Manage

There are many issues concerning the day to day management of a repository and the administrative tasks that are necessary to maintain it that need to be considered.

1.  Workflow and administration

There is a good overview of the tasks involved in the administration of an open access repository in Jones, Andrew, and MacColl (2006, pp. 85-110), based on their own experience building the Edinburgh repository, but which also take into account the OAIS Reference model Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (2002). Elements covered include:

• ‘ingest’ procedures for acquiring content
• whether this is by self- or mediated deposit (see also the Advocacy section),
• the storage of relevant license agreements
• post-submission workflows, such as assigning items to categories, content verification procedures, cataloguing steps and the verification and augmentation of metadata,
• short and long-term storage procedures,
• user and user group management.

A recommended archive structure for good content management, the need for good documentation of both processes, and management policies are also dealt with in some detail.

2.  Preservation

As Jones et al. (2006) note “one objective of many repositories is to provide items in perpetuity” (p91). The OAIS reference model Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (2002, 650.0-B-1) has more detailed recommendations about best practice and appropriate work flows for each stage of the preservation process. The SPARC (2002) report addresses preservation in perpetuity in more detail.

The Australian Partnership for Sustainable Resources (APSR) discussion paper on sustainability issues by Bradley (2005) goes into considerable detail on issues related to sustainability and long-term preservation, and steps needed to achieve this.

3.  Risk assessment and management

Identifying risks, assessing their probability and the magnitude of their impact, and costing their likely impact and the measures necessary to avoid them are all standard steps required of any ongoing IT project. They are a key part of managing an open access repository. The APSR report Bradley (2005) provides a general overview of these processes, referring to the Australian New Zealand Risk Management standard (AS/NZS 4360:1999). Further information is available on the New Zealand Society for Risk Management website (http://www.risksociety.org.nz).

Legal risks in addition to those related to digital rights management and intellectual property, such as the liability incurred by an institution once it takes on the role of publisher need to be considered. There are also risks related to restrictions of access that are placed on specific items for reasons other than intellectual property by depositing authors or their sponsors (such as embargoes). Legal issues and considerations such as defamation or fraud and access that may be required under Freedom of Information legislation, are covered by Jones et al. (2006, pp.148-152). Andrew (2004) (in JISC Legal) also warns about the need to include statements of limitations on liability of the host institution - their sample agreements and licenses provide wording to address this issue.

4.  Human resource issues

A central aspect of managing an open access repository is the need for sufficient staff and recruitment of people with the necessary skills. Although this is rarely mentioned in accounts of repositories being established, close examination of the literature shows this to be a more major cost than first estimated.

Jones et al. (2006) are among the few practitioners to raise this issue directly. Jones et al. (2006, p25 and p37)comment that the development and maintenance of an IR requires some organisational restructuring and there can be a lack of staff with high level cataloguing and metadata skills, particularly at a time when many institutions have been either outsourcing cataloguing or purchasing their cataloguing records, with metadata already in place . Staffing is also a major element in their costing estimates Jones, Andrew, and MacColl (2006,  pp.37-38). Markey et al. (2007, sec3) have reached similar conclusions, with staffing estimates accounting for nearly 40% of the repository’s total budget.

The survey of 53 digital repositories from around the world by the Primary et al. (2007) is one of the few studies to contain detailed data about budgets and human resource factors (see sections 8 and 9). For example, according to the survey, the mean budget allocation made by libraries for digital repositories is US$59,000 while the median is US$27,500. These statistics are broken down by the country and region the repository is located in, and by the number of person hours required to operate the repository. The survey data is also broken down by the type and form of digital repository.

A number of papers that are either personal accounts of how a particular repository is managed e.g. Mackie (2004) or recommendations for best practice e.g. Hunter and Day (2005) note in passing that the demands on staff time in the day to day creation of content for repositories are centred on identifying and recruiting items, decisions on scope, carrying out necessary checks on bibliographic data, copyright and availability status, as well as assigning and checking metadata. The Primary et al. (2007) survey also has detailed data in these areas.

5.  Long term lifecycle and preservation costs

The LIFE:Project (2008) is researching long term life cycle and preservation costs for digital preservation compared to paper based publications. The LIFE project is a venture supported by LIBER (Ligue des Bibliothèques Européennes de Recherche) and is led by the British Library and UCL Library Services in the UK with funding from JISC. The remit of the LIFE project is to investigate:

• The long-term lifecycle and preservation costs for a library in higher education/furthereducation to carry out long-term digital preservation
• The comparative long-term lifecycle and preservation costs of a paper and digital copy of the same publication
• At what point there may be sufficient confidence in the stability and maturity of digital preservation to switch from paper to digital (for preservation purposes)
• The relative risks of digital versus paper archiving McLeod:Wheatley:Ayris:2006(?)

The project has developed a methodology to calculate the long-term costs and future requirements of the preservation of digital objects, by analysing and comparing a number of different types of digital assets and applying a lifecycle approach to each. The lifecycle is based on acquisition, ingesting, metadata, access, storage, and preservation. LIFE:Project (2008) state that more detailed work on the lifecycle and preservation costs of an item in an IR will be released during the project. These findings will, amongst other things, try to establish whether digital preservation is the cheapest and most cost-effective option for the long-term preservation of a library’s assets.