SHAMAN - Sustaining Heritage Access through Multivalent Archiving

Objective

SHAMAN is an EU-sponsored research project with partners in business, science and memory institutions. Its goal is the development of a conceptual and technical base of a next generation Digital Preservation network system.

A basic precondition for developing an internationally networked archiving infrastructure is the analysis of existing systems and institutional approaches, technologies and archiving processes. Based upon the Open Archival Information System (OAIS) reference model, the aim is to create an open and extensible framework which defines all components, services, interfaces and specifications in the context of uniform and comprehensive long-term preservation standards in a way which facilitates their reuse. A distributed archiving infrastructure which uses GRID technologies will be set up. SHAMAN develops concepts, technologies and services which are then evaluated prototypically in test environments and practical scenarios.

The German National Library is contributing experience gained from the "kopal" long-term digital preservation project and the "nestor" competence network. Within the consortium it has also assumed responsibility for managing and completing the "Document Production, Archival, Access and Reuse in the Context of Memory Institutions for Scientific and Governmental Collections" work package. Here it oversees the development work on the archive and stock preservation prototype.

SHAMAN will feature three prototypical applications. The viability, advantages and potential impacts of taking-up new technologies will be assessed by SHAMAN, based on case studies. The validation of the SHAMAN framework is focused on scientific publications in libraries and documents in government collections, industrial design and engineering-related digital objects, plus data sources from eScience applications.

Funding

European Commission, 7th Framework Programme

Project duration

2008 - 2011

Project homepage