CULAR Service Update – wiki available to Library staff
The Cornell University Library Archival Service (CULAR) continues to make steady progress towards its initial opening. CULAR is a “dark archive” focused on the preservation of digital objects. The service is built on a Fedora repository, integrating multiple check summing, redundant copies and continuous monitoring into a preservation solution for digital assets. We envision developing the service in stages, the initial one being modest in its features and offered for ingest of only Library-owned assets. This discreet scope will help us assess the service and the validity of the processes we have envisioned. What we learn will allow us to make appropriate course corrections and inform future development. It is our hope to eventually open the service to a wider range of depositors, and to ingest and preserve many types of Cornell digital assets.
Currently we are testing and adjusting our pre-ingest discovery processes with a small collection of electronic reports that is serving as our test case. The tests are going well: our process seems to appropriately elicit desires and needs (and a few surprises), yet is flexible enough to accommodate the entailments of that these require. The process also seems rigorous enough to guide us in learning all of the stakeholders involved and assist us in bringing them into pre-deposit activities. Participants are giving us continuous feedback, affirming and adjusting the process as necessary. After the pre-ingest discovery process is complete, we will ingest the same test-case collection as an actual deposit, proofing our processes for ingest and deposit closure.
The service will open for business in its initial Library-only phase as soon as the testing described above is complete, anticipated to be within the next two months. In the meantime, Library staff can peruse the CULAR Service wiki to learn more about the service, its scope and timeline. This wiki is presently open only to Library staff to reflect the limited nature of this first phase, and is regulated by the Library permit maintained by administrative staff in Olin Library 201. As the service develops to encompass CU assets that are not Library owned, we will open the wiki to a wider audience. In the meantime, if non-Cornell University Library staff are interested in the service, they could contact Michelle Paolillo for more information.