During 2009 the Center for Research Libraries initiated in-depth assessments of two repositories of interest to the CRL community:  Portico and HathiTrust.  The purpose of these was to promote understanding of and, where justified, confidence in, digital repositories.  In today’s economic climate libraries must realize the greatest possible return on their investment in electronic scholarly resources and digital preservation services, and need to move aggressively to reduce the costs of redundant print holdings.  

Portico agreed to cooperate with the CRL audit, with the goal of certification as a trustworthy digital repository.  HathiTrust has asked CRL to assess its digital repository, which includes not only Google Books digitization content but a considerable amount of non-Google content as well. 

Concurrently CRL is working with LOCKSS to assess the capabilities of the LOCKSS system for harvesting and archiving digitized primary source materials and related metadata.  CRL is also gathering information about regional efforts like the Ontario Scholars Portal to host licensed digital content locally.

Findings

CRL will report its findings to the community at the completion of the analysis of both Portico and Hathitrust. CRL will provide a venue for members to share useful information about the costs, benefits and risks of the various cooperative repositories and preservation services. 

Certification Advisory Panel

The general metrics to be used in the assessments will be the Trustworthy Repositories Audit and Certification checklist (TRAC).  CRL has formed a panel of advisors who represent the various sectors of its membership, to further inform the assessment process.  The Certification Advisory Panel will ensure that the certification process addresses the interests of the entire CRL community, and will include leaders in collection development, preservation, and information technology.

Certification and Print

The Portico and HathiTrust assessments are particularly timely.  The current economic downturn is forcing library directors to confront the formidable and growing costs of managing physical collections. Most libraries now face difficult decisions about acquiring and maintaining physical collections.   Preserving and maintaining shared physical collections at CRL will continue to benefit libraries, as it has for the past sixty years.  Certification will augment CRL’s strategic archiving of print, and support a responsible transition to electronic-only formats where appropriate.  Toward that end, CRL is working with the University of California to design a shared print journal archiving effort that suits CRL member needs and means. A further call for participation in that project will be issued in the near future.

With this hybrid strategy CRL hopes to enable its community to accelerate the shift to electronic-only resources in a careful and responsible manner.  The work of the Certification Advisory Panel will support that effort.