Building a Digital Preservation Service Model for Canadian Institutional Repositories Through Community Engagement

Preservation of repository content is a vital and complex responsibility. Institutional repositories (IRs) house unique content created by academic communities and hold a significant record of scholarship over time. Preserving this scholarship is crucial to ensure access for future generations. Preserving IR content involves many challenges, including developing policies and procedures, building technical workflows, considering the needs of diverse file formats and disciplinary practices, and managing costs. This presentation will look at digital preservation in IRs through one solution to those shared challenges. Scholaris is a new Canadian national, opt-in shared repository service built on the DSpace platform. Presenters are members of the Scholaris Digital Preservation Expert Group, which provides recommendations and advice on digital preservation planning requirements and pathways for the Scholaris service development team. We will share results from a nation-wide environmental scan and survey of repository managers to gather insights on current practices, capacity, and needs related to digital preservation, as well as inform the workflows and service model we are developing in response to these needs. We hope to leave audience members with tools you can use in your own preservation work, along with a sense of optimism and a success story of national collaboration.