Draft coming
Project Description
The CAUL - CBUA Atlantic Islandora Repository Network (CAIRN) project is building a regional digital asset repository for use by all CAUL - CBUA institutions to steward digital assets of any kind, in a consortially-managed framework.
CAIRN works with assets in existing digital repositories (e.g. CONTENTdm, DSpace) as well as those added directly to the CAIRN system. CAIRN is an initiative intended to complement existing local infrastructure and initiatives, in order to create additional system capacity and redundancy, and to facilitate regional data harvesting opportunities. One project deliverable will be an Atlantic Directory of Digital Collections.
The CAIRN project is a logical extension of the recent ASIN Content Management Committee survey of digital resources and assets at CAUL - CBUA member institutions, and provides an opportunity to leverage the success of existing institutional repositories including the Islandora system. CAIRN ensures an effective data preservation and stewardship approach using Islandora digital repository management open source software which incorporates best practice international standards to ensure the long-term preservation of critical digital assets.
The four main pillars of the initiative follow.
· Staff Training/Capacity Building: to build knowledge and skills in the library and archives staff in the Atlantic region to work with digital stewardship tools and processes.
· Preservation: to implement a regional digital preservation strategy, along with pilot frameworks for testing implementation of this strategy. For this stage of the pilot we will implement a pilot instance of DuraCloud synchronized to the Islandora instance and will review/implement one or more of: iRODS; CLOCKSS; Archivematica along with a review of benefits and recommendations for next steps.
· Atlantic Digital Collections Portal: to implement a single discovery layer for all identified digital collections at the CAUL institutions. The metadata for all collections and assets will be stored in a single Islandora Collection-Solr Index for discovery, and assets will be stored in either the native system (e.g. CONTENTdm, DSpace) and/or the Fedora-based Islandora instance.
· Atlantic Digital Collections Framework: to implement an Islandora-based digital library for use by institutions as a complete repository option. Institutional sites will be branded locally and will provide appropriate collection models/functions for multiple asset types. The system will also provide collaborative tools for the development of collections on a consortial level.
Please see http://cairnrepo.org/or contact Project Manager Kirsta Stapelfeldt at kstapelfeldt@upei.ca for more information.