Documents
In developing the organisational and technical framework to support the PANDORA Archive, the National Library has written a number of documents which elucidate our approach to digital archiving and preservation.
Selection | Business Process Model | Logical Data Model | Legal Deposit | Persistent Identifiers | Preservation | Technical Infrastructure
Selection
Each of the participants contributing to PANDORA selects publications and web sites according to its own selection guidelines. The National Library revised its own selection guidelines in 2003 after a review of its collecting, Collecting Australian Online Publications, was undertaken.
Section 3 of the National Library's Collection Development Policy includes policy for Australian electronic publications.
The National Library is committed to providing persistent access to items in PANDORA and its other digital collections. To this end in 2000 it commissioned a consultant to advise on the most advantageous approach to persistent naming and resolution. As a result of the consultant's report, Report on a Consultancy conducted by Diana Dack for the National Library, May 2001, a persistent identification scheme and a resolution system were implemented.
Business Process Model
The PANDORA Business Process Model was written during the first half of 1997 when the National Library was beginning to formulate its policies and procedures to support the archiving and preservation of Australian online publications. The processes outlined in the model remain substantially true to what has been implemented and the model remains a good overview of the Library's policies, procedures and practices in digital archiving. Some of the detail has changed. For example, PURLs have given way to a scheme of persistent identifiers and a resolution system devised by the Library (2.4.1). The gathering software has changed (4.7.2) and HTTRACK is now used instead of Harvest. A software archive (5.5) has not been developed because of the scale of the task. The Library looks to cooperating with international initiatives to ensure access to the software on which publications and web sites are dependent for long term access.
Archiving Australian online publications is only the first step in ensuring long-term access to them. Computer technology is changing so rapidly that the interfaces, technical standards and file structures which will be used by computers even 20 years into the future are likely to be quite different from those used today. This presents a formidable challenge in keeping publications accessible. The Library has formulated a digital preservation policy. It has also contributed to the international effort to define preservation metadata by publishing Preservation Metadata for Digital Collections: Exposure Draft, October 1999.
Logical Data Model
The PANDORA Logical Data Model was written in the second half of 1997 when we were working out how a technical infrastructure should support the business needs.
Legal Deposit
Refer to the Library's information pages about legal deposit provisions and compliance
Persistent identifiers
The National Library is committed to providing persistent access to items in PANDORA and its other digital collections. To this end in 2000 it commissioned a consultant to advise on the most advantageous approach to persistent naming and resolution. As a result of the consultant's report, Report on a Consultancy conducted by Diana Dack for the National Library, May 2001, a persistent identification scheme and a resolution system were implemented.
Preservation
Archiving Australian online publications is only the first step in ensuring long-term access to them. Computer technology is changing so rapidly that the interfaces, technical standards and file structures which will be used by computers even 20 years into the future are likely to be quite different from those used today. This presents a formidable challenge in keeping publications accessible. The Library has formulated a digital preservation policy. It has also contributed to the international effort to define preservation metadata by publishing Preservation Metadata for Digital Collections: Exposure Draft, October 1999.
Technical infrastructure
The Digital Services Project was established in 1998 to write the specifications for a technical infrastructure that would support all requirements for the collection, storage, management, preservation of and provision of access to online publications and web sites, as well as an integrated collection management environment for physical format digital publications, digital copies of items in the Library's collection, digital audio recordings, the content of the Library's Information Server, and physical format materials in the Library's collections that require special curatorial control.
The National Library was unable to buy in the marketplace software that would support its requirements for online publications and, as a result, it built its own system. The technical infrastructure which supports PANDORA and PANDAS (the PANDORA Digital Archiving System) is described in a paper by Steven McPhillips. There is a continuing need for enhanced capability to support business requirements and a Roadmap for Future Development of the PANDAS Software System outlines planned development.
