Introducing theMerritt Curation Repository

U n i v e r s i t y o f C a l i fo r n i a C u r a ti o n C e nt e rC a l i f o r n i a D i g i ta l L i b r a r y

N o v e m b e r 2 0 , 2 0 1 0

Introducing Merritt

• What is Merritt?• Who can use Merritt?• What content can go into Merritt?• How can Merritt be used?• Demonstration• Next steps• Summary• Discussion

Merritt

Merritt is a new cost-effective repository service that lets the UC community manage, share, and preserve digital content

Merritt is the continuation of the existing Digital Preservation Repository (DPR) service

Merritt is positioned to support the Digital Library Services Task Force (DLSTF) recommendations

– “Capture a significant percentage of new content streams”– “Provide campuses with infrastructure to … manage, share,

and preserve their collections”– “Enable easy discovery and use”

DLSTF, Final Report, December 18, 2009

Capture new content streams

Merritt is content agnostic– Contributors can submit any content in any form– Content can be accompanied by any (or no) metadata

While all forms of content are acceptable, certain forms are preferable– UC3 offers guidance and best practice

recommendations for content creation that is inherently amenable to long-term curation

Merritt supports simplified submission workflows– Flickr-like interface for people– RESTful API for machines

Manage, share, and preserve

UC3 operates Merritt as a centrally-hosted service, but the underlying technology can be easily deployed for local use on campuses– Merritt is built from a micro-services “toolkit” of

reusable, and re-combinable, componentshttp://www.cdlib.org/uc3/curation

Merritt provides comprehensive function to deposit, store, update, preserve, search, deliver, and export digital content

Content can be placed into any number of collections defined to meet curatorial purposes

Easy discovery and use

All Merritt content objects have identifiers for persistent reference– EZID “Long-term identifiers made easy”

http://www.cdlib.org/uc3/ezid

Merritt includes a comprehensive metadata catalog of all content– Metadata is semantically exposed as Linked Data

Content (and metadata) retrieval can take place at the object, version, or file level– Merritt is strongly versioned to preserve object

provenance as content and metadata evolve over time

Using Merritt you can…

Take control of your content and provide access how and when you want

Share with others

Meet the data sustainability requirements of grant-funded research– UC received over $600 million from NSF in 2009– In the future, NSF grantees must have a sustainability

plan

Provide long-term preservation– Checksums, storage replication, technology watch

Introducing Merritt

What is Merritt? Who can use Merritt?• What content can go into Merritt?• How can Merritt be used?• Demonstration• Next steps• Summary• Discussion

Merritt is available to UC and non-UC partners

Use of Merritt is available to all faculty, research staff, and administrative units of the University of California– Libraries, archives, museums– Academic departments– ORUs/MRUs– Data centers

Use is also offered to content partners outside of the University– Academic, commercial, and non-profit sectors

Introducing Merritt

What is Merritt?Who can use Merritt? What content can go into Merritt?• How can Merritt be used?• Demonstration• Next steps• Summary• Discussion

Merritt is content agnosticCDL eScholarship Open access publishing

Open Context Archaeological

Minnesota Historical Society Legislative history

Media Hub Program Museum collections

California Digital Newspaper Collection News media

Water Resource Center Archive Environmental

UCTV Multi-media

DataONE member node Scientific

UC3 Web Archiving Service Everything

UC3 legacy DPR collections Anything

… and lots more!

Introducing Merritt

What is Merritt?Who can use Merritt?What content can go into Merritt? How can Merritt be used?• Demonstration• Next steps• Summary• Discussion

Using Merritt

Dark archive for important digital assets– Similar to existing DPR usage

Bright archive with direct discovery and access– California legislative library– Part of grant-funded research data sustainability plan

Preservation back-end for existing or new discovery and content management systems

– eScholarship, Media Hub, Minnesota Historical Society, Open Context

Integration with distributed data grids– Chronopolis, DataONE member node

Local deployments for special-purpose campus repositories

Next-generation digital repositoryThe NGTS New Modes for Access task force has identified a useful set of criteria for “indispensible services” of a next-generation digital library

– Search, browsing … that “exploit interconnected information about resources”

