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Interview with the MetaArchive Project, Page 5
Do you have any estimates as to the size of the archive you will create during the three years of this project?
We have three terabytes of space allocated to the project, and expect to fill that within the project period.
Can you mention a few of the strengths that each of the partners brings to this project in terms of both content that will be contributed to the MetaArchive as well as technical competence?
MetaArchive project partners bring to this project a combination of content and technical strengths: some contribute more to the content of the archive, some more to its technical development, and others equally in both areas. The following descriptions of the participating institutions will focus primarily on their strengths and will highlight some individuals whose experience is particularly noteworthy, given the challenges of this digital preservation project.
The digital image collection that Auburn University is contributing to this project, the Alabama Cooperative Extension Service (ACES) Photographs, 1920s-1960s, depicts the faces and places of rural Alabama life in the last century. The college yearbook, Glomerata, captures the university’s own history and that of the surrounding community from the end of the 19th century to the present day. Director of Library Technology Aaron Trehub, who is helping develop the MetaArchive conspectus, has a distinguished background in organizational models for interinstitutional collaboration; this experience will contribute considerably to the functioning of this project.
Over the past five years Emory University’s MetaScholar Initiative has focused on supporting a range of scholarly work, from building collaborative partnerships between libraries and museums to developing an online journal for publishing multimedia Southern Studies scholarship – all part of an ultimate goal of realizing the possibilities for research and scholarship in the digital age. Its digital library projects regularly undertake the preservation of Southern cultural memory as part of their objective. Martin Halbert, lead PI on the MetaArchive project, has been executive director of the MetaScholar Initiative since its inception.
As one of the southeastern United States’ pioneers in the construction of digital institutional repositories, Florida State University offers such unique digital documentation as Honors in the Major Theses from 2004 and historic photographs of the university spanning the years 1940-1990. Florida State will also preserve its collection of Digitized Juvenile Literature, American children’s books published in the mid-19th to early-20th centuries. Florida State’s University Librarian Robert McDonald, who is serving as a MetaArchive Steering Committee member, has been an active participant in Internet II efforts to increase the capacity of Internet infrastructure. He brings to the MetaArchive project a strong background in networking and will advise on the structural capacity of each site, ways of improving both network bandwidth, and replication strategies within this shared infrastructure.
A number of digital image collections at Georgia Tech contribute to its institutional history and by extension to the histories of Atlanta, Georgia and the South: The Buildings of Georgia Tech from 1888 to 1908; Photographs of the Historic American Buildings Survey Georgia; Georgia Tech Photograph Collection; Georgia Tech Publications; and Georgia Tech Advertisements. Additionally, the university brings its experience with institutional repositories to bear on issues of digital preservation. As a technologist and as an archivist, Tyler Walters, currently associate director for Technology & Resource Services for Georgia Tech’s libraries and serving on the MetaArchive Content and Preservation Committees, bridges both sides of the digital preservation field.
The University of Louisville’s Jean Thomas collection, Kentucky Quilt Project and Bernheim Foundation oral history interviews enrich the cultural content of the MetaArchive through their documentation of Appalachian and Southern folklife. Delinda Buie, curator of Rare Books at the University of Louisville and serving on MetaArchive’s Content Committee, will bring her understanding of archival community concerns to bear on issues of digital preservation. Dwayne Butler, who is well known for his background in copyright law, makes an invaluable contribution to this project by offering his legal expertise combined with his experience as a librarian and currently as the Evelyn J. Schneider Endowed Chair for Scholarly Communication at the University of Louisville Libraries.
Virginia Tech has long been a leader in the development of digital libraries, particularly the collection of electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs). Gail McMillan, director of the university’s Digital Library and Archives, offers the MetaArchive her unique perspective as a global leader in the development and storage of ETDs. This background promises to contribute considerably to the conceptual process of adapting LOCKSS in new ways to digital archives. In addition to this technical contribution, Virginia Tech’s broad array of digital collections — from recipe books and church minutes to online exhibitions and Web sites on Virginia and Southern history — will enrich the MetaArchive’s body of Southern cultural heritage materials.
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