APARSEN project starts on Jan 1, 2011
Digital preservation (DP) offers the economic and social benefits associated with the long-term preservation of information, knowledge and know-how for re-use by current as well as later generations. However, digital preservation has a great problem, namely that preservation support structures are built on projects which are short lived and is fragmented. The unique feature of APARSEN is that it is building on the already established Alliance for Permanent Access (APA), a membership organization of major European stakeholders in digital data and digital preservation. These stakeholders have come together to create a shared vision and framework for a sustainable digital information infrastructure providing permanent access to digitally encoded information. To this self-sustaining grouping APARSEN will add a wide range of other experts in digital preservation including academic, and commercial researchers, as well as researchers in other cross-European organizations. The members of the consortium already undertake research in digital preservation individually but even here the effort is fragmented despite smaller groupings of these organizations working together in specific EU and national projects. APARSEN will help to combine and integrate these programes into a shared program of work, thereby creating the pre-eminent virtual research center in digital preservation in Europe, if not the World. The Joint Programme of Activity will lead to:
• The integration of the majority of the research activities in DP within a common vision and common terminology and evidence standard
• A common agreement of the services needed for preservation, access and most importantly re-use of data holdings over the whole lifecycle;
• Embedding of legal and economic issues, including costs, governance issues and digital rights in digital preservation
• A discipline of data curators with appropriate qualifications recognized across Europe, and well defined support services
Partners
Science and Technology Facilities Council
Stichting European Alliance for Permanent Access
European Organization for Nuclear Research
Stichting Secretariaat van de International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers
FTK Forschungsinstitut für Telekommunikation e.V
CSC – Tieteen tietotekniikan keskus Oy
Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
Digital Preservation Coalition limited by Guarantee*DPC
Alfred-Wegener-Institut fuer Polar- und Meeresforschung
The British Library
European Space Agency
Koninklijke nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen-Knaw
Koninklijke Bibliotheek
Stichting LIBER Foundation
Consorzio interuniversitario nazionale per l’informatica
InConTec GmbH
Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas
Globit – Global Information Technology GmbH
Microsoft Research (Cambridge Lab)
Philips Consumer Lifestyle B.V.
Airbus Operations SAS
INMARK Estudios y Estrategias S.A.
Fondazione Rinascimento Digitale-nuove tecnologie per i beni culturali
Luleå University of Technology
University degli studi di Trento
Tessella PLC
IBM Israel – Science and technology ltd
SBA Research
Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Österreichische Nationalbibliothek
University of Patras