What’s Happening Now: Current Preservation Tools at TDL

Two of these services are its hosted DSpace repositories and dark archive storage at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC). DSpace and TACC, together with policies and practices instituted by staff at local member institutions, can help members ensure the longevity of their collections.

DSpace Repositories

While DSpace is not a preservation solution on its own, it can enable preservation policy and practice via a set of included features. Individual member libraries can use these features in accordance with their local institutional policies and strategies to do preservation work.

These tools include the following:

• A Checksum checker that can routinely check items in the repository for bit rot
• A Format registry that allows your institution to specify what formats are supported and the Format Profiler curation task, which counts profile types according their level of support (i.e. Supported, Known, or Unknown)
• Logging tools, which provide a trail of information about items in the repository and actions taken on them
• Handles, which give each item in the repository a unique web address that won’t change if the item is relocated, because it is registered with an outside service

Additionally, DSpace is OAIS-compliant and is backed by the DuraSpace Foundation, an organization that guides future development and support and ensures the stability and longevity of the software.

Texas Advanced Computing Center Dark Archive

In addition to the preservation tools available through DSpace, TDL members have access to dark archive storage at the Texas Advanced Computing Center, a world-class advanced computing facility located on the UT Austin campus. TACC contractually provides the TDL with digital storage that is available for members needing to back up large collections.

Any member interested in accessing this resource for their collections should contact TDL’s senior program coordinator Ryan Steans at info@tdl.org or 512-495-4403.