Approved by the DDR Program Committee, December 14, 2016
The intended audience for this policy includes faculty, administrators, and students of Duke University, as well as researchers external to Duke who are collaborating with Duke personnel and whose projects will make use of Duke University Libraries’ repository services.
In keeping with the [[mission of the Duke University Repository]], Duke University Libraries (DUL) and Duke University are committed to the long-term preservation and persistent access to the University’s digital assets curated in the Duke Digital Repository (DDR). Duke University Libraries is committed to the stewardship of these materials into the future. The following Digital Preservation Policy describes the DUL’s overarching approach to sustainable access for digital objects. Detailed strategies for preservation activities are documented in the [[Preservation Strategies]]. Acknowledging the rapid, ongoing changes in this technological environment, policies are subject to change.
The preservation objectives of the DDR are:
to provide a sustainable, trustworthy environment in which digital assets are preserved and, when appropriate, made accessible through persistent identifiers. For additional information see the [[Identifier Policy]] and the [[TRAC Response Document]].
to provide bit-level preservation to all deposited objects and associated metadata.
to provide enhanced levels of preservation to selected materials.1
to satisfy the requirements of funding agencies in managing, sharing and preserving research data. Please see [[DVS Data Management Guidelines]] (forthcoming) for more information.
to verify and demonstrate authenticity of all deposited objects and metadata
to, whenever possible, maintain citability of accessible materials.
This policy covers all materials selected for inclusion in the DDR subject to the DDR Collection Policy and individual collection policies. This policy applies for the intended duration of stewardship for each collection. These policies are subject to change by the Duke University Libraries Repository Program Committee under the advice of the Libraries’ Digital Preservation Advisory Group. This policy is not specific to a systems or software implementation.
This policy does not address issues outside the scope of preservation such as collection development policies, retention schedules, or selection criteria for higher levels of preservation service.
Bit-level preservation will be provided to all digital objects in the repository through fixity checking and version control
Depositors may submit fixity information along with objects to validate against during ingest. Fixity checks are performed by the repository at regular intervals.
Geographically disparate copies
Duke University Libraries maintains at least three distinct replicas of DDR data at all times. The Libraries contracts with DuraCloud, a library-oriented, preservation-focused storage provider, to support off-site data replicas. The primary copy of the data is locally-stored at Duke with the secondary copy in DuraCloud and tertiary copy in Amazon Glacier.
File formats and obsolescence management
File formats will be surveyed and evaluated to create list of preferred file formats
File formats will be monitored for obsolescence
Select file formats will be migrated to formats presenting less risk
Formats that are not preferred may still be included in DDR and receive bit-level preservation, but may not receive enhanced preservation
For more information, please see the Format Policy Metadata
Support for descriptive, administrative, technical, and preservation metadata to ensure continued understanding of the materials stored in DDR
Information Security
Authorization to read, write, move and/or delete materials and metadata from DDR will be controlled
DDR will maintain and periodically audit logs of read, write, edit, and delete actions taken
For more information on security, see our Threat Models documentation.
Accepted by Duke University Libraries Repository Program Committee December 5, 2016.