSS network, which comprises two hundred library members and preserves over a thousand titles from more than three hundred publishers. PLNs enable like-minded institutions to shoulder the responsibility of preserving in perpetuity scholarly e-content of importance to the group. More and more research organizations are discovering the benefits of PLNs to address their collection and preservation needs.

NDIIPP Partner Perspectives on Economic Sustainability

This article presents results from the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP) Digital Preservation Sustainability Working Group survey, conducted in 2007. The Library of Congress initiated the working group to gather information about significant issues relating to the economic sustainability of activities that support digital stewardship. The group decided the most useful method to collect information was through a series of structured telephone interviews involving several open-ended questions. Eleven NDIIPP partners were invited to participate. Interviews gathered qualitative information about a variety of economic sustainability issues, including developing business cases, implementing business models, measuring costs, and developing a stable economic basis for digital preservation programs. Survey results revealed a mix of consensus and division on various issues and shed interesting light upon the sustainability of preservation programs generally. The article provides an overview of the survey and its methodology, categorizes the responses, and draws some high-level conclusions. While the survey results should be viewed within the context of NDIIPP, they may be useful for archives, libraries, and other preservation institutions as they consider economic sustainability issues.

Digital Preservation through Archival Collaboration: The Data Preservation Alliance for the Social Sciences

The Data Preservation Alliance for the Social Sciences (Data-PASS) is a partnership of five major U.S. institutions with a strong focus on archiving social science research. The Library of Congress supports the partnership through its National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP). The goal of Data-PASS is to acquire and preserve data from opinion polls, voting records, large-scale surveys, and other social science studies at risk of being lost to the research community. This paper discusses the agreements, processes, and infrastructure that provide a foundation for the collaboration.

Call for Papers—Special Issue: Organizing for Innovation in the Digitized World

Background Rapid developments in digital technology have brought several challenges in innovation research. First, digital technology has radically reduced the communication cost for remote collaboration and coordination, which has led to the emergence of new organizing structures that transcend the traditional organizational boundaries and space limitations. Open innovation, for example, allows organizations to tap into a much broader source of new ideas by democratizing the innovation process and taking advantage of reduced communication cost and access to shared digital resources. By overcoming constraints on communication and coordination, the use of digital technology has enabled organizations to radically decentralize the way they manage innovation across networks of increasingly heterogeneous actors. Examples of such networked, distributed innovation abound: from software engineering companies that work with the global hacker community to improve their software, to manufacturing companies sourcing innovation from customers and suppliers, to mass media companies drawing on digital content created by users. Second, change in the innovation process is also taking place due to digital convergence. The integration and embedding of digital technologies into nondigital artifacts is opening up vast new avenues for radical innovation. Integration of digital technologies, often in the form of computing, memory, and transmission capability, not only allows the products and services to become “smarter,” but also potentially transform the way the products are consumed and experienced. The embedding of global position systems chips and radio frequency identification tags into ordinary products, for example, enables the production of streams of digital data that can be combined with other forms of digital information— such as digital map on Google Earth or social networks on MySpace.com. Therefore, the notion of digital convergence that is often used to describe the bundling of phone, Internet, mobile, and TV services need to be expanded to all forms of artifact design, process change, and experience creation to theorize about these kinds of “radical” digital innovations. Radical digital convergence blurs the boundaries across industries and commerce, as exemplified by the collaboration between Apple and Nike when they introduced Nike shoes that interact with iPods. Here, organizations are confronted with heterogeneous knowledge resources that are often embedded in different pockets of the organizational hierarchy. Third, the advances in digital technologies and software platforms now allow organizations to “digitize” multiple aspects of work processes that were previously supported by analogue tools. Digitized work practices can be modularized, integrated, and reconfigured. In the construction industry, for example, building information management systems have started to leverage new kinds of digital information infrastructures that integrate activities related to design, budgeting, scheduling, material management, and human resources. Again, we see the challenge of managing heterogeneity across organizational borders as a result of digital innovation. We believe these and many other challenges related to rapid and radical digitization will dominate the concerns of managers in this century. Studying the full impact of digital technology on innovation, however, requires genuine cross-disciplinary dialogue. Given the novelty and speed of this phenomenon, we need richer vocabularies, diverse theoretical perspectives, new research methodologies, and novel data analysis techniques allowed by access to digital data and traces. We also need to increase the breadth of research as the impact of digital technologies can be found in many different industries,

