Rehousing digital heritage. Preservation on a very large scale

Abstract

More than ten years ago the e-Depot of the National Library of the Netherlands (KB) became operational; one of the first long-term archives for international scientific publications, worldwide. Millions of publications, mostly e-journal articles in PDF format, were ingested, stored and made accessible.

For digital preservation and for scaling purposes the KB started in 2009 renewing its digital storage environment and building and equipping a new digital preservation system. A first release of the newly built system was dedicated to receive the millions of stored articles and to process the migration which would phase out the initial e-Depot. We could then start migrating collections to a new, better and future proof storage.

To move our digital collection, we needed to migrate these objects to the new hardware- and software environment.For KB, migrating millions of publications meant a major preservation action on an unprecedented scale. And one with possibly great risks for our digital heritage when not properly executed. It was not only a media migration. Almost 5 million publications had to be repackaged, which meant all files and metadata were checked and reformatted into new archival packages. We developed an automated workflow to process the material as well as processes for quality control and error handling.

The entire operation took 10 months and cost around €110.000. Almost 20 KB-staff members ensured a controlled and safe preservation process. Two members of staff were dedicated to...