Task Force on Permanent Access

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Task Force on Permanent Access

• Creating European momentum by offering the joint
  commitment of major stakeholders in the Records
  of Science

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Background

• Research Infrastructures discussion in Europe
  Council of Ministers and EU rely on ESFRI for FP7
  (e-IRG should be part of ESFRI process to
  increase effectiveness of European actions for
  GRID, networking and high performance computing
  concentration of technical issues, and
  integration in high-level political thrust)
• Inclusion of records of science in digital
  cultural heritage evolved from records of
  history of science to records of science in
  operation
• Particular culmination point EU Conference
  Permanent Access to the Records of Science (KB,
  Netherlands government as EU President),1st
  November, 2004,The Hague.
• Participants agreed to need to create European
  infrastructure for long-term preservation to and
  permanent access (LPTA) to records of science. KB
  urged to create a Task Force.

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Composition Task Force

• Bertil Andersson, Chief Executive European
  Science Foundation
• Lynne Brindley, Chief Executive The British
  Library
• Wim van Drimmelen, Director General Koninklijke
  Bibliotheek
• Norbert Kroo, Secretary-General Hungarian Academy
  of Sciences
• Wolffried Stucky, professor Institute of Applied
  Informatics and Format Description Methods,
  Karlsruhe University, curator Max Planck
  Institute of Computer Science, Germany
• Malcolm Read, Executive Secretary Joint
  Information Systems Committee, UK
• Vincenzo Beruti , ESA/ESRIN
• John Wood, Chief Executive Council for the
  Central Laboratory of the Research Councils, UK
• Peter Hendriks, Board Springer Science and
  Business Media, Executive Board International
  Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical
  Publishers.
• Tomas Lidman, Director General The National
  Archives of Sweden
• Peter Tindemans, chair, on behalf of the
  Koninklijke Bibliotheek.

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RD Programme

• Different
• focus on research, prototyping and testing (new
  knowledge), much less on networking or exchange
  of information.
• Specific perspective of long-term preservation
  and access.
• Themes
• 1) Technical tools to support a variety of
  preservation strategies
• 2) Representation information, registries of
  Representation Information
• 3) Managing complex dynamic datasets and
  databases
• 4) Developing distributed archives and network
  solutions from a preservation perspective
• 5) Devising new approaches to the development of
  IT solutions from the perspective of the
  durability of information
• 6) Developing life-cycle costings, value chain
  analyses and other economic models to support
  sustainable long and very long term preservation
  and access

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High-level approach to problem and necessary
actions

• Increasing awareness among experts and sometimes
  institutions about technical, economic and e.g.
  legal size and complexity of problem of LTPA.
• Lacking in Europe (and until NDIIPP in US)
  Recognition LPTA as strategic issue for
• Organisations (with few exceptions)
• And therefore governments, as well as many
  private sector parties, which implies there is no
  financing mechanism

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High-level approach to problem and necessary
actions 2

• Approach
• Get stakeholders involved in digital heritage
  to understand at board level
• economic and cultural importance of LPTA for
  their own strategic development
• another instance of finding balance between
  business model as mixture of private and user
  interests and cost allocations, and public
  infrastructure there is an important public
  good aspect involved.
• Non-technical model of world
• Practical way ahead
• Where is highest impact possible?
• Involve not too few, not too many stakeholders to
  start with
• Connect to ongoing activities dont replace, but
  integrate responsibilities

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Highest impact

• Preserving worlds cultural heritage well-known
  field of action for memory institutions. Weak
  link to science.
• Only small part of digital Science (taken
  broad) production spills over into traditional
  archives.
• Hence
• Two strands to preservation
• Digital cultural heritage UNESCO archives,
  deposit libraries, museums,
• Practice of ST in digital age.
• Political attention (UNESCO, EU) focused on first
  strand.
• Need for eventually inclusive action where to
  start in a new gear? Focus on Records of
  Science
• Momentum is greatest because of inherent needs of
  scientific community and organisations, specific
  mass (including financial mass) greatest
• Academic and deposit libraries, scientific
  publishers straddle world of science and of
  traditional cultural heritage. Archives join in
  too, e.g. historical, social and economic
  sciences.
• Science includes Science and Technology, social
  sciences and humanities, large scale data
  collection for both operational service as well
  as scientific purposes (meteorology, GIS, census,
  )
• Consultation and outreach too wider community

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Not too few, not too many

• Usual EU approaches
• either call for tender for projects,
• or all together all stakeholders from 25
  member states plus Commission, resolutions,
  communications, agency, .
• Need for more focused action by critical mass of
  stakeholders with
• Emphasis on preservation (though preservation
  cannot be separated from building digital
  collections)
• Aim to create infrastructure
• Aim to create growing consensus among and
  conditions for communities and organisations
  and their particular preservation projects.