Federal Digitization — Moving to Common Guidelines

The field of digital conversion, and particularly the conversion of historic materials, is relatively new and has primarily relied on analog capture practices. And yet as young and complex as the field is, there is a common perception that the task of digitizing collections is the aspect of developing digital collections that is a given, absent of unknowns or controversial views. Contradicting this perception, a survey of current practices and guidelines demonstrated wide variation in specific metrics and general practices in use at libraries, archives and museums worldwide. Furthermore, there are aspects of imaging, encoding or quality management that are simply not addressed.US federal agencies are no exception in lacking common and comprehensive guidelines. Informal discussions took place among a number of agencies to discuss a collaborative initiative to address these discrepancies and gaps. A group of federal agencies began meeting in 2007 to articulate a common set of guidelines, methods, and practices for the digitization of historical content in a sustainable manner. The participating agencies share the belief that common digitization guidelines will enhance the exchange of research results and developments, encourage collaborative digitization practices and projects among federal agencies and institutions and provide the public with a product of uniform quality. They will also serve to set common benchmarks for digitization service providers and manufacturers.The agencies involved in this initiative also share a common philosophical approach to developing technical guidelines; namely that:• guidelines should be based on clearly articulated objectives describing the expected uses of the digitized content;• methodologies and requirements should be based on recognized approved standards or empirical data to the extent possible;• work must be prioritized by project forecasts, impact of guidelines that are incomplete, dated or non-existent, and estimated effort to develop a robust guideline;• the efforts undertaken through this federal initiative be conducted in a transparent manner, sharing not only conclusions but the approach and reasoning; and• the participating members actively seek input from the public, governmental and academic institutions, as well as corporate entities and trade organizations.The participating agencies began their work by identifying and prioritizing the most critical areas to be addressed. Two working groups have been formed – the Still Image Digitization Working Group with a focus on textual content, maps, photographic prints and negatives, and the Audio-Visual Digitization Working Group whose focus is on sound, video, and motion picture film.A public website (digitizationguidelines.gov) has been published to provide transparency with regard to the activities under this initiative, to share findings and to solicit input from external sources. All draft guidelines developed by the working groups are made available on the website for review and public comment.The group initially formed under the auspices of the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP), a program initiated by Congress in 2000 to develop a national strategy to collect, archive and preserve digital content. Federal agencies represented on NDIIPP's National Digital Strategy Advisory Board formed the initial core of the group's membership.

Preserving Geospatial Data: The National Geospatial Digital Archive's Approach

The National Geospatial Digital Archive (NGDA) is one of eight initial projects funded by the Library of Congress's National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP). The project's overarching goal is to answer the question: How can we preserve geospatial data on a national scale and make it available to future generations? This paper summarizes the project's work in four areas: analysis of the characteristics of geospatial data relevant to preservation; elucidation of the “relay” principles of long-term preservation; development of an OAIS-compliant archive system; and development of a wiki- and repository-based format registry.

The Year of Content: Learning from Experience Transferring Digital Content across the NDIIPP Network

The Library of Congress and the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP) network partners declared 2008 “The Year of Content.” As a part of the Year of Content, the NDIIPP network and the Library focused on a program of digital content transfer. The NDIIPP network comprises libraries, archives, universities, research centers, non-profit and for-profit organizations and professional associations across the United States as well as a wide variety of international partners (Anderson 2008). The NDIIPP partners participated in developing and testing standards, best practices, and technological solutions for digital preservation challenges. A number of NDIIPP projects acquired and preserved at-risk digital content and worked to send a copy of the content to the Library for safekeeping. This effort was accomplished in 2008.Selecting, packaging, and sending content highlighted the challenges of content transfer as well as the importance of this element of the preservation lifecycle. Many of the partners found that moving digital content to the Library was beneficial to their own work, refining their own stewardship processes and strengthening common standards and practices in the community.The NDIIPP network gained practical experience moving digital information from one institution to another and, in the process, learned and confirmed digital preservation lessons that inform the ever-changing roles of curators and stewards.

