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Journal of Electronic Resources Librarianship, 26: 52–60, 2014Published with license by Taylor & FrancisISSN: 1941-126X print / 1941-1278 onlineDOI: 10.1080/1941126X.2014.878629

ERM IDEAS AND INNOVATIONS

Lenore England

FROM THE COLUMN EDITOR, LENORE ENGLAND

This issue’s ERM Ideas and Innovations column is from Marı́a M. Pinkas, MetadataManagement Librarian, and Na Lin, Head, Resource Sharing and Digital Archive, bothfrom the Health Sciences and Human Services Library at the University of Maryland,Baltimore. Marı́a and Na describe the application of electronic resources management todigital repository management at their library, which is not always discussed as a fieldof librarianship that would have this kind of application. For Marı́a and Na, however,electronic resources management techniques, through the application of Techniques forElectronic Management, greatly enhance and improve the management of their digitalrepository. This application follows the life cycle of the digital repository items and theirongoing maintenance. The critical application techniques Marı́a and Na discuss providean enlightening perspective for library staff performing similar functions of managingrepositories at their institutions.

DIGITAL REPOSITORY MANAGEMENT AS ERM

Marı́a M. Pinkas and Na Lin

Marı́a Pinkas, Metadata Management Librarian, and Na Lin, Head, Resource Sharingand Digital Archive, are both from the Health Sciences and Human Services Library at theUniversity of Maryland, Baltimore.

One of the purposes of this column, ERM Ideas and Innovations, is to think outsidethe box in matters related to electronic resources management (ERM). The column forthis issue of the Journal of Electronic Resources Librarianship is a discussion on digitalrepository management, a subject that doesn’t necessarily fall into what is generally coveredin ERM topics. The article demonstrates how ERM principles, such as Emery and Stone’sTechniques for Electronic Management (TERMS) apply to digital repository management,using as a specific example the University of Maryland Digital Archive, a service of theHealth Sciences and Human Services Library at the University of Maryland, Baltimore.

© Marı́a M. Pinkas and Na LinAddress correspondence to Marı́a M. Pinkas, Metadata Management Librarian, Health Sciences and Human

Services Library, University of Maryland, Baltimore, 601 West Lombard Street, Baltimore, MD 21201. E-mail:mpinkas@hshsl.umaryland.edu

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Figure 1 TERMS Chart. Creative Commons. BY - Attribution: Emery, Jill and Graham Stone. TERMS Wiki MainPage: http://library.hud.ac.uk/wikiterms/Main Page‘‘(accessed 10/28/2013) and Emery, Jill and Graham Stone,“Techniques for Electronic Resource Management: Introduction and Literature Review.” Library TechnologyReports 49, no. 2:6 (Feb/March 2013) (color figure available online).

Electronic Resources Management (ERM) applies to a broad spectrum of digitalcontent including but not limited to published/licensed content, primary content, open(public domain) content, institutional content, and research data content. All are the essentialingredients of a modern digital library. Managing and maintaining a digital repository isas much about ERM as it is about collecting, managing, and making accessible electronicresources.

Digital Repositories and TERMS

In thinking about how ERM applies to digital repositories, we studied a very relevantdiscussion on TERMS by Emery and Stone, which identified six TERMS that seek tobecome “a reference point for those who are new to ERM, those who have suddenly shiftedjob functions to oversee ERM, and those who may want to implement its recommendationsof best practice” (2013a,5–6). These TERMS, illustrated in Figure 1, can be applied todigital repositories and will be used here as the framework for the discussion on how digitalrepositories readily fit into the ERM concept (color figure available online).

TERMS 1: Investigating New Content for Purchase/Addition—In the case of digitalrepositories, “addition” is what applies. Decisions must be made on the content scope of theArchive: historical or special collections material, grey literature, electronic dissertationsand theses, scholarly works, datasets, and so on. Determining the possible content willhelp achieve the purpose of the repository and the functionality needed to expose thoseparticular kinds of content. This investigation and decision making may very well be anongoing process that contributes to keeping the digital repository alive and pertinent.

