Active Digital Preservation and Data/Metadata Migration

Digital preservation activities increasingly focus on the movement of data and metadata between systems. This panel will present case studies in moving content through preservation activities with APTrust, the Digital Preservation Network, MetaArchive, and local applications. The presentations will highlight common methodologies and elicit group discussion on strategic and sustainable planning for active digital preservation. As the pace of evolution of repository systems continues to increase and new opportunities for digital preservation systems continue to emerge, the nature of active movement of repository objects and metadata has become a growing concern. The focus of content stewardship is shifting from being application-centric to data-centric, with the understanding that content must move through time. In order to provide effective mechanisms to move repository data during repository migrations and to these preservation systems, significant efforts are needed for various import, export, and verification services. The Fedora and MetaArchive communities have begun collaborative efforts to create tools that using the BagIt standard will enable preservation and system profiles that allow for ease of digital object transfer. Essential to these discussions is the role of metadata, file integrity, and size of transfers to actively manage digital objects.