Digital Infrastructure

From Storage to Content Management Systems

By Noreen Whysel

LIS 665: Projects in Digital ArchivesSeptember 25, 2013

Burden’s Wheel

Source: Carr, N. (2008). Burden’s Wheel. In Big Switch: Rewiring the World, From Edison to Google (pp. 9-24). New York: W. W. Norton.

Burden’s Wheel is a story of technology obsolescence

Centralizing electrical power: creates economies of scale leads to obsolescence of other technologies Users slowly rely on the technology change Those who don’t embrace the change fall behind 

What happened with electricity then is happening with computing today

Burden’s Wheel

Source: Carr, N. (2008). Burden’s Wheel. In Big Switch: Rewiring the World, From Edison to Google (pp. 9-24). New York: W. W. Norton. l

“We may soon come to discover that what we believe to be the enduring fundamentals of our society are in fact only temporary structures, as easily abandoned as Henry Burdon’s wheel.”-Carr, N. (2008)

RAID: Redundant Array of Independent Disks

RAID Improves speed, data reliability or both. Store a lot of data Data is always available Backup in case of a

failed drive Maximize storage and

efficiency

Striping Data: Divide data and send a bit to each drive

RAID 1: RedundancyData saved to second disk

RAID 5: ParityParts of data is saved across several disk

RAID 6: Two sets of Parity

RAID 5-6 sacrifices some speed

Source: Simply Storage: RAID. Web. Retrieved from http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/d/videos~en/Documents~simply-storage-raid.aspx.aspx

Assessing Repository Models

Source: Rieger, O. Y.  (2007).  Select for Success: Key Principles in Assessing Repository Models.  D-Lib Magazine, 13(7/8).  Retrieved fromhttp://www.dlib.org/dlib/july07/rieger/07rieger.html

What a Repository Needs to Do

Enable digital asset management

Offer preservation services

Provide institutional visibility through access to collective intellectual work

Support learning, teaching, and research

Facilitate discovery of content

Enable re-use and re-purposing of content

Support archival business requirements

Offer alternative channels in support of scholarly communication

Organize information to allow effective content management and access

Provide access to outcomes of publicly funded research initiatives

Strengthen partnership between content creators/providers and content managers

Source: Rieger, O. Y.  (2007).  Select for Success: Key Principles in Assessing Repository Models.  D-Lib Magazine, 13(7/8).  Retrieved fromhttp://www.dlib.org/dlib/july07/rieger/07rieger.html

Selecting a Repository Model

1. Identify Key Stakeholders

2. Conduct a Needs Assessment Analysis

3. Identify Resource Requirements

4. Understand the Existing Human Landscape

Source: Rieger, O. Y.  (2007).  Select for Success: Key Principles in Assessing Repository Models.  D-Lib Magazine, 13(7/8).  Retrieved fromhttp://www.dlib.org/dlib/july07/rieger/07rieger.html

Selecting a Repository Model

Source: Rieger, O. Y.  (2007).  Select for Success: Key Principles in Assessing Repository Models.  D-Lib Magazine, 13(7/8).  Retrieved fromhttp://www.dlib.org/dlib/july07/rieger/07rieger.html

Implementing EAD & Archivists’ Toolkit

Advantages of Encoded Archival Description (EAD) Allows for interoperability Encourages good descriptive habits Standardizes presentation

Disadvantages of EAD Lack of trained staff Not cost effective

Source: Schwartz, M. & Kitchin Tilman, R.  (2012).  Embracing Archivists’ Toolkit to Implement EAD.  Proceedings of MARAC 2012, Oct. 27 2012, Richmond, VA. 

Archival Management Systems

Archivists’ Toolkit – http://www.archiviststoolkit.org

Archon - http://www.archon.org/

*Archives Space - http://www.archivesspace.org/

Omeka - http://omeka.org/

CollectiveAccess – http://collectiveaccess.org

Archivematica - https://www.archivematica.org

Duraspace - http://duraspace.org/ (DSpace, Fedora)

Greenstone – http://greenstone.org

ContentDM – http://www.contentdm.org/* Archives Space is the current Society of American Archivists standard.

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Content Management Systems

WordPress – plugins for repositories and collections management

Drupal – Collective Access, CONTENTdm integration

Google Docs - Spreadsheets

Archivists’ Toolkit & Archon

Source: Archivists’ Toolkit & Archon will soon be superceded by ArchivesSpace. Web. http://www.archiviststoolkit.org/content/archivists-toolkit-archon-will-soon-be-superseded-archivesspace 

Archives Space

What is ArchivesSpace?

“The New York University Libraries, UC San Diego Libraries, and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Libraries are partnering to develop a next-generation archives management application that will incorporate the best features of Archivist’s Toolkit (AT) and Archon.

With funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the project team is developing a technical platform,  governance structure, and service model that will provide the archival community with a cutting-edge, extensible, and sustainable platform for describing analog and born-digital archival materials.” 

Source: About. Archives Space. http://www.archivesspace.org/about/

Source: Burden Wheel.png. Wikipedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Burden_Wheel.png