TERMS 2: Acquiring New Content—The very life of a digital repository depends onthe success of acquiring new content, which in this case is not acquired through purchasingbut through collecting from the campus communities. Once the types of content to include

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have been determined, content recruitment and selection can begin. It is a time-consumingand often challenging part of digital repository management. Another important factor totake into account is the copyright status of the content being acquired.

TERMS 3: Implementation—Besides testing, marketing, training and documentation,assessing feedback, and launching, in the case of a digital repository, implementation of theinfrastructure is necessary. This may include selection and configuration or customizationof the platform. Also included in the implementation are digital conversion, linking issues,metadata design and curation, preservation issues, and access—including open access,embargoes, and, depending on the philosophy of the repository, different levels of accesscontrol.

TERMS 4: Ongoing Evaluation and Access—A digital repository requires continuousreview of content sources, technology, and strategies of acquisitions and preservation. It isa changing tool, subject to technological advances and new types of content that can affectcontent storage, access, and preservation.

TERMS 5: Annual Review—Emery and Stone recommend an annual review “tomake sure all resources are providing value for money” (2013b, p. 30). It is not alwaysclear how to assess the value of a digital repository quantitatively and if the usage anddeposit statistics can be the only measurement for the success of a repository initiative. Butit is necessary to periodically take a look at the numbers and any qualitative indicators ofthe success, or lack of it, to plan marketing procedures.

TERMS 6: Cancellation and Replacement Review—In the case of the digital reposi-tory, this TERMS can be applied to content preservation and lifecycle management. Whilesome content will be preserved long term, other content may be subject to retention anddeletion requirements for a variety of reasons, such as version control and copyright re-strictions. A strategy detailing the criteria and execution timeframe must be in place.

Having established how digital repositories in general can benefit from TERMS asa reference point, and thus tie into ERM, we will now take a closer view at the HealthSciences and Human Services Library service, the University of Maryland Digital Archive,and shed some light on the applicability of ERM core processes.

The University of Maryland Digital Archive

The University of Maryland Health Sciences and Human Services Library (HS/HSL)serves the University of Maryland’s (UM’s) Schools of Dentistry, Medicine, Nursing,Pharmacy, and Social Work as well as the Graduate School. The UM Digital Archive(Archive) service began in 2011. Its mission is to collect, preserve, and distribute theacademic works of the University with a focus on grey literature including research reports,annual reports, newsletters, white papers, meeting presentations, and posters. Anotherimportant aspect of the service is to capture the historical record of the campus by digitizingcollections from the Historical and Special Collections of the HS/HSL. Built for open accessvia the web, the Archive is intended to enhance information sharing across the scientificcommunity and provide insight into UM’s legacy and standing in the history of medicine(Lin & Hinegardner, 2012).

During the Archive implementation, project teams were tasked to address infrastruc-ture, content, and metadata management. The Technology team built the Archive backendand website; the Content team selected content; and the Metadata Management team de-termined the best practices to optimize content discovery.

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Infrastructure

DSpace (http://www.dspace.org) open source software was chosen to be the platformfor the Archive. It was installed in-house using the Red Hat Linux operating system andTomcat web server. The website was customized to incorporate branding and a help sitethat included policies and FAQs. Added functionalities, such as dynamic and persistentlinking through OpenURL/URIs and an enhanced advanced search, provided additionaloptions to discover content. The look and feel was also modified to achieve ease of use.Customization was kept to a minimum. It was thought that too much customization wouldcomplicate software upgrades and possible migration to other platforms in the future. Inaddition, open source software requires a lot of technical support to be customized andmaintained.

The Archive organizes content hierarchically and applies access control on all levels.Content ingestion is also controlled at different stages. For example, certain content canonly be submitted by a specific group of people, and it must be curated by a metadatalibrarian before it’s made available for access. Temporary embargoes are offered as acontent distribution option to accommodate contractual obligations or patenting concerns.Rights owners may also choose a Creative Commons License for the reuse of their works.If someone other than the author owns the copyright, which in most cases is the publisher,Sherpa/ROMEO (http://www.sherpa.ac.ul</romeo/) is a major source to check publishers’open access policies. Permissions are requested directly from publishers if they are notlisted on the Sherpa/ROMEO site.

