MetaArchive Cooperative: A Collaborative Model for Digital Preservation

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MetaArchive Cooperative A Collaborative
Model for Digital Preservation

• Katherine Skinner
• Executive Director, Educopia Institute
• Program Manager, MetaArchive Cooperative

An Age of Discovery, ARL-CNI Washington
D.C. Friday, October 16, 2009
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Central topics

• Why do we need to collaborate?
• What are some basic principles of collaborative
  networking?
• What do they look like in practice?
• MetaArchive Cooperative

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Why collaborate?

• Collections
• Books, journals, newspapers, unique items, etc.
• Services
• Building, disseminating, and preserving
  collections
• Once solitary now defies such boundaries
• Competition vs. collaboration issue
• Viability at stake

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Collaboration and preservation

• Adjust to a more collaborative mindset to
  accomplish two preservation goals
• To preserve the digital collections we create
• Maintain integrity so that we can continue to
  access both born digital and digitized
  materials
• To preserve our own institutional missions
• Outsourcing a core mission is a dangerous
  proposition

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Collaborative network building

• Collaborative Network An association of
  autonomous entities collaborating to achieve
  common or compatible goals.
• Source Wikipedia.org

FLEXIBILITY
FRAGILITY
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Collaborative network building

• Enables communities to work together on a common
  solution to a common problem
• Demands attention to organizational structure in
  order to work
• Requires three key elements
• A common cause
• Solid institutional buy-in
• Attention to the organizational arrangement that
  governs the partnerships

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Organizing a Successful CN

• Management of
• Accountability
• How do you allocate responsibility and tasks
• Legitimacy
• How do you assure members of your clout and value
• Conflict
• How do you settle disputes and issues of
  authority
• Commitment
• What carrots can you use for enticement and
  motivation
• Design
• How do you set up and maintain your management
  structure (distributed, centralized)
• Source Milward and Provan. A Manager's Guide to
  Choosing and Using Collaborative Networks, 2006

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MetaArchive Cooperative

• A distributed digital preservation cooperative
  for digital archives, based on LOCKSS
• Founded in 2003 supported by combination of
  sponsored funding (NDIIPP, NHPRC), consulting
  fees, and membership fees
• Provides digital preservation infrastructure and
  training and models to enable other groups to
  establish similar networks

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Rapidly Growing Membership
12 US Members Lib. of Congress
2 Overseas Members
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MetaArchive Members/Affiliates

• Auburn University
• Boston College
• Clemson University
• Emory University
• Florida State Univ.
• Folger Shakespeare Lib.
• Georgia Tech
• Pontifícia Universidade Católica
• Rice University

• Univ. of Hull
• Univ. of Louisville
• Univ. of North Texas
• Univ. of South Carolina
• Virginia Tech
• Library of Congress
• NDLTD
• SDSC

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MetaArchive components

• Collections
• Technical Infrastructure
• Organizational Infrastructure

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Collections

• Format-agnostic solution
• Subject- and genre-based archives
• Southern Digital Culture
• Electronic Theses and Dissertations
• TransAtlantic Slave Trade
• Early Modern Literature
• Newspapers (coming soon)

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Simple Shared Infrastructure

• MetaArchive provides a cost-effective cooperative
  structure
• secure distributed digital preservation of
  archives
• based on re-use of LOCKSS for archives
• Network participation as a MetaArchive-LOCKSS
  cache is simple and cheap

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Organizational model

• Preservation solution needed a long-term,
  sustainable infrastructure
• Question arose Whos in charge of a Cooperative
  of peer institutions?
• Sought guidance
• legal team, librarians, archivists, and IP
  specialists
• Created core structure in 2006
• charter, membership agreement, papers of
  incorporation, business plans, etc.

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Organizational model

• Separating the administrative apparatus and
  member institutions
• provides a clear line of leadership and
  responsibility
• helps to keep any one members goals from unduly
  influencing the cooperatives direction
• gives leverage for external partnerships

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MetaArchive value proposition

• reducing our short- and long-term costs
• Investing in a commonly-owned solution, not
  purchasing a service
• Sharing technological development and
  organizational tasks
• decentralizing our activities
• Safety in this brave new world of digital
  preservation may well reside in shared knowledge
  and shared commitment
• decreasing dependence on third-party solutions
• There is room for various types of solutions
• Increased capacity for acting as a community of
  cultural stewards

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Preserving our missions

• Outsourcing core services risky proposition
• Core missions
• Building collections
• Disseminating collections
• Preserving collections
• Cannot focus on the collections at the expense of
  the services need both in order to carry our
  missions forward

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Contact Info

• Dr. Katherine Skinner
• 404 783 2534
• katherine.skinner_at_metaarchive.org