– Services for augmenting resources, to enable features such as annotation

– Dissemination and notification services

– Security and policy assurance, namely authentication and access control mechanisms

– Services providing interoperability

– Preservation services, to ensure versioning and archiving

– Quality assurance services, to ensure authenticityKruk and McDaniel, “Goals of semantic digital libraries”

Semantic Digital Libraries (Berlin: Springer, 2009)

The NGTS New Modes for Access task force has identified a useful set of criteria for “indispensible services” of a next-generation digital library

– Search, browsing … that “exploit interconnected information about resources”

– Services for augmenting resources, to enable features such as annotation

– Dissemination and notification services

– Security and policy assurance, namely authentication and access control mechanisms

– Services providing interoperability

– Preservation services, to ensure versioning and archiving

– Quality assurance services, to ensure authenticityKruk and McDaniel, “Goals of semantic digital libraries”

Semantic Digital Libraries (Berlin: Springer, 2009)

Introducing Merritt

What is Merritt?Who can use Merritt?What content can go into Merritt?How can Merritt be used? Demonstration• Next steps• Summary• Discussion

Demonstration

http://merritt.cdlib.org/

Introducing Merritt

What is Merritt?Who can use Merritt?What content can go into Merritt?How can Merritt be used?Demonstration Next steps• Summary• Discussion

Next steps

UC3 is working with campus partners to determine ongoing development and collection priorities

Annotation

Notification

Transformatio

nCharacteriza

tionFixity

/ Linked data

ReplicationIDm/Authn/Authz

Ingest, Access Inventory, Queuing

Storage and Identity

Technology watchMetadata standards

Policy and business modelData management guidelines

Object and collection modeling

New contentacquisition

Introducing Merritt

What is Merritt?Who can use Merritt?What content can go into Merritt?How can Merritt be used?DemonstrationNext steps Summary• Discussion

Summary

An innovative and cost-effective curation repository service

A more fully-functioned and sustainable replacement for the DPR

Lets campus curators take control over their content

Comprehensive support for digital content submission, management, discovery/access, and preservation

Content agnostic, simple interfaces and workflows

Summary

Available as a centrally-hosted UC3 service or as a locally-deployable system

A repository for the 21st century– “Emerging technologies promise the potential to create

transparent access to and delivery of information across formats and collections and to improve the ability of libraries to … build the most effective collections”

CDC, The University of California Library Collection: Content for the 21st Century and BeyondAugust 2009

Introducing Merritt

What is Merritt?Who can use Merritt?What content can go into Merritt?How can Merritt be used?DemonstrationNext stepsSummary Discussion

Discussion

Where does the name “Merritt” come from?– Lake Merritt is a local landmark close to the CDL offices

in Oakland– Lake Merritt was the first official wildlife refuge in the

US and is a National Historic Landmark

Discussion

What will happen to the DPR?– Merritt is replacing the DPR as a core UC3 service

– All new submission streams should be directed to Merritt

– All content currently in the DPR will be automatically migrated into Merritt

Why are you doing this?– We believe that Merritt offers significant benefits in

terms of efficiency, function, flexibility of use, and sustainability; giving you greater direct control over your content

Discussion

Will existing workflows continue to work?– Yes, there is a Merritt crosswalk for the METS-based

feeder submission

What are the minimal requirements for an acceptable digital object?– Merritt will accept any content in any form

– However, since the level of preservation service is dependent on the characteristics of the content, we offer guidance on content creation

– A per-object METS file is no longer necessary

Discussion

What does it cost?– Storage costs $1,090/TB/year; all other use is without

charge

What do I have to do to get started?– Contact Perry Willett, UC3 services manager

uc3@ucop.edu

For more information

UC Curation Centerhttp://www.cdlib.org/uc3uc3@ucop.edu

Merritt repositoryhttp://merritt.cdlib.org/

UC3Stephen Abrams David LoyPatricia Cruse Isaac Rabinovitch Scott Fisher Mark Reyes Erik Hetzner Tracy Seneca Greg JanéeJoan StarrJohn KunzeMarisa StrongMargaret Low Perry Willett