title: Towards a Common Approach for Access to Digital Archival Records in Europe
creators: Alex Thirifays Katherine Hougaard Edsen Johansen
abstract: This paper describes how the E-ARK project (European Archival Records and Knowledge Preservation) aims to develop an overarching methodology for curating digital assets. This methodology must address business needs and operational issues, proposing a technical wall-to-wall reference implementation for the core OAIS flow - Ingest, Archival Storage and Access.
  
  The focal point of the article is the Access part of the OAIS flow. The paper first lays out the access vision of the E-ARK project, and secondly describes the method employed to enable information processing and to pin-point the functional and non-functional requirements. These requirements will allow the E-ARK project to create a standardized format for the Dissemination Information Package (DIP), and to develop the access tools that will process this format. The paper then proceeds to describe the DIP format before detailing what the access solution will look like, which tools will be developed and, not least, why the E-ARK Access system will be used and work.
keywords: access management dip format e-ark-project digital archives