TIPR: Towards Interoperable Preservation Repositories

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The task of preserving our digital heritage for future generations far exceeds the capacity of any government or institution. Responsibility must be distributed across a number of stewardship organizations running heterogeneous and geographically dispersed digital preservation repositories. For reasons of redundancy, succession planning and software migration, these repositories must be able to exchange copies of archived information packages with each other. Practical repository-to-repository transfer will require a common, standards-based transfer format capable of transporting rich preservation metadata as well as digital objects, and repository systems must be capable of exporting and importing information packages utilizing this format.

The TIPR project, which runs from October 2008 through September 2010, will develop and test a model for repository-to-repository tranfer. The three TIPR partners run three technically heterogeneous, geographically distributed digital preservation repositories. Cornell University Library runs CUL-OAIS based on aDORe, New York University Libraries' Preservation Repository is based on DSpace, and FCLA's Florida Digital Archive uses DAITSS. The TIPR partners will:

design a shared transfer format based on METS and PREMIS schemas;
enhance each of their preservation repository systems to support import and export of this information;
test the actual transfer of processed and enriched archival information packages between the three repository systems.

The goals of the project are to:

demonstrate the feasibility of repository-to-repository transfer of rich archival information packages;
advance the state of the art by identifying and resolving issues that impede such transfers;
develop a usable, standards-based transfer format, building on prior work;
disseminate these results to the international preservation community and the relevant standards activities.

TIPR is funded by a National Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Last modified 7 October 2009 at 3:05 pm by marly