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Core Alliance Partners (still open questions)

• Some of most active libraries BL, KB
• Some major scientific organisations ESA, CERN,
  EMBL, CCLRC, Max Planck Gesellschaft, CNRS are
  among those approached
• Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical
  Publishers
• Some major national archives
• JISC, others?
• National coalitions (where they exist UK,
  Germany, Sweden in the making?...)
• Elsewhere in Europe?

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Model of the world Framework of conditions
and rules of conduct

• dedicated communities real communities for
  production of science
• For archiving digital records characterised by
• laboratories
• Specialised data providers
• Specialised publishers or web-based archives
• Specialised reserch libraries
• All of these are digital archives or repositories
  in digital world
• Cross-cutting horizontal structure too exists
• Scientific publishers, multidisciplinary open
  archives
• Academic research libraries
• Deposit libraries
• Conventional archives

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Transformation into framework (infrastructure)
of real life organisations and operating
conditions

• Identify set of core physical digital archives in
  limited number of initial communities, and in
  horizontal layer (critical mass and high
  specific mass are essential criteria)
• These must OAIS-compliant to ensure proper
  archiving, interoperability and l.t. preservation
• Framework for metadata, Framework for persistent
  identifiers, and number of registries
• Cost-effective l.t preservation methods and
  services must be available
• Common framework of principles and guidelines for
  management of access and rights (underlying the
  technical tools to implement this framework)
• Financial mechanism for developing and testing
  implementation tools, techniques and services
• a. Certification service providers, accredited
  according to
• b. Common European accreditation mechanism.

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Aims of Alliance in the making

• Establish wide consensus on framework
  (infrastructure) for LTPA initial focus on
  science
• Accelerate significantly creation main its
  building blocks
• Work with national governments and EU to
  strengthen European strategies, policies and
  their implementation
• Strengthen role European parties world-wide
• Articulate and maintain ongoing RDD programme

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Tasks, derived from Framework characteristics

• Assist selected communities to develop
  Demonstration and Implementation Plans.
• Strategic RD Programme for FP7
• Enhance consensus on set of principles and
  guidelines for Digital Access and Rights
  Management for restricted domain of records of
  science
• Consolidate emerging consensus on framework for
  Metadata to select from, framework for Persistent
  Identifiers and number of vital Registries
• Establish programme for testing and demonstrating
  a variety of tools
• Help establish European accreditation mechanism
  for certification service providers, and
  consensus on minimal set of audit criteria and
  procedures to be used in certification processes
• Liaise with national governments and the EU, e.g.
  
• On Communication on preserving digital heritage
  with a focus on science information, planned for
  2006
• RD Programme (see above)
• funding mechanism for demonstration and
  implementation plans of communities and of common
  tools and services
• Liaise at strategic level with coordinating
  bodies in other world regions
• Promote, where appropriate, sustainable business
  models for digital archives supporting LPTA
• Raise awareness for co-ordinated building of
  European Digital Information Framework
• Develop practical models, guidelines
• other communities,
• LPTA for non-Records-of-Science.

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Strengthening emerging consensusBuilding on
what is being done

• Conceptually, e.g.
• OAIS
• Dublin Metadata Core Initiative
• Draft Audit Checklist for Certification of
  Trusted Digital Repositories (RLG, NARA plus
  European experts)
• Practically, e.g.
• Several EU-funded projects (but too much focus on
  co-ordination)
• Strong national projects (but in few countries
  only)
• Public-private agreements (e.g. libraries and
  publishers)
• Audit and Certification of Digital Archives
  Project (CRL) to test audit 3 archives

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Financial model

• Partners continue current efforts and investments
• Partners contribute to establish small European
  organisation to co-ordinate Alliance efforts
• 100 M for the real action