"It is important to build the concept of preservation from the outset"*. In the digital era, the 'outset' for most new research and educational materials will be the institutional repository.

* JISC Circular 4/04, note 10

About the project

Fast facts

When: Preserv 2 from July 2007 to March 2009 (extended from December 2008). Preserv 1 ran from February 2005 to January 2007.
Who: Southampton University (School of Electronics and Computer Science), The National Archives, The British Library and Oxford University (Library Services, Systems and Electronic Resources Service) ... collaborating people.
Prior related work by the partners:
- Southampton: EPrints repository software
- TNA: digital preservation at TNA, PRONOM, the file format registry
- BL: Digital Object Management (DOM) Programme
Funded by JISC, within the capital programme in response to the September 06 call (Circular 04/06), Repositories and Preservation strand
Keywords: digital libraries, institutional repositories, preservation, preservation services, EPrints, PRONOM, DROID, storage, OAI-ORE

Coverage of Preserv

AUDIO March 17, 2009 Podcast from the Repositories Support Project. Digital preservation: are repositories doing enough for preservation? features Dave Tarrant from Preserv on EPrints software, explaining how its modular, plug-in architecture utilises external services and cloud storage to support repository preservation. Steve Hitchcock from Preserv presents the podcast.

April 15, 2008 News release from University of Southampton, School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS). ECS developers win $5000 repository challenge, on how the Preserv's developers scooped the prize for showing how digital data can be moved easily between storage sites running different software while remaining accessible to users, using OAI Object Reuse and Exchange (ORE).

VIDEO May 1, 2007 Project video. Preserv Us! The story of the Preserv project by the people behind it (various formats, including embedded player, high quality and podcast formats). Produced by ECS-TV, School of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton.

April 30, 2007 About the making of the Preserv project video, with tips for producing other JISC project videos. Hold It, Hold It ... Start Again: The Perils of Project Video Production in Ariadne, No. 51, April 2007.

November 29, 2006 Preservation Support in GNU EPrints 3, in the EPrints Technical Wiki. The latest version of EPrints, due in January 2007, interacts with preservation services by providing features for complex-object export, recording the history of changes to a document, and preservation rights declaration.

November 29, 2006 An illustrated guide to PRONOM-ROAR, a repository file format identification service, in the ROAR Wiki. The National Archives' PRONOM database is applied to produce Preserv Profiles of hundreds of repositories in ROAR.

November 22, 2006 Preserv Profiles highlighted in section on the Registry of Open Access Repositories in Martha Brogan, Contexts and Contributions: Building the Distributed Library, Digital Library Federation.

October 6, 2006 Preserv project described in Helen Hockx-Yu, Digital preservation in the context of institutional repositories (section 6.1), E-LIS, also in Program: Electronic Library and Information Systems, Vol. 40, No. 3, 2006, 232-243

August 3, 2006 Towards solving the repository preservation conundrum, in EPrints Insiders. Progress report aimed at repository managers.

INTERVIEW July 25, 2006 Progress of the Preserv project is examined in a revealing interview by Kieron Niven of the Digital Preservation Coalition as part of its Featured Project series.

April 30, 2005 Preserv in the context of the JISC programme that funds it: Leona Carpenter, Supporting Digital Preservation and Asset Management in Institutions, Ariadne, Issue 43

Formal reports
Preserv 2

Final report (07/2009). Towards repository preservation services. Summary paper on the whole project, reflecting on outputs, outcomes, implications and recommendations. The new one to read.

Progress report (to 10/2008). Formal update to JISC on what the project has achieved against plan, to the mid-point in the schedule since the project was fully staffed.

Project proposal (03/2007). The version that won new funding from JISC.

Preserv 1

Final report (03/2007). Laying the Foundations for Repository Preservation Services. Summary paper on the whole project, reflecting on outputs, outcomes, implications and recommendations. The one to read.

Progress report (08/2005). First biannual report to JISC, covering work to end July. Describes progress against the project plan.

Project plan (07/2005). Describes in detail what the project will do and, in the associated workpackages, when.

Where we started. See the original project proposal (07/2004). For a quick overview see the slides intended for the project's presentation at the JISC 4/04 Preservation Programme Meeting , London, UK, March 2005