Reevaluating Access and Preservation Through Secondary Repositories: Needs, Promises, and Challenges

Abstract

Digital access and preservation questions for cultural heritage institutions have focused primarily on primary repositories — that is, around collections of discrete digital objects and associated metadata. Much of the promise of the information age, however, lies in the ability to reuse, repurpose, combine and build complex digital objects[1-3]. Repositories need both to preserve and make accessible primary digital objects, and facilitate their use in a myriad of ways. Following the lead of other annotation projects, we argue for the development of secondary repositories where users can compose structured collections of complex digital objects. These complex digital objects point back to the primary digital objects from which they are produced (usually with URIs) and augment these pointers with user-generated annotations and metadata. This paper examines how this layered approach to user generated metadata can enable research communities to move forward into more complex questions surrounding digital archiving and preservation, addressing not only the fundamental challenges of preserving individual digital objects long term, but also the access and usability challenges faced by key stakeholders in primary digital repository collections—scholars, educators, and students. Specifically, this project will examine the role that secondary repositories can play in the preservation and access of digital historical and cultural heritage materials with particular emphasis on streaming media.