Protecting Future Access Now: Developing a Prototype Preservation Model for Digital Books

FAIN: PK-50071-08

Ithaka Harbors, Inc. (New York, NY 10006-1895)
Eileen G. Fenton (Project Director: March 2008 to April 2011)

The development of a prototype preservation service that will provide a practical model for the preservation of digitized books. Portico and Cornell University Library will analyze electronic book data, identify a technological infrastructure to preserve electronic books, assess preservation costs and recovery options, create sample service-level agreements, and share the full preservation model with the cultural heritage community.

Portico and the leading preservation experts at the Cornell University Library will collaborate to develop a prototype preservation service that will provide a practical model for how preservation can be accomplished for digitized books. By building a prototype service that models digitized book preservation the project will: 1) demonstrate what is necessary for cultural heritage organizations to develop in-house digital preservation capacity to meet their own needs or to offer a preservation service to others; 2) offer a practical service that can immediately begin to address as yet unaddressed digital preservation responsibilities; and finally, and perhaps most importantly, 3) demonstrate how cultural heritage organizations can cooperatively build a cost-effective preservation infrastructure that does not impose the full cost burden upon each institution. Digitized books used to construct the prototype will be drawn from across the humanities.