Preservation, Digital Curation, Repository terminology

Preservation is not a Place by Stephen Abrams, Patricia Cruse, John Kunze, in International Journal of Digital Curation, Vol 4, No 1 (2009)

I read an article on digital curation, which speaks to the issues we were having last week with regard to forming a definition of the terms we are using. The piece is based on a process of reinvention at the Digital Preservation Program of the California Digital Library (CDL). The program is moving away from their identity as a repository (or place) to a conception of the program that is focused on process and services. One of the central ideas expressed is the articulated shift from preservation to curation, which is more focused on a full digital lifecycle, as opposed to a static point in time. The new mission of focusing on curation includes a more thorough approach that includes preservation, as well as other curation values and strategies, such as appraisal, authentication, identification, portability, and accessibility. This seems very much in line with how we came to think of digital curation in our discussion last week. A primary goal of the initiative is to provide “highly available, responsive, comprehensive, and sustainable services for access to use, reuse, and enrichment of, authentic digital assets over time,” namely to build upon stewardship standards that have been in place in libraries and archives for years.
The primary question that still remains from our discussion last week is what do we call the object or deliverable of this initiative. In the case of CDL, they are concerned with creating a network of services that provide access to digital objects. The entity in question (California Digital Library) is referred to as a digital library, but does that fit with their idea of moving away from the conception of a repository? Perhaps they are not at odds, and this is one example where we can simply see how the library model of services and access are moved to the forefront, or at least on equal footing with the preservation mission. What started as a preservation effort became digital curation through the new focus on access. In the end, the authors indicate that part of the motivation to make this shift came from a need to interact more effectively with other curation efforts, as well as the need to respond to stakeholders within the university system. In the end, the solution they present is “lots of copies” available through “lots of services” to respond to “lots of uses.” The broad view they are taking may be an effective way to respond to the ever-increasing number of digital objects, but is it the most efficient?