To protect and serve: making digital repositories safe and accessible for the long term

Abstract

This paper discusses issues relating to the sustainability of repositories and the material that they hold. The issues are informed by what we consider to be a repository. Two things define a repository. Firstly, a repository is a place, a place where researchers can store objects and data safely, for the long term. Secondly, a repository provides access to the data and objects and as one researcher aptly put it to me: “a repository is not just a warehouse, it is a source of new ways of combining and representing material”.