Short Paper: Vault: Building an Extensible, Affordable Digital Preservation & Repository Service

Abstract

Since 1996, the Internet Archive (IA) has provided storage, preservation, and access infrastructure and services to over 1,000 cultural heritage organisations around the world. It has also provided customized digital preservation services on a contractual basis to a handful of large institutions. In 2020, IA began building a more generalized digital preservation and repository service in response to the needs of a broader range of institutions and to leverage IA’s self-owned data centers, non-profit cloud services, and demonstrated expertise in both small and petabyte-scale digital stewardship. This system is being developed in direct dialogue with 30+ organizations, including universities, public libraries, arts organizations, and cultural heritage organizations, over the course of the 2021 - 2022 year. This paper shares key takeaways from the information collected from this pilot phase and early launch of the service and also positions the service, Vault, within the digital preservation landscape, particularly as it relates to the distinct needs and goals of nonprofits, libraries, and cultural heritage organizations, that this service aims to address.

Details

Creators

Jefferson Bailey

Institutions

Internet Archive

Date

Keywords

digital preservation; services; technology; repository

Publication Type

short paper

License

CC-BY 4.0 International

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