Page 76 - Building Digital Libraries

Preservation Planning

no inherent differences between them for the purposes of digital preserva-
tion issues. “Cloud-based” has no technical meaning and really only refers
to services provided elsewhere and delivered over a network, and both local
and cloud storage are just storage. There are cloud-based services that pro-
tect file integrity using cryptographic signatures, geographically distributed
replication, and robust maintenance procedures. However, this is not inher-
ent to a service being on the “cloud.” Having said this, a growing number of
aggregated cloud-based preservation cooperatives have developed within
the cultural heritage landscape. As of this writing, several different services
exist, including:

• DPN or the Digital Preservation Network (http://dpn.org/)
• MetaArchive Cooperative (https://educopia.org/
community/metaarchive)
• HathiTrust (https://www.hathitrust.org/)
• AP or Academic Preservation Trust (http://aptrust.org/)

These aggregate services offer a different type of digital preservation oppor-
tunity by leveraging the scale of their networks. They also do different
things. DPN, for example, is somewhat unique because this service is
designed as a permanent preservation option. Organizations select content
for deposit and fund preservation activities on that content for a twenty-year
period. Following that period, the organization can either continue to fund
preservation activities, or turn the content over to the DPN network. The
trust then provides perpetual preservation activities for the content, ensur-
ing that it is preserved for future scholarly researchers. This does not replace
an institution’s own local preservation systems or planning. Rather, the DPN
functions as a long-term permanent preservation system that is designed, in
theory, to outlast individual systems, technology, and potentially, organiza-
tions. Whether this type of aggregation is successful in the long term will be
worth watching. While the sentiment behind the cooperative is definitely
admirable, it is hard to imagine the cooperative outliving many of its found-
ing members, whose history extends back for many decades.
Other aggregations like MetaArchive, the HathiTrust, or the AP Trust
provide a more traditional membership-based aggregation to support
disaster recovery. MetaArchive uses a private LOCKSS network to enable
20
member organizations to keep multiple copies of their digital assets across
multiple institutions, geographically distributing their digital content and
providing many of the Level 1–3 preservation functions within a larger
aggregated system. Cooperatives like the HathiTrust provide this type of
aggregated content management for specific digital content (digital text), but
the HathiTrust also takes on the management of the preservation masters
for its membership, distributing the cost of this management across all of
its members.
Just like in the analog world, where large cultural heritage organiza-
tions have come together to create large print repositories or share in the
long-term management and preservation of analog content, organizations
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