Extending OAI-PMH over structured P2P networks for digital preservation

Abstract

Open archives initiative (OAI) allows both libraries and museums create and share their own low-cost digital libraries (DL). OAI DL are based on OAI-PMH protocol which, although is consolidated as a pattern for disseminating metadata, does not rely on either digital preservation and availability of content, essential requirements in this type of system. Building new mechanisms that guarantee improvements, at no or low cost increases, becomes a great challenge. This article proposes a distributed archiving system based on a P2P network, that allows OAI-based libraries to replicate digital objects to ensure their reliability and availability. The proposed system keeps and extends the current OAI-PMH protocol characteristics and is designed as a set of OAI repositories, where each repository has an independent fail probability assigned to it. Items are inserted with a reliability that is satisfied by replicating them in subsets of repositories. Communication between the nodes (repositories) of the network is organized in a distributed hash table and multiple hash functions are used to select repositories that keep the replicas of each stored item. The OAI characteristics combined with a structured P2P digital preservation system allow the construction of a reliable and totally distributed digital library. The archiving system has been evaluated through experiments in a real environment and the OAI-PMH extension validated by the implementation of a proof-of-principle prototype.

The Architecture of Indonesian Publication Index: A Major Indonesian Academic Database

“…Currently there are two widely used standard protocols, OAI-PMH version 2.0 and MARC 21. For managers of journals and journal indexers OAI-PMH 2.0 models are preferred because they are easier to understand [7]. IPI also utilizes this protocol as the main engine for collecting data on articles.…”

Publishing student scholarship: exploring the ETD initiative at a medium-sized institution

“…To OCLC 30,4 address the issue of preservation, a model called the Open Archival Information System (OAIS) was developed by the National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA), and in 2003, it was adopted as an ISO Standard (Hockx-Yu, 2006). Today, the OAIS model is the core of preservation policy and planning (Hockx-Yu, 2006;McGovern and McKay, 2009;Caplan, 2008;Becker et al, 2009;Seara et al, 2012). While early repository creators assumed longevity of their materials and considered preservation planning as an afterthought, it is now widely recognized that planning and policy-making must be adopted into the workflow immediately to avoid record damage and loss (Hockx-Yu, 2006;McGovern and McKay, 2009;Becker et al, 2009).…”

“…One common method discussed in the literature that is used to ensure longevity of storage and access is referred to as a peer to peer (P2P) network. The P2P network is an OAI-PMH-compliant digital preservation system, in which members are both creators of content and storage providers for distributed copies (Fox et al, 2009;Seara et al, 2012;Zhu et al, 2012). Should one archive become inaccessible for any reason, the networked peers would still have copies stored in their alternate archives sites.…”

“…The MetaArchive is an example of an early P2P preservation network (Fox et al, 2009). However, institutions are beginning to partner and create their own P2P networks as well (Seara et al, 2012;Zhu et al, 2012).…”