title: Fedora: Complex Objects, Information Networks, and the Challenges of Digital Preservation
creators: Sandy Payette
abstract: We are at a point where the scope, definition, and uses of digital libraries and institutional repositories are changing along with the process of creating and disseminating scholarly and scientific information.   It is not enough to just store documents, datasets, images, and other resources in repositories where they can be searched and accessed.   The networked landscape in which we live inspires more and calls upon us to develop information architectures that promote (1) the creation of complex digital objects that consist of both local and remote content, (2) the ability to interconnect digital objects that reside in distributed repositories, (3) the ability to re-use objects or their components in the creation of new resources.  All of these requirements have implications for how we build digital libraries, repositories, and scholarly information systems in the future, and they also present significant challenges for digital preservation. In this talk I will discuss how the Fedora Project is approaching the digital preservation problem. In particular, I will highlight key aspects of the Fedora repository system and service framework that are preservation-enabling. I will also review current work undertaken by the Fedora Project in collaboration with the Fedora Preservation Working Group. This work entails the use of message-oriented middleware to facilitate alerting of preservation-noteworthy events and the development of services to respond to such events.
keywords: ithaca