A presentation given by Julie Allinson at the UK Archivematica group meeting on 6th November 2015 in Leeds. It describes work underway in the "Filling the Digital Preservation Gap" project using Archivematica to preserve research data

1. Project update:
A collaborative approach to
“filling the digital preservation
gap” for Research Data
Management
Julie Allinson
Technology Development Manager
Library & Archives
University of York
6 November 2015

2. Filling the digital preservation gap:
Project aim
“…to investigate
Archivematica and explore
how it might be used to
provide digital preservation
functionality within a wider
infrastructure for Research
Data Management.”

3. This is a collaboration
University of Hull:
• Chris Awre – Head of Information Services, Library and
Learning Innovation
• Richard Green – Independent Consultant
• Simon Wilson – University Archivist
University of York:
• Julie Allinson – Technology Development Manager
• Jen Mitcham – Digital Archivist
Artefactual Systems
Jisc

4. Project structure
• Phase 1 – explore: testing, research,
thinking -produce a report (3 months)
• Phase 2 – develop: make
Archivematica better for RDM, plan
implementation (4 months)
• Phase 3 – implement: set up proof of
concepts at York and Hull (6 months)

5. Phase 1: Read all about it!
http://digital-archiving.blogspot.co.uk/

6. Why do we need digital preservation
for research data?
• There is a digital preservation gap in current
RDM infrastructures
• We can’t ignore digital preservation – moving
targets for data retention mean we need to take
this seriously
• Funder requirements around retention

7. University of York RDM questionnaire 2013
• Which data management issues have you come
across in your research over the last five years?
– “Inability to read files in old software formats on old
media or because of expired software licences”
– 24% of 181 researchers who answered this question
admitted this had been a problem for them
Why do we need digital preservation
for research data?

8. Why Archivematica?
“The goal of the Archivematica project is to
give archivists and librarians with limited
technical and financial capacity the tools,
methodology and confidence to begin
preserving digital information today.”

9. Why Archivematica?
• Standards-based
• Open Source
• Flexible and customisable
• Compatible with hundreds of file formats
• Advanced search and storage management
• Integrated with third-party systems
From https://ww.archivematica.org/en/

10. Archivematica for RDM?
• Flexible - can support different institutional needs and
workflows
• Automates many digital preservation tasks
• Can be integrated with other systems
• Good for those with limited resources
• Enhancements driven by and for the digital preservation
community

11. Archivematica for RDM?
It gives institutions greater confidence
that they will be able to continue to
provide access to usable copies of
research data over time

12. Phase 2: Improving Archivematica
1. Deliverable 1: Automated DIP regeneration
2. Deliverable 2: METS parsing tools
3. Deliverable 3: Generic search REST API
(proof-of-concept)
4. Deliverable 4: Support multiple checksum
algorithms
5. Deliverable 5: Enhance PRONOM integration
6.Deliverable 6: Automation tools
documentation

13. Deliverable One
✓Research Data needs to be kept,
but we don’t know if anyone will ever want it
and it might be *massive*
The Solution: enable the DIP to be generated ‘on
request’ and not as part of the initial ingest

14. Deliverable Two
✓We want to be able to grab the DIP, and
metadata about it for pulling into our
repository
The Solution: a library to help with parsing and
creating METS files
https://github.com/artefactual-labs/mets-reader-writer

15. Deliverable Three
✓We want to be able to report on what we
have
The Solution: a search API to answer basic
questions about the number of files in storage,
their formats, date of ingest, etc.*
* we’re working with DMAOnline @lancaster

16. Deliverable Four
✓With large datasets, the current checksum
mechanism in Archivematica could be a
bottleneck
The Solution: support for multiple checksum
algorithms

17. Deliverable Five
✓What about all those file formats that
Archivematica can’t identify?
The Solution: mechanism for running file
identification with multiple tools and a report of
unidentified formats, working with PRONOM to
improve their coveraage

18. Deliverable Six
✓We want to make it easier for Institutions to
adopt archivematica
The Solution: documentation and screencasts
for Archivematica automation tools, eg.
https://wiki.archivematica.org/Getting_started#Installation

19. All of these new features will become
part of the core Archivematica code in
2016

20. Phase 3
• The plan is to run a third phase of the project to:
✓implement prototype RDM workflows with preservation
using the new Archivematica features at York and Hull
✓use the search API to populate DMAOnline with stats
about datasets
✓do more community outreach
• We will be pitching to Jisc in December for phase
three #fingerscrossed

21. How do York plan to use Archivematica?
Pure RDMonitor Archivematica
AIP
AIP Store
PURE
Web Services
Archivematica
REST API
DIPRepository
Data
Catalogue
Key:
human to human
machine to machine
human to machine

23. Where to find out more
http://www.york.ac.uk/borthwick/

24. The Bigger Picture
•Jisc are looking at building shared services for
RDM
• Our project is inputting into the specification
and discussion
• One area we’d be interested to find out more
about is the appetite for ‘above campus’
options - discussion planned for later.

25. How could you use Archivematica?
• Host it in-house and link it to an existing
repository/access system (for example DSpace,
CONTENTdm, Fedora/Hydra ...or a CRIS)
• Host it in-house and use as a standalone system
(you would need to have a storage system in place and establish a
way of facilitating access to the data)
• Sign up for a hosted instance of Archivematica
with archivesDIRECT (combines Archivematica with
DuraCloud storage)
• Sign up for a hosted instance of Archivematica
with Arkivum (combines Archivematica with Arkivum storage)

26. Thanks!
julie.allinson@york.ac.uk
Useful links:
Borthwick website: http://www.york.ac.uk/borthwick/
Digital archiving blog: http://digital-archiving.blogspot.co.uk/
Archivematica: https://www.archivematica.org/en/
Report: http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.1481170