Sun Forms Group to Tackle Digital Archiving

October 9, 2007: Sun Microsystems has announced the formation of a new archiving group which aims to address digital archiving, data preservation and otherwise develop best practices for long-term digital repositories.

Called the Sun Preservation and Archiving Special Interest Group (PASIG), the group draws together representatives from government agencies, broadcasting, education, and library services to share digital archiving expertise and develop best practices around global standards in large data set and metadata preservation.

Founded by The Alberta Library, The British Library, Johns Hopkins University, University of Oxford, Stanford University, The Texas Digital Library, and other leading global libraries and universities, Sun says PASIG will help provide support for organisations striving to preserve important research and cultural heritage materials.

“We are trying to meet the needs of the evolving 'cybrarian' community that is grappling with storage and data management, workflow, and high-level architecture trends in the area of preservation and archiving,” says Art Pasquinelli, Education Market Strategist, Global Education and Research, Sun Microsystems.

This will be attempted via semi-annual meetings where members will share knowledge of storage technology trends, services-oriented architecture and software code, and discuss best practices of both commercial and community-developed solutions. Working groups will hold discussions on architectures, use cases and business drivers, storage, access and security, and operating policies, with the goal of providing common case studies and solutions for digital archiving.

“Libraries and universities around the world face a common problem: how to best capture and archive valuable knowledge,” said Michael Keller, University Librarian, Director of Academic Information Resources, Stanford University. “Global discussion is the first step towards finding solutions that meet institutions' individualised preservation needs.”

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