- About | People | Projects
- Presentations | Publications
- Exhibits | Printable Materials
- Goals & Reports | News | Giving
- UF Digital Collections (UFDC)
- Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC)
- Caribbean Newspaper Digital Library (CNDL)
- Florida Digital Newspaper Library
- Institutional Repository @UF
- Related Libraries
Digital Library Center
Smathers Libraries
University of Florida
P.O Box 117003
Gainesville, FL 32611 USA
P: 352.273.2900
F: 352.846.3702
DLC@uflib.ufl.edu
Digital Library Center Technologies :: Internal User Documentation
Digital Preservation
In practice consistent for all University of Florida digital projects, redundant digital archives are maintained.
An intermediary archive, recorded to gold-based (Mitsui) CD-ROM, is created during the imaging phase to ensure the integrity of files during subsequent processing. Accuracy is verified by software during creation. CD-ROMs are retained in environmentally controlled storage. Disks and their contents are logged in the DLC Tracking Database, with MD5 checksum numbers and file format & version information, in association with administrative and bibliographic metadata. The Database queues disks and files for inspection every three years and migration every ten years or upon format obsolescence. In some cases, during migration, a copy of the migrated digital master may replace the intermediary.
The primary archive is that maintained by the Florida Center for Library Automation (FCLA), a division of the University of Florida and the Libraries’ partner for digital library collections. The FCLA Digital Archive (http://www.fcla.edu/digitalArchive/index.htm) is funded in part by a grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services and by storage fees. The Digital Archive is one of a handful of “trusted repositories” and the only such effort in the United States or United Kingdom given special mention in the recent JISC/University of Leeds report on digital preservation. Physically, all digital information is stored in off-line systems under FCLA administration at the University of Florida’s NorthEast Regional Data Center (NERDC) on IBM Magstar 3590 extended length cartridges (i.e., magnetic tape). Cartridges are inspected routinely, refreshed as necessary, and periodically migrated to replacement media. All electronic data is stored with MD5 checksum for verification of data integrity. Metadata is maintained in METS-compliant data structures. Bibliographic metadata, including cataloging, is also retained in FCLA maintained and archived bibliographic systems.