Google Analytics is used to supplement DSpace’s native statistics function. It providesbroader and more in-depth usage data. It does not reflect the total usage, however, as a largeportion of the Archive’s content is hosted on the Internet Archive site, where direct trafficto the site is not captured.

Content Selection

The Archive consists of current and historical content. Current content includesscholarly works, published or unpublished, by individuals and the University. Historicalcontent comes from the Library’s historical and special collections. These collectionscontain a wealth of literature on the history of the campus and thousands of medical bookspublished during past centuries, including the founding collection of the Library.

One of the priorities of the Archive service is to convert historical collections into dig-ital forms before they succumb to physical ruin. A selection process was established basedon criteria including copyright, historical value to the campus, and physical conditions.Most of these collections were published in the United States prior to 1923 and, therefore,fall under public domain. Books not published in the United States are checked againstcopyright laws of the countries of origin. Academic catalogs, yearbooks, old dissertations,and the Library’s founding collection were among the first to be digitized. Open accessto these resources allows individuals and communities to freely conduct genealogical andscholarly research.

Electronic thesis and dissertations (ETDs) is another Archive collection that containspremier research. The acquisition of ETDs is looped into the University’s graduation processwhere graduates submit their theses/dissertations to ProQuest via the Graduate School. TheLibrary receives the ETDs from ProQuest and then ingests and curates them in the Archive.

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With the historical collections and ETDs readily available for archiving, contentacquisitions efforts have been centered on current scholarly output by the faculty andcampus administration. Recruiting this type of material requires patience and tenacity.Working with faculty librarians who represent the various schools on campus has proven tobe a good collaboration. Promotion of the service through campus meetings, mass mailing,social media, and systematic as well as targeted outreach has also yielded results. Theservice has also been successful if it is a means to an end, for example, solving a particularproblem, in the process of carrying out its mission. Therefore, identifying and assessingcurrent needs in addition to promoting the service is an effective approach.

Harvesting faculty works from open access repositories such as PubMed Central(PMC) and Biomed Central (BMC) is an area being investigated. The plan is to link to thecopyrighted material in PMC and to use BMC’s service that automatically deposits articlesauthored by University faculty into the Archive.

Preserving datasets is also an area of interest. Currently, small datasets are includedin the Archive; however, the University bears the responsibility for long-term preservationof data generated from its research. In the equation of storage and access to big data,the Library may not be an adequate venue to warehouse the data, but librarians have theexpertise to provide data curation to facilitate the discovery and reuse of the data. Metadatacuration is an important step in the Archive’s content management workflow.

Content Discovery

Search capabilities and discoverability are essential to the functionality of a digi-tal archive. The records and accompanying digital items (bitstreams) in the Archive arediscoverable from the Archive platform, from the library discovery tool, and from the web.

Although searching the web using Google will yield results, discoverability of digitalresources within the Archive is more direct when using the University of Maryland DigitalArchive as a starting point. The Archive has a search box, faceted browsing, and an advancedsearch feature. The search box provides hits at the collection and item level.

As for the user interface, although DSpace may in principle be used as is out-of-the-box, HS/HSL has invested time and effort in designing and applying some customizationsto fit population needs and to make its interface more esthetic and functional. The mainpage includes expandable images that give examples of the content of some collections andlink to them. A snapshot of the homepage of the Archive is provided in Figure 2 .

The tags for metadata fields in the record have been customized and several added tomeet needs such as rights statements and URLs to remote content. In the advanced search,new types have been included to reflect the content added to the Archive. The brief recordwas chosen as the display option. It was enriched with additional fields, showing all subjectstogether whether controlled vocabulary or general keywords.

The Archive is OAI (Open Archive Initiative) compliant. The Archive is also search-able via HS/HSL’s OneSearch, a discovery interface powered by EBSCO Discovery Ser-vices (EDS). At HS/HSL, EDS was implemented in 2012–2013. OneSearch is able toharvest and index the metadata of the Archive content for discovery together with otherindexed content. The search can be limited in the Advanced Search to the Digital Archive.All UM Digital Archive hits have a link that says “Online Resource.” In this aspect, theImplementation TERMS 3 goes beyond the initial implementation of the Digital Archiveto its implementation in other information systems to expand content discovery.

