PERSPECTIVES ON... · Digital Preservation in Open-Source Digital Library Software by Devika P. Madalli, Sunita Barve and Saiful Amin Available online 10 March 2012 Digital archives and digital library projects are being initiated all over the world for materials of different formats and domains. To organize, store, and retrieve digital content, many libraries as well as archiving centers are using either proprietary or open-source software. While it is accepted that print media can survive for centuries with some physical preservation techniques, digital media requires continuous processes to keep it compliant with current technology. It is not only necessary to organize digital content but also important to preserve it to ensure accessibility, sustainability, and retrieval across time. This paper presents an analytical study along with observations regarding digital preservation support available in existing open-source digital library software (OSS-DL) based on test beds created for that purpose. Devika P. Madalli, Documentation Research Training Centre, Indian Statistical Institute, 8th Mile Mysore Road, RV College PO, Bangalore 560 059, India <devika@drtc.isibang.ac.in> Sunita Barve, National Centre for Radio Astrophysics, PO Box 3, Pune Univ. Campus, Pune 411007, India <sunitab@ncra.tifr.res.in> Saiful Amin, Documentation Research Training Centre, Indian Statistical Institute, 8th Mile Mysore Road, RV College PO, Bangalore 560 059, India <saiful@drtc.isibang.ac.in>. INTRODUCTION Information is increasingly produced in digital form such as text in pdf, doc or odt music in mp3, wav video in mpeg formats, and vast amounts of digital content are made available to users. Digital information is growing and exploding at a rapid rate; it is also available in heterogeneous forms, adding to its complexity. Hardware and software on which digital information is created are continuously changing. This presents a significant challenge in preserving digital resources and making them accessible for future use. Often, one of the aims of digital repositories that are available either via the Internet or on an intranet is to preserve the intellectual output irrespective of format and application used to create resources. There are also new challenges, particularly in the digital environment. When digital documents are added to a digital repository, it is necessary to ascertain that the software and tools lend support to long-term preservation of the digital content. This paper presents evaluation criteria that may be applied to assess digital preservation capabilities while taking stock of the digital preservation support available in OSS-DL. Evaluation criteria from a digital preservation point of view are defined here based on a study undertaken for the purpose. The evaluation against the important criteria is executed and reported here by installing selected OSS-DL in a test bed environment. Open-Source Software There are quite a number of open-source software programs available for building digital libraries, institutional repositories, digital archives or digital repositories. Open-source software is available for free under open-source license terms and conditions where the source code of the software is also available. The open-source code can be altered for further development, customization, and redistribution. Since 1997, open-source software (OSS) has claimed a substantial market share of the computer industry, and a large number of OSS is available on the Internet. The world's largest OSS development web site is SourceForge.net. The SourceForge repository hosts more than 326,882 projects and has more than 46 million registered users. 1 Libraries have started making use of OSS for various library applications; one of the most prominent uses is for building “digital libraries”. In digital preservation, OSS plays a vital role as the back-end technology libraries adapt are mainly based on open standards, which is an important criteria in digital preservation support. Open standards by not being proprietary allow libraries in being transient to migrations. For creating digital libraries, OSS tools are increasingly considered as an alternative to commercial digital library systems due to dissatisfaction with commercial software, mainly because of a lack of functionality, prohibitive costs, inadequate support, etc. 2 OSS-DL, with free access and a high level of functionality, has been used by a large community all over the world. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, Volume 38, Number 3, pages 161–164 May 2012 161