Disasters at any scale: The MetaArchive Cooperative’s community-based approach to risk mitigation and disaster preparation in the 21st century

Abstract

Integration and automation between multiple acquisition, analysis, and collection management software systems is key to the sustainability of digital preservation within and across institutional boundaries amongst cultural heritage organizations. The MetaArchive Cooperative distributed digital preservation network has continually sought to simplify integration with multiple systems and has engaged in research and development activities to achieve these goals. To illustrate these activities we will provide a case study of one member’s (Carnegie Mellon University) experience integrating digital preservation workflows between MetaArchive and a vendor-based digital repository platform. Additionally, we will describe current efforts to evolve our network infrastructure to provide increased opportunities for smaller, under-resourced cultural heritage institutions to participate in the MetaArchive Cooperative, and therefore protect their digital collections against disaster-related risk and loss.