n.the technical infrastructure, services, and resources for the storage and management of digital informationLacy and Mitchell 1997, 433LC’s EAD Task Force appointed a technical issues subgroup in March 1997 to address questions relating to the library’s digital repository, including digital object naming; indexing schemes; structural and administrative metadata; levels and types of description; and relationships among USMARC records, EAD finding aids, related description files, and the digital objects to which finding aids can be linked. Links between LC’s catalog records and finding aids are central to the successful integration of these bibliographic and descriptive tools. LC is implementing a digital repository which assigns permanent names called “handles” to EAD finding aids and digital objects; this is in lieu of Uniform Resource Locators (URLs), because the latter change too often to be practical addresses in a digital repository.RLG 2002, 1As the traditional custodians of cultural heritage, libraries, archives, and museums are actively addressing methods and strategies for preserving digital materials. The challenge is great: cultural institutions are rapidly creating, converting, and acquiring material in a vast variety of formats, from word-processed documents to still images, and from data sets to electronic records. As collections grow, the needs associated with their maintenance and long-term viability grow too. A necessary outgrowth of this process has been the development of digital archives or digital repositories.RLG/NARA 2005, 59–60Digital repository / Digital archive: These two terms are often used interchangeably. OAIS uses archive when referring to an organization that intends to preserve information for access and use by a Designated Community. Trusted Digital Repositories: Attributes and Responsibilities prefers the term digital repository. Digital archives and digital repositories should not be confused with either digital libraries, which collect and provide access to digital information, but may not commit to its long-term preservation, or data archives, which do include long-term preservation but limit their collections to statistical datasets.Semple 2006, 1Digital Repositories offer a convenient infrastructure through which to store, manage, re-use and curate digital materials. They are used by a variety of communities, may carry out many different functions, and can take many forms. The meaning of the term ‘digital repository’ is widely debated. Contemporary understanding has broadened from an initial focus on software systems to a wider and overall commitment to the stewardship of digital materials; this requires not just software and hardware, but also policies, processes, services, and people, as well as content and metadata. Repositories must be sustainable, trusted, well-supported and well-managed in order to function properly. Digital Repositories are also commonly referred to as ‘institutional repositories’ or ‘digital archives’.Cunningham 2008, 534For the purposes of this paper, digital repositories are defined as managed storage facilities for digital information objects.Zach and Peri 2010, 119Six of the 10 institutions with functioning repositories were “parking” documents in a variety of programs such as Greenstone, CONTENTdm, and other proprietary content management software, as well as in institutional repositories designed using DSpace and other open-source systems. All of these digital repositories essentially provide short-term preservation and access for discrete documents. Among the institutions interviewed, only 1 private institution and the 2 institutions connected with systemwide university programs were developing in-house software solutions to allow for long-term preservation.Duranti and Franks 2015, 170Contemporary digital repositories, however, are defined by the communities that they serve and the services that are offered through them rather than the mere act of storage. Services offered through digitial repositories may include long-term preservation and storage, but they are just as likely to include implementing access protocols, serving up convenience copies of materials preserved elsewhere, enabling collaboration, the review or reuse of data. The services provided through digital repositories are as numerous as the communities they serve or the types of data that they store. Digital repositories may offer open or restricted access to materials, and may offer free or paid access to content. ¶ A digital repository is neither a thing nor a location.Cocciolo 2016a, 133Efficiency experts are always interested in eliminating functions that may seem redundant. Thus, most institutional executives would rather have a single digital repository that holds both records and assets. Given this reality, could a DAM work not only as an asset repository, but also as a records repository?
