title: THE IMPORTANCE OF TRUST IN DISTRIBUTED  DIGITAL PRESERVATION: A CASE STUDY FROM THE  METAARCHIVE COOPERATIVE
creators: Matt Schultz Emily B. Gore
abstract: Distributed digital preservation is a maturing and
  appealing solution to the pressing problem of ensuring
  the survivability of digital content. Like all other digital
  preservation efforts, distributed digital preservation
  solutions must communicate trust to their Designated
  Communities as they continue to mature. The following
  paper discusses the importance of establishing this trust,
  retraces the development of TRAC as a reliable tool for
  evaluating trustworthy repositories, and details the
  process of the MetaArchive Cooperative’s application of
  TRAC to its distributed digital preservation solution.
  This process revealed that the current metrics for
  gauging trust in digital preservation could be readily
  applied to distributed solutions with great effect.
  However, because these metrics often presume a more
  centralized approach to preservation, the process also
  revealed the need to apply them carefully and with great
  thought. To underscore this need, three organizational
  and technical comparisons are made between the
  MetaArchive’s distributed preservation activities and
  the more centralized model assumed by TRAC and the
  OAIS Reference Model. The paper concludes with the
  question as to whether distributed digital preservation
  needs to be better defined within existing models such
  as OAIS or through the creation of a new reference
  model for distributed digital preservation.