When setting up the e-Depot in 2003, the Koninklijke Bibliotheek/National Library of the Netherlands (KB) created two separate organisational units: the e-Depot Department which is responsible for the operational management of the repository, and a separate Digital Preservation Department to carry out research and development. These research tasks include technology watch, (inter)national collaboration and the study of all preservation aspects in relation to the e-Depot, such as metadata, file format research, ingest control and the development of strategies for permanent access.
Building expertise
In order to be able to ensure long-term preservation of digital objects, it is important to have a thorough knowledge about digital objects. File format research and characterisation of digital objects are therefore important areas of study. This research is generally carried out in close collaboration with international partners involved in developing tools like JHOVE and DROID, and registries such as the Global Digital Format Registry (GDFR) and PRONOM. Information about objects will be captured in metadata, according to, e.g., the PREMIS preservation metadata standard.
Preservation Manager
The Digital Preservation Department is developing a dedicated application for the storage of technical metadata, the Preservation Manager. This Preservation Manager stores all the information needed to render a certain file format. The Preservation Manager is part of the IBM DIAS system that is used in the e-Depot for storage of digital objects.
Migration and emulation
In order to realise long-term access to objects stored in the e-Depot, the KB develops strategies to render objects authentically in the future. Although new strategies may be developed in the future, at this point in time two strategies are seen as relevant: migration and emulation. In the case of migration, the object is adapted to the future platform. When using emulation, the objects themselves will not be tampered with, but the environment will be adapted to the future platform. Both strategies have advantages and disadvantages. When documents are converted or migrated, future users will be able to view them on a platform familiar to them, but information may have been lost. Emulation is not as user-friendly, but it is the only method that ensures authenticity. In fact, for certain complex digital objects, such as websites, emulation may be the only long-term solution. Therefore, both strategies are being developed at the KB and in the context of the European project PLANETS. In 2007 a first modular emulator, Dioscuri, was developed in close collaboration with the Nationaal Archief of the Netherlands. With regards to migration a project is being carried out to implement a normalisation workflow for MS Word and WordPerfect files.
Guidance
The Digital Preservation Department offers guidance to creators of digital objects, because their choices have a significant influence on the preservation process. Guidelines are published on our website regarding the ‘right’ file format and relevant metadata. Every time new material is offered to the e-Depot, the Digital Preservation Department assesses the consequences and risks for long-term preservation and develops an adequate preservation solution.
Collaboration
As no institution can solve the digital preservation problem on its own, it is important to collaborate on a national and international scale and to share knowledge. The KB’s Digital Preservation Team attends major digital preservation conferences to share its knowledge and discuss recent developments. Each year several publications are issued. The Team is also involved in several European projects, such as PLANETS (2006-2010), a project aimed at developing practical solutions for preservation planning. The KB also participates in DRIVER I and II, two European projects intended to build a European infrastructure for digital repositories.