The Development of a Standard for Digital Repository Certification

Bruce Ambacher

National Archives and Records Administration

Mission: Preserve digital information

• Problem: ensuring digital information is accessible, usable, preserved

• Problem: Digital repositories claim to be capable

• Problem: No valid measure to apply

The Sponsors: NARA

• First national archives to preserve digital archives (April 1970)

• Largest collection of archival digital holdings

• Electronic Records Archives – multi-year, multi-Exabyte digital repository, operational in 2007

• Concern for content, context, authenticity

The Sponsors: RLG

• Preserving Digital Information (1996) with the Commission on Preservation and Access

• Trusted Digital Repositories (2002)

• 30 years of standards and best practices in access and preservation

The Working Group

• RLG, NARA, national libraries of U.S., Netherlands, & France, NASA, OCLC, Internet Archives, Harvard, Stanford,, Cornell, University of London, Digital Preservation Coalition, Rutherford Appleton Laboratories

Project Goal

• Devise a methodology to identify digital repositories capable of reliably storing, migrating, and providing access to digital collections, capable of winning our trust in their capacity and ability to preserve digital information.

• Produce certification requirements• Delineate a process for certification• Identify a certifying body to implement process

Methodology Used to Date

• Review recent literature

• Review and address certification options from other disciplines

• Identify a list of certifiable elements

• Create a standard certification process or framework

Draft Checklist - Organization

• Governance and Organizational Viability

• Organizational structure and staffing

• Procedural accountability and policy

• Financial stability

• Contracts, licenses, liabilities

Draft Checklist – Archival Functions

• Ingesting Submission Information Packages (SIP)

• Transforming SIPs to Archival Information Packages (AIP)

• Archival Storage

• Preservation Planning

• Data Migration

Typical Questions

• B2.7 Repository provides an independent mechanism for audit of the integrity of the repository collection/content

• B3.1 Repository has documented preservation strategies

• B3.2 Repository implements/responds to strategies for AIP storage and migration

• B3.7 Repository actively monitors AIP integrity

Draft Checklist – Designated Community

• Repository has in place procedures to specify a Designated Community

• Repository has in place procedures to monitor changes in Designated Community

• Repository meets changing technology needs of Designated Community

Draft Checklist - Technologies

• Archival Storage and its infrastructure

• System infrastructure

• System security

• Disaster planning

Unresolved Issues

• Do best practices vary by domain?

• What attributes will be certified?

• Is an official certifying body needed? If so who will designate this body? How will people be qualified as certifiers?

• What role will repositories play in developing/revising the certification criteria?

Current Status

• 09/30/05 – 01/15/06 Public Review of draft Audit Checklist for the Certification of Trusted Digital Repositories

• 09/30/05 – 01/15/06 Field testing of draft checklist

• 01/15/06 Review of comments and field test results and revision of Audit Checklist

• Standardization through ISO Archiving

Backup

Task

• Identify certifying body or bodies• Identify a timetable for execution &

adherence• Identify frequency or cycle of certification• Define the conditions for revocation• Create technical models• Create economic models for sustainablility• Create implementation scenarios