Transcript No Slide Title

Digital life cycle management at the National Library
of Scotland
Simon Bains, Digital Library Manager
August 2005
What is digital life cycle management?
“It is one of those phrases that seems to have as many
interpretations and meanings as ‘digital library’”
[Helen Shenton, Life cycle collection management]
“actively to manage the resource at each stage of its
life-cycle and to recognise the inter-dependencies
between each stage and commence preservation
activities as early as practicable”
[Digital Preservation Coalition]
“Life cycle collection management is evidence-based
stewardship that documents the relationship between
all the stages in a collection item’s existence over time”
[Helen Shenton, Life cycle collection management]
Why use it?
Economic reasons
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Best value; resource allocation; benchmarking
Strategic reasons
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Integrated policies and strategies; context for new areas
Access
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Internal and external interoperability
Infrastructure
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Digital Repositories: “collections management policies
should cover: selection, acquisition, organisation, storage,
access, de-selection, and preservation”
[QA Focus Briefing Document, UKOLN]
Format-neutral collection management
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Unified approach to care of hybrid library collections
The British Library
Application of approach used for paper-based materials
to digital objects
Identifying the costs of each stage
Demonstrating the long-term consequences of
decisions at the start of the cycle
Digitised masters:
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€77 per object over 10 years
Purchased born digital:
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€128 year 1 costs for a digital monograph
€51 year 1 costs for a traditional monograph
Unable to make long-term or complete costings at this
stage
The British Library
BL formula for the lifecycle of digital masters:
K(t)=s+ipr+cons+r+cap+q+m+acs(t)+p(t)
K(t) total cost over period of t years
s selection cost
ipr cost of checking IPR
cons conservation check
r retrieval and reshelving
cap capture of master
q quality assurance/derivatives
m metadata creation
acs(t) access cost over time
p(t) preservation/storage over time
Helen Shenton (2003), Life Cycle Collection Management, Liber 13(3/4)
http://liber.library.uu.nl/publish/articles/000033/article.pdf
Why use it at the NLS?
Growing quantity and complexity of digital collections:
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Increased digitisation
Increased purchase of born digital resources
John Murray Archive
Hosted services (IRIScotland)
Legal deposit of digital publications (including web
archiving)
Strategic commitment to collaborate/interoperate
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Selection informed by stakeholders
Ability to provide multiple access points and experiences
LTScotland; Public libraries; BBC etc.
Why use it at the NLS?
Legal and cultural imperatives to establish a ‘Trusted
Digital Repository’:
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Scottish Executive digital media strategy
Cultural Commission report
Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003
Which will:
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Be interoperable
Avoid duplication
Be usable and accessible
In order to:
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Become a component of the Scottish Distributed Digital
Library
Become a component of a shared legal deposit libraries
infrastructure
Digital life cycle model (digitisation)
Indexing
Capture
Access/preservation
Indexing
Selection
Storage
Delivery
Access/preservation
Selection
NLS strategy to widen access
NLS strategy to expand digitisation
How do we know what non-users want?
Thinking bigger (3 years)
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No limit on proposals
No limit on project scope
Unknown quantities
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John Murray Archive
Funding
Selection
Prioritised projects
Selection panel
Project proposals
Curator consultation
Stakeholder consultation
Market research
Cost
Indexing
Digital Images Database (DID)
Microsoft Access (migrating to SQLServer)
Dublin Core and RLG schemas, plus local fields
Bibliographic information (e.g. book)
Component information (e.g. page; image)
Additional indexing terms (e.g. people, places,
keywords)
Image metadata (e.g. file format, size, colour palette,
ppi, compression etc.)
Indexing
1. Record creator
Basic record
2. Digital camera operator
Image metadata
& image
3. DID Indexer
Complete record
4. Database Administrator
1.
Desc. Metadata; rights; indexing terms
2.
Image creation; match image files to DID records; Image metadata
3.
Add authority controlled indexing terms; QA and sign off
4.
Manage RDMS; export/import, design, backups
Indexing
Basic record
Image metadata
& image
Complete record
Screengrab of DID record creation window
Delivery
Web features
Workflow bottleneck
Word on the Street
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Exposed to Google
Version of DID
Aim to deliver generic infrastructure based on DID
DID migration
NLW Digital Mirror
Market research and selection supports:
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Maps, treasures, photographs, treasures
Basic record
Image metadata
& image
Complete record
Delivery
Descriptive metadata is key
Create once, use many times
JMA strategy – access content from:
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Web pages
Interactive exhibition kiosks
Timelines
Topic maps
Teaching aids
“The strategy to maximise digital access…will mean the
NLS investing at least 40% of the available funds for
digitisation in descriptive metadata”
[A Digital Access Strategy for the John Murray
Archive at the National Library of Scotland]
I sat back in my chair, dumbstruck. I punched
the air with both arms and shouted "Yahoo!" It
was there, recorded in the National Library of
Scotland's web site. As I read it, line after line
came flooding back, familiar once more
I had been looking for the full lyrics to this
song for ten years…No one else had ever heard
of it. You've got the only copy of the lyrics in
print that I've been able to find. Thanks!!!!
Storage
Data storage on network servers
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19.5TB NAS storage servers
Incremental backups and complete snapshots to
magnetic tape
Increasing data – lengthier backups
Automation, e.g. robotic tape system
Issues
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File corruption – filesize and modification date no good;
checksums too slow
Gap between creation and backup – risk of file loss;
replication servers reduce gap but double the cost
BL DOM – replicating server architecture removes tape
backup from the equation
Planning for a resilient and scalable mass storage
system using a Storage Area Network (SAN)
Digital preservation planning
Work ongoing in a number of areas:
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Back-up strategy
Implementation of unique IDs
File integrity (SHA1 checksum)
Automated metadata extraction (JHOVE/DAITSS)
Strategic commitment to develop a Trusted Digital
Repository
Part of Legal Deposit Library planning to develop a
digital infrastructure for non-print legal deposit materials
Digital Library Strategy
Holistic approach
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Digitised and born digital
Analogue and digital
Coherent integrated set of policies and strategies
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Selection
Management
Preservation
Delivery
Trusted Digital Repository
Digital communities
The NLS is part of the Scottish Distributed Digital
Library
The NLS is part of the Scottish digital culture
community
The NLS has a UK-wide responsibility as a legal
deposit library
The NLS welcomes collaborative approaches to all
elements of the digital lifecycle
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Selection
Delivery
Preservation
Standards
Simon Bains
Digital Library Manager
[email protected]
0131 623 3770