7.1 Introduction

7.1.1.1  It is possible to build small scale digital storage systems to meet the requirement of archives with smaller collections and a small recurrent budget. Until recently, only large and comparatively wealthy organisations with sound archives were able to digitise their holdings on a large scale and store them by means of Digital Mass Storage Systems comprising of managed hard disk and data tape. These systems tended to be large and expensive dedicated audio and audio-visual storage systems. In more recent years many national sound archives and large libraries have, with the university and higher education sector, initiated and supported the development of open standards and open source software which supports digital archiving widely. These enterprise systems are now the backbone and the model for all forms of digital archiving. Audio archiving benefits by using these systems and importing our own discipline specific knowledge to them.

7.1.1.2  At the same time as open source and other low cost software solutions are appearing on the market, the cost of data tapes are decreasing, and hard disk drives (HDD) are dropping at an even greater rate. It is now possible to undertake digital archiving of a far more professional character than the inherently risky single carrier target formats such as recordable CD or DVD.

7.1.1.3  This chapter of the guidelines describes how a small scale digital repository meeting the requirements of an OAIS might be established and managed. Chapter 6, Preservation Target Formats and Systems, contains much that is pertinent to this chapter, as does Chapter 3 Metadata, and Chapter 4 Unique and Persistent Identifiers.