<title>Long-term Preservation of ETDs in Algeria: Discussion Through the CERIST

Deposit System</title>

<author>Bakelli Yahia</author>

<coauthor>Benrahmoun Sabrina</coauthor>

<role>Researcher</role>

<affiliation>CERIST research Center</affiliation> <address>BenAknoun, Algiers

(ALGERIA)</address> <e-mail>E-mail: ybakelli@mail.cerist.dz</e-mail>

<date> May 2003 </date>

Initiatives of CERIST Research Centre concerning The Algerian Academic Literature

(1985-2000)

Bibliographic databases & union catalogs:Algerian Scientific Abstracts

ALGERIANA

CAT (Algerian Theses Catalogue)

FNT (National Theses Repository) BDRC (Current Researches Database )

….

www.dctd.cerist.dz

Example of a bibliographic record from the FNT Database

However, there is a need (in CERIST) to go beyond the bibliographic records. Because we have to establish that local users and scholars are in need of obtaining full text and digital content.

Official decree issued in August 2000 by the Ministry of Higher Education

and Scientific Research.

A new ETDs chain has been set but without a professional archiving plan.

Questions• How the CERIST ETDs system is operating?

• How Theses files are saved?

• What would guarantee that these digital materials deposited by students might be preserved for a long term?

• How international standards, rules and techniques of Digital archiving can be applied to this system?

The Mass of Electronic Theses(Oct. 2001- Mar. 2003)

• Collection of 1463 electronic media

a) By kind of media:      - 1269 floppy disks (87%)   - 194 CD-ROMs (13%)

b) By language of theses: - Arabic: 1161 Floppy disks and 97 CD-ROMs. (86%)

- French: 108 floppy disks and 97 CD-ROMs. (14%)

in average, 54 theses are submitted monthly.

Current Chain of CERIST ETDs System • Acquisition of ETDs (two modes of acquisition: The student himself or CERIST

representation).

• Control & inventory (check the integrity of the electronic media).

• Codification (ex: “THA.3.905” ).

• Bibliographic recording (UNIMARC, SYNGEB Software, .THE)

• Conversion and storage of files. (PDF, ARN-A & ARN-F).

Anomalies Concerning the Integrity of Submitted Digital Media

a) Examples of Physical anomalies: - The interruption of the uploading process (from the floppy disk

to the hard disk).

- The presence of a Virus infection. b) Examples of Content anomalies:  -    Absence of the Cover page of the thesis.

- Lack of few parts or chapters (TOC, bibliography,..).

The Survey Conducted at CERIST Library (April 2003) shows :

05% of the deposited floppy disks and 32% of submitted CD-ROMs cannot be directly integrated and archived into the current collection.

Some mending operations must be done before.

These operations consist on two main kinds of actions:

  a) Repairing faulty disks and healing infected files.   b) Digitising of missing chapters and content from

the printed copies.

03 Sets of Experimentation

A sample of 430 submitted digital media

(30% of the whole collection).

Two levels:

a) Conservation of the Digital media itself.

 

b) Preservation of data and content of the ETD.

-I- The Media of Backup and Storage

To identify, for CERIST ETDs case the appropriate:

• Backup and technology solution

• Archiving system architecture

to optimise the archiving activity

with a minimum of data loss risk.

-II- Refreshing, Migration or Emulation?

Two important criteria:

• The cost of the technique.

• Requested Skills of librarians.

Our assumption “Refreshing” seems cheap and simple.

-III- The Content of ETDs. • How does the structure of submitted dissertations

must be reformatted?Axiom = XML is the most suitable standard.

• We are comparing two existing XML DTDs: - The DiML (of the Humboldt University of Berlin).

- The TeiLite (adopted by PUM, Univ. Lyon2…).

• Two parameters for the comparison:      - Easy to interpret. - Appropriate for a wide range of disciplines.

The Thesis as submitted by the student (DOC, ASCII …)

Check the conformity Of the Thesis structure

With the adopted XML DTD

Reinserting the thesis content into an XML flat (by using an XML editor).

Generation of Valid XML Thesis

CERIST ETDs Repository

XSLTransformations

Export to ETDs Website(XML, HTML, PDF, …)

ETD Derivative contentTOC, Bibliography; index;

maps; statistics.. )

Process of Archiving ETDs content on XML:Long-term preservation of data and value-added possibilities.Suggested by Y. Bakelli and S. Bnrahmoun (CERIST, Algiers May 2003)

Plugins and scripts

Generation of Metadata of ETDs. According to the model of ETD-MS of Virginia Tech and XML syntax.

ETD-MS Metadata for Arabic texts

A “Naming Scheme” As a Protocol of How Files

Must be Stored in Directories.

• The “URN handle-server” technique is currently applied for the CERIST ETDs sample.

Conclusions• Necessity to develop a digital archiving plan to avoid another

more complex problematic of “managing the retrospective” or “managing past”.

• International standards and concepts of digital archiving are effectively applied for the local context of CERIST ETDs system.

• We need to adopt one generic and exhaustive ETD chain, in a model of Virginia Tech ETD, Cybertheses, etc.

• XML will constitute one major option of CERIST ETDs system.

Perspectives

• To Make the student implied in the process of archiving.

• To Introduce the digital archiving life cycle concept.

• To Adopt The OAI concept and LINK CERIST ETDs System with Regional and International Systems, especially the NDLTD.