Trusted Digital Archives. Experiences from the Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg, nestor and DIN
Date
2013-03-07
Authors
Dr. Keitel, Christian
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Abstract
The presentation will address various solutions to users’ needs regarding authentic digital objects. It will describe the approach of a specific archive, the German standards on trustworthy digital archives and the procedure of the nestor certification.
The most important factor for digital archives is their designated user. The user decides if he can trust the objects of the digital archive and with that he decides about the credibility of the entire archive. Hence, questions related to authenticity and trustworthiness are fundamental to the success or failure of the archive.
We could distinguish two different user groups in this regard. Some users question the authenticity of individual archival objects (group 1), while most users look at the trustworthiness of the archive as a whole (group 2). The digital archive should serve both groups.
The Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg is a regional state archive in Germany. We have designed and implemented a digital magazine (DIMAG) in 2006 and the free software tool IngestList in 2008 (http://sourceforge.net/projects/ingestlist/). Both tools have some built-in functions to address the needs of group 1.
nestor is the German competence network for digital preservation. It supports the cooperation between the main actors in the heritage sector (archives, libraries and museums). A nestor working group compiled a criteria catalogue on trustworthy digital archives between 2004 and 2008 (English version on http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0008-2010030806). On this basis, a
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follow-up working group published the German standard DIN 31644 Trustworthy Digital Archives in 2012. Both this standard and the original criteria catalogue address the needs of both user groups.
DIN 31644 stands between the Dutch Data Seal of Approval and the ISO 16363 Audit and Certification of Trustworthy Digital Repositories in terms of complexity and requirements. Each of these standardization initiatives has developed its own certification procedure. These three certification procedures compose the European Framework for Audit and Certification of Digitial Repositories (http://www.trusteddigitalrepository.eu).
Finally, the presentation will outline the central elements of the nestor certification procedure versus DIN 31644.
Description
Trusted Digital Archives.
Keywords
The most important factor for digital archives is their designated user