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Figure 2 UM Digital Archive home page: http://archive.hshsl.umaryland.edu/ (color figure available online).

Another trend in discoverability and interoperability related to metadata is the devel-opment of the Semantic Web and Linked Data. The content of digital repositories is gener-ally discoverable to the bitstream level on the web. The use of authorities allows a certainrecognition, collocation, or retrieval of works with like authors or subjects, for example. TheSemantic Web and Linked Data, however, will require that in place of names or with them,a unique identifier must be provided to make linking seamless and machine actionable. Forexample, in a Linked Data triplet “Ben Carson—is author of— Gifted Hands,” Ben Carsonhas a unique identifier (URI) assigned in the Library of Congress Name Authority File:http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n90607854, as well as an exact matching unique identi-fier from an international scheme, the Virtual Authority File: http://viaf.org/viaf/71503552.Repositories or digital libraries, in their efforts to expose their content to the larger webenvironment, are experimenting with Linked Data. The University of Maryland DigitalArchive team is closely monitoring advances in this area.

Content Management

The data model in the Archive is relational. It is structured with community onthe highest level, followed by subcommunity, collection, and item on the lowest level.

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Items in a collection may be mapped horizontally to another collection(s) in anothercommunity. Content is organized first by entity then by subject area. Campus history,including the special collections, takes its own space in parallel with other communities.This categorization facilitates fluid browsing and navigation.

Content is ingested in stages governed by a workflow: submission, review, andfinal approval for consumption. Each stage is accomplished by different people. Metadatalibrarians who are the content curators hold the approval authority. Works in progress arenot encouraged for inclusion in the Archive. This may change, however, as versioning hasbecome available in DSpace. Withdrawal is part of the content lifecycle management wherepolicies were established to handle the process. Reasons for withdrawal vary includingintent of publication, as in the case of ETDs, or copyright restrictions (certain publishersonly allow open access for a limited period).

A factor to consider during the Implementation (TERMS 3) of the repository ismetadata management and curation. “Metadata is an essential building block in facilitatingeffective resource discovery, access, and sharing across ever-growing distributed digitalcollections” (Park & Tosaka, 2010). Metadata management includes among other thingsthe decision on which schema to be used for metadata creation. In the HS/HSL case, DublinCore (DC) is being used because it is the schema provided by DSpace. One of the factorstaken into consideration when deciding on DSpace was that it offered Qualified Dublin Coreas a metadata schema. Qualified DC is a flexible, intuitive, easy-to-use schema, widely usedamong digital repositories, thus facilitating interoperability.

Metadata management and creation also addresses the design of metadata fields tobe included in the repository: which of these will be visible to the viewer and whichbelong in the backend. Decisions need to be made on what should be indexed and whatshould be included in the Advanced Search. Mapping of DC elements to the appropriateAdvanced Search terms was one of the decisions made by the archive management team.Other decisions are ongoing (TERMS 4), such as the Types to be included. These are addedas the need arises from the new types of content being added to the repository.

As for metadata curation, there are questions about authority control, the use ofcontrolled vocabulary versus common language keywords, or both. The following process isbeing used for the Archive: (a) Curators will assign controlled vocabulary where applicable;(b) if self-submitters supply keywords, or if keywords are present in the work beingsubmitted, these will be included, in addition to controlled vocabulary added by the curator;(c) for the user, all of the terms will appear as “Subject Keywords” in the public display;and (d) in the backend view of the metadata, those that are controlled vocabulary will be infields specified as dc.subject.lcsh or dc.subject.mesh.

An important aspect of content management is the digital conversion of the materialto be included. This can be done in-house or through outsourcing, or both. The decisionto digitize in-house must go hand-in-hand with the selection of adequate equipment andstaff who perform the digitization tasks. The more sophisticated the scanner deployed, thewider the range of materials that can be scanned in archival quality. But one must evaluatethe type of material owned by the institution to be digitized, the availability of personnel,as well as funding opportunities in order to select the best scanner for the institution’sneeds.