Evolving a Network of Networks: The Experience of Partnerships in the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program

The National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP) was initiated in December 2000 when the U.S. Congress authorized the Library of Congress to work with a broad range of institutions to develop a national strategy for the preservation of at-risk digital content. Guided by a strategy of collaboration and iteration, the Library of Congress began the formation of a national network of partners dedicated to collecting and preserving important born-digital information. Over the last six years, the Library and its partners have been engaged in learning through action that has resulted in an evolving understanding of the most appropriate roles and functions for a national network of diverse stakeholders. The emerging network is complex and inclusive of a variety of stakeholders; content producers, content stewards and service providers from the public and private sectors. Lessons learned indicate that interoperability is a challenge in all aspects of collaborative work.

Interorganizational collaboration and community building for the preservation of state government digital information: Lessons from NDIIPP state partnership initiative

As a part of the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP), the Library of Congress (LC), partnering with the Center for Technology in Government (CTG), launched an effort in 2005 to integrate state governmental entities into the national network to preserve born-digital information that is both significant and at risk of loss. The main theme that emerged from the efforts of LC, CTG, and the state and federal digital preservation community was the importance of partnership efforts and collaborative strategies for the preservation of state government digital information. Based on the findings of the initiative, this paper discusses challenges and opportunities regarding interorganizational collaboration and community building for digital preservation of state government information. Following the community of practice framework, it is recommended that a “state government digital information preservation community” be developed to facilitate collaboration across agencies and knowledge professionals in state governments.

Creating a Digital Preservation Network with Shared Stewardship and Cost: The Experience of Partnerships in the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program

The National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP) was initiated in December 2000 when the U.S. Congress authorized the Library of Congress to work with a broad range of institutions to develop a national strategy for the preservation of important at-risk born digital content. Guided by a strategy of broad collaborations and iterative learning, the Library of Congress began catalyzing a national network of partners dedicated to collecting and preserving important born-digital information. Over the last six years, the Library and its partners have been engaged in learning through action. Our investments in preservation partnerships, public policy deliberations related to intellectual property challenges, basic technical research, and network architecture models have increased our understanding of the sustaining roles and functions for a national network of diverse stakeholders. The emerging network of networks is complex and inclusive of a variety of stakeholders: content producers, content stewards and service providers from the public and private sectors.

Digital Preservation of Geospatial Data

The selection, acquisition, and management of digital data are now part and parcel of the work librarians handle on a day-to-day basis. While much thought goes into this work, little consideration may be given to the long-term preservation of the collected data. Digital data cannot be retained for the future in the same way paper-based materials have traditionally been handled. Specific issues arise when archiving digital data and especially geospatial data. This article will discuss some of those issues, including data versioning, file size, proprietary data formats, copyright, and the complexity of file formats. Collection development topics, including what to collect and why, will also be explored. The work underlying this article is being done as part of an award from the Library of Congress's National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP).

Distributed Preservation in a National Context

The Library of Congress (LC), under direction from the U. S. Congress, is leading the development of a distributed digital preservation network that is to include public- and private-sector content creators, distributors, stewardship organizations, and technology enterprises. This article will summarize the progress of that initiative ? the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP) ? five and a half years after its inception. Specific actions that address the development of LC's internal preservation infrastructure, as well as LC's participation in international efforts, will not be addressed. This article will focus instead on NDIIPP's strategic approach; first-round investments, achievements, and lessons learned; plans for second-round investments; and a look ahead at remaining challenges

Turning Silos into Bridges: Optimizing Local Digital Library Programs for Collaboration and Beyond

Florida State University Libraries' Digital Library Program is one of six founding members of the MetaArchive of Southern Digital Culture <http://www.metaarchive.org>. This partnership with the research libraries of Auburn University, Emory University, the Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of Louisville, and the Virginia Polytechnic and State University is funded under the auspices of the Library of Congress National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program to build a collaborative digital preservation network of Southern cultural heritage materials. The partnership was established to explore a new model for distributed, collaborative digital archiving and preservation. The new model spans multiple state jurisdictions, and includes public, private and governmental participants. Joining this very large and distributed partnership made the FSU Digital Library realize that with collaboration comes growth. Since 2003, the FSU Libraries have considered the questions, “What must be in place for a prototypical digital library program to engage in multiple large-scale collaborations?” and “How can new and or established digital library programs create a model workflow that will support collaborative efforts with as little added work as possible?” This paper considers those questions in the context of the FSU-NDIIPP partnership, and suggests evaluative criteria for building bridges and opening silos.

