Tackling the Risk Challenge: DRAMBORA (Digital Repository Audit Method Based on Risk Assessment)

The Digital Curation Centre (DCC) in the UK and the EU-funded DigitalPreservationEurope (DPE) project jointly released the Digital Repository Audit Method Based on Risk Assessment (DRAMBORA, http://www.repositoryaudit.eu/) in early 2007, with the goal to provide a practical, evidence-based toolkit for assessing repositories and digital libraries. Subsequent iterative development has let to the refinement of its methodology, and the release of DRAMBORA Interactive, a freely available online tool aimed at streamlining the core risk assessment process. DRAMBORA represents a bottom-up approach that takes risk and risk management as its principle means for determining digital repositories' success and for charting their improvement. The tool's development and ongoing evolution has been informed at all times by practical research. More than twenty international repositories have been subject to assessment using DRAMBORA, enabling the validation of its primary methodology and offering insights into potential shortcomings and the extent of its applicability in a range of diverse preservation contexts. Furthermore, these exercises have enabled initial research into repository profiling, which attempts to identify commonalities within subsets of the repository community in order to inform and facilitate subsequent repository development and evaluation. This paper describes the DRAMBORA methodology, focusing on its benefits and developments, and introduces DRAMBORA Interactive. It goes on to describe the results of some of the most successful pilot assessments. Most notable is the work funded by the DELOS Digital Library project, which sought to identify core characteristics within a range of digital libraries in order to conceive a repository profile that might form the basis for subsequent repository development and evaluation. 1. The landscape of digital repositories assessment criteria The contemporary domain landscape suggests that information repositories are likely to play a role of considerable importance in the pursuit of digital preservation assurances. In order to legitimise decentralisation to smaller scale repository environments, it is essential that the community has appropriate mechanisms available to support repository assessment, and determine the competencies of those charged with information stewardship responsibilities. Management, staff, financiers and partners must all be satisfied that their efforts are capable of meeting formal expectations. Similarly, information creators, depositors and consumers naturally hope to obtain similar assurances of the capabilities of the organisations providing maintenance, preservation and dissemination services.