There is also the option of outsourcing digitization. HS/HSL decided to participatein LYRASIS’ mass digitization project, a partnership with the Internet Archive. This ser-vice works well with bound print books. For digitized printed material, quality control isnecessary. One can encounter missing pages or folded pages that impede the visibility of

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parts of the content. But a spot check should be enough, as these errors are not common.So far, the faithfulness to the text on the printed page has not been a problem.

Long-term preservation has always been a concern. Current technological limitationswill not ensure perpetual accessibility of content we ingest today. Data loss and tech-nological obsolescence, which occurs when the tools for rendering the content becomeunavailable, are the two culprits of preservation. Backup (keeping separate copies of data inmultiple places) and redundancy (storing the same data on more than one physical devicein case of hardware failure) are the current methods for data protection. But even backupcopies could be corrupted due to hardware failures. Although standard formats such asPDF are used for Archive content to fulfill many of the requirements for long-term preser-vation, they are still essentially proprietary products that may be subject to obsolescence.Continuously migrating data to the latest formats or creating the original data environmentfor rendering today’s data formats should they become obsolete are doable but resource-demanding practices. Overall, even today’s best preservation technologies are subject tosome degree of loss and error (Kastellec, 2012).

Long-term preservation is an expensive investment requiring significant physical andhuman capacities. Often, it is inhibitive for libraries to do it alone. It is more practical toeither collaborate with funding parties or share the responsibility with the parent institution.As of now, the Archive is mounted on a redundant array of independent disks (RAID 6)where it can switch over to another drive in case the current one fails. It is backed up nightlyand multiple copies are maintained locally as well as at the campus data center. Digitalcopies of the same books in the Archive made by initiatives such as HathiTrust, Gutenberg,and various national libraries are de facto additional backup. For materials digitized andhosted by the Internet Archive, we reply on its data preservation practice where backupsare stored at multiple sites and software simulators are being collected to render currentformats in the event of their obsolescence <http://archive.org/about/>. Today, we preservecontent to the best of our ability and leave the strategic planning open as technology, theopen access movement, and campus preservation efforts continue to evolve.

Going Forward

As in other efforts for managing electronic resources, the Archive service is con-stantly undergoing review for improvement. In addition to following the faculty, we areexploring partnerships with specialized research programs to use the Archive as a platformto capture and share the works of their disciplines on national and global levels. We strive tocapitalize on our reputation in metadata capability to be the campus curator of big data. Atthe same time, we are evaluating the inclusion of authority linking and versioning support inthe current DSpace environment. Down the road where technology, data, semantics, and li-brarianship converge, we need to reevaluate our preservation options, content management,technical directions of the Archive, and its operation model.

CONCLUSION

Digital repositories management is one aspect of ERM that has become increasinglyimportant in the academic environment. While we demonstrated that Emery and Stone’sTERMS can be applied to digital repositories in general, TERMS has important guidelinesthat are needed to manage electronic resources in archives. The HS/HSL’s Universityof Maryland Digital Archive is one example of the lifecycle management of electronic

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resources from implementation and content selection to reevaluation and review in light ofnew and emerging trends in digital access and discovery addressed in TERMS.

REFERENCES

Emery, J., & Stone, G. (2013a). Techniques for electronic resource management: Introduction andliterature review. Library Technology Reports, 49(2), 5–9. http://dx.doi.org/10.5860/ltr.49n2

Emery, J., & Stone, G. (2013b). Techniques for electronic resource management: Annual review.Library Technology Reports, 49(2), 30–34. http://dx.doi.org/10.5860/ltr.49n2

Kastellec, M. (2012). Practical limits to the scope of digital preservation. Information Technologyand Libraries, 31(2), 63–71. http://dx.doi.org/10.6017/ital.v31i2.2167

Lin, N., & Hinegardner, P. G. (2012). Discovering the present, preserving the past: The developmentof a digital archive at the University of Maryland. Journal of Electronic Resources in MedicalLibraries, 9(4), 247–260. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15424065.2013.734212

Park, J., & Tosaka, Y. (2010). Metadata creation practices in digital repositories and collections:Schemata, selection criteria, and interoperability. Information Technology & Libraries, 29(3),104–116. http://dx.doi.org/10.6017/ital.v29i3.3136

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