Building Preservation Partnerships: The Library of Congress National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program

Congress authorized the Library of Congress to undertake the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP) to prevent the loss of our digital heritage. This work, as with all digital preservation activities, is challenging because of technical issues and also because traditionally there have been few effective collaborative mechanisms to leverage resources and expertise. NDIIPP aims to address both issues while also ensuring the preservation of at-risk digital content. Concrete steps have been taken recently with the establishment of eight partnership consortia, each of which has committed to working with the other and the Library on collaborative digital preservation initiatives. The eight consortia represent the formal launch of an NDIIPP national network of preservation partners. Currently, NDIIPP is exploring how best to involve states and territories in the network.

The DODL, the NDIIPP, and the Copyright Conundrum

����� ��� The occasion that stimulated this paper provided an opportunity to discuss issues of critical importance to both publishers and librarians. In what follows, I hope to explain not only what those things are but also why they are urgent. Currently, in the United States, the Library of Congress (LC) is involved in two programs that are of particular importance to it and potentially of importance to all who care about maximizing the benefits of digital technology for information service. Both programs have acronymic names that are, at best, mysterious, and, at worst, weird. One is called the DODL and the other is the NDIIPP. DODL stands for Distributed Open Digital Library, and NDIIPP stands for National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program. The DODL is being created by the Digital Library Federation, which is—parenthetically—also trying to find a more harmonious name or acronym for it. The DODL’s development has become international, because the Digital Library Federation has just been joined by the British Library, the federation’s first strategic partner outside of the United States, and others may follow. Within the United States, the Digital Library Federation has 32 member institutions and four affiliates. Most of the institutions are the libraries of major research universities, but the federation also includes the New York Public Library, the Council on Library and Information Resources, the U.S. National Archives, and the Library of Congress. Last fall the members of the federation committed themselves to creating jointly something first envisioned in 1995 at the time of the federation’s founding—a collaborative digital library that will provide global electronic access to collections in multiple institutions. This Distributed Open Digital Library—the DODL—will provide users with one point of entry to multiple, digitized collections. Moreover, the federation hopes that this distributed library will provide services using a deep finding system and specialized portals to help scholars locate material for their individual fields and specific studies. The DODL’s collection will begin with materials in the humanities and social

National Digital Preservation Initiatives: An Overview of Developments in Australia, France, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom and of Related International Activity Commissioned for and sponsored by the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program, Library of Congress

Neil Beagrie's report gives an overview of some key international developments in digital preservation, selected because of their potential relevance to the U. S. National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program. The study focuses on major programs in four countries – Australia, France, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom – and systematically describes each program's national context, institutional and national initiatives, international initiatives and planned/future international activities. It also describes some key multinational initiatives such as the Open Archival Information System and Preservation Technology for European Broadcast Archives.

Artificial Intelligence in Managing Market Relationships

In the 21st century our society is increasingly defined by access to and fluency with digital technologies and information infrastructures which are described to be essential to economic development, global competitiveness and national productivity (Merril Lynch & Co. Inc., 2000). This paper presents a theoretical framework for the development of a new intelligent software system designed to integrate loyalty programs data bases information, consumer surveys and qualitative studies what will enable the producing firm to be in contact with consumers' behavioural and attitudinal patterns. The benefit of this theoretical model is its assistance to consumer goods-producing firms to establish information-based relationships with both the end customer-user and the retailers that distribute the goods.

Editor's Introduction

On Valentine's Day 2003, the Library of Congress announced congressional approval of the "Plan for the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program" (NDIIPP). This follows a $99.8 million appropriation in December 2000 (PL 106-54) and the publication in October 2002 of an initial study by the Library of Congress, "Preserving Our Digital Heritage: Plan for the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program." This legislation charges the Library of Congress with the job of leading a nationwide effort to plan and execute the preservation of digital content. The present approval merely releases money for the next phase of the plan from the original appropriation, but it also asks that up to $75 million be raised from private sources. This is a major advancement and puts the United States slightly ahead of the curve in reference to digital preservation strategies. It is also a welcome change from the political and financial limbo in which television/video preservation still finds itself after the completion of the Library of Congress's television and video preservation study in 1997. Given the ever-increasing tendency to transfer all video material to digital formats, one might even hope that television and video will take care of themselves in the wake of the digital revolution.