1. Courtney C. Mumma, MAS/MLIS
UBC – SLAIS Digital Records Forensics ARST 556B
May 15, 2013, Vancouver, BC
Introduction to

2. What is Archivematica?
● digital preservation/curation system
● designed to maintain standards-based, long-
term access to collections of digital objects
● free and open-source (AGPLv3)
● supported by Artefactual Systems Inc.

3. digital preservation consulting
open-source sofware for archives and libraries

4. Who am I?

5. The Digital Preservation Problem:
1. Rapid technological change drives constant system upgrades,
migrations and retirement of legacy technologies.
2. Incompatible, obsolete, obscure or proprietary systems and file
formats.
3. Loss or damage to bitstreams due the fragility of digital storage
media, system error, or human error.

6. The Digital Preservation Problem:
4. The overwhelming volume of digital information objects created
daily, each with many possible copies and versions.
5. The lack or loss of adequate metadata describing digital
information objects.
6. Accidental or malicious content alteration.

7. The Digital Preservation Problem:
7. Doubts about the reliability and integrity of electronic records
and the inability to vouch for their authenticity.
8. The complexity of digital information objects which requires
preservation of their content, structure, context, presentation,
behaviour as intellectual entities as well as bitstreams.
9. The lack of formally recognized organizational responsibility,
resources and enterprise architecture components that facilitate
digital curation, preservation and long-term access.

10. now future
bitstream
storage media
packaging
storage device
storage driver
file system
error correction operating system
application software user interface
input / output devices
metadata
find
relate / bind
authenticate
contextualize
stored
copied
protected
Accessible?
Usable?
Authentic?
compression
decryption
file format
character encoding fonts
codec
Responsible?
Architecture?
Resources?
content
context
structure
presentation
behaviour

11. TRAC: Trustworthy Digital Repositories

12. ISO 16363:2012

13. Data Management
Preservation Planning
Archival Storage
Ingest
Administration
SIP
MANAGEMENT
AIP Access DIP
P
R
O
D
U
C
E
R
C
O
N
S
U
M
E
R
Open Archival Information System (OAIS)
reference model (ISO-STD 14721)
https://www.archivematica.org/wiki/OAIS_Use_Cases
https://www.archivematica.org/wiki/OAIS_Activity_Diagrams

14. What is Archivematica?
● allows users to process digital objects from ingest
to access in conformance with the ISO-OAIS
functional model
● creates high-quality, standards-compliant Archival
Information Packages (AIP)
● provides an architecture for implementing
preservation strategies
● provides a framework for evaluating and
implementing format policies

16. `
web-based dashboard
monitor and control
web
server
MCP
server
micro-service
processing clients
watched
directory
success
error
fileshare
success
digital curation
micro-services
python
scripts
FOSS
tools
AIP
DIP
SIP or
transfer of
digital objects
& metadata

18. The METS file
<dmdSec> (descriptive metadata)
Dublin Core XML
EAD XML
MODS XML
[whatever] XML
<amdSec> (administrative metadata)
<techMD>
PREMIS: object
<digiProvMD>
PREMIS: events
PREMIS: agents
<rightsMD>
PREMIS: rights
<fileSec> (a list of the files and their roles and relationships)
<structMap> (a representation of the physical structure of the AIP)

19. Preservation planning
● A two-pronged approach:
– Normalization on ingest
– Preservation of the original file to support future
strategies such as migration and emulation
● Normalization relies on format policies based on an
analysis of the significant characteristics of file
formats
● A format policy indicates the actions, tools and settings to
apply to a file of a particular file format (e.g. normalization to
preservation and/or access format)

20. https://www.archivematica.org/preservation

21. Archivematica format policies
● Criteria for selecting default formats:
● Non-proprietary
● Freely available specifications
● Widely used/endorsed by major repositories
● No compression/lossless compression
● Tools available to write and render the format
● Format policies will change as community
standards, practices and tools evolve.

22. PRONOM
UDFR
Format Policy
Registry (FPR)
?
API GUI

23. Systems Integration
● Application
Programming
Interfaces (API)
– Storage
– Ingest
– Access
● Dspace
● ContentDM
● ICA-AtoM
● Archivist Toolkit
● LOCKSS
● Islandora
● Fedora
● Dataverse

24. Archivematica Clients / Partners
● 30 – 50 users worldwide
● Active discussion list, twitter feed, website
● Courses, community participation
● Current Artefactual clients:
– UBC Library
– UofA Library
– SFU Library
– SFU Archives
– City of Vancouver Archives
– Rockefeller Archive Center
– International Monetary Fund Archives
– Columbia University Library
– Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
– Yale University Library

25. Foundation or
Steering Committee
Governance
Coordination
Funding
Promotion
Users
Lead institutions
Funding
Development
All users
Bug reports
Enhancement requests
Code patches
Documentation
Promotion Open Source Software
Code
Knowledge
Community
Service Providers
Development
Technical Support
Hosting
Training
Promotion
Code
Time
Money
Knowledge
Code
Time
Money
Knowledge
Time
Money
Knowledge

26. Free Beer!

27. “They’ll never take our freedom”
© 1995 Paramount Pictures & 20th
Century Fox
See fair use rationale: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Brave_mel.jpg

29. http://archivematica.org

30. Participate
➔Collaborate with the Digital Preservation Community
➔Library of Congress Tools Showcase - try out tools
and provide feedback in open forums
➔Download and provide feedback to BitCurator – digital
forensics tools for archivists
➔Leverage social media – follow digital archivists and
leading institutions and initiatives on Twitter, read
archives blogs
➔Follow @Snarkivist @Archivematica