Rome Wasn't Digitized in a Day - Council on Library and Information ...

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organizations and fund<strong>in</strong>g will be required to ma<strong>in</strong>ta<strong>in</strong> cyber<strong>in</strong>frastructure <strong>in</strong> the humanities has also
been explored by Geoffrey Rockwell. “When we look closely at civic <strong>in</strong>frastructure, we see that the
physical <strong>in</strong>frastructure and service <strong>in</strong>frastructure are dependent on organizations for ma<strong>in</strong>tenance and
operation,” Rockwell expla<strong>in</strong>ed; “<strong>in</strong> fact, if it is important that <strong>in</strong>frastructure last and be open, then the
organization that ma<strong>in</strong>ta<strong>in</strong>s it is more important than the item itself” (Rockwell 2010). One major
problem he listed was that fund<strong>in</strong>g bodies typically like to build new <strong>in</strong>frastructure rather than budget
for or fund its ongo<strong>in</strong>g ma<strong>in</strong>tenance. He concluded that a realistic conception of <strong>in</strong>frastructure should
<strong>in</strong>clude not just hardware components and “softer services” but also professionals who will be needed
to operate and ma<strong>in</strong>ta<strong>in</strong> it.
Green and Roy (2008) also ma<strong>in</strong>ta<strong>in</strong>ed that new types of arrangements and <strong>in</strong>stitutions would be
necessary to support and preserve digital scholarship. They provided an overview of several models,
<strong>in</strong>clud<strong>in</strong>g privatization, the creation of open-source models, and the creation of new types of “trans<strong>in</strong>stitutional
associations” such as HASTAC 699 that could reduce the risks that <strong>in</strong>dividual <strong>in</strong>stitutions
need to take and start work<strong>in</strong>g towards the build<strong>in</strong>g of “discipl<strong>in</strong>e-based communities of practices.”
Whatever solution is chosen, they conclude:
Although each of these models—privatization, open source, pay-to-have-a-say open source,
and members-only or emergent trans<strong>in</strong>stitutional associations—has its place <strong>in</strong> this emerg<strong>in</strong>g
landscape, the key shift <strong>in</strong> th<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g must be away from what can be done locally on an
<strong>in</strong>dividual campus and toward how the campus can be connected to other campuses and how it
can contribute to the ref<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g of these new ways of do<strong>in</strong>g scholarship and teach<strong>in</strong>g (Green and
Roy 2008).
To br<strong>in</strong>g about this shift, they conclude with a number of important tasks that must be undertaken: (1)
a strategic <strong>in</strong>vestment <strong>in</strong> cyber<strong>in</strong>frastructure that will <strong>in</strong>clude a move from “collection development to
content curation”; (2) the development and foster<strong>in</strong>g of open-access policies; (3) the promotion of
“cooperation between the public and private sectors”; (4) the cultivation of leadership on all levels; (5)
the encouragement of digital scholarship by creat<strong>in</strong>g national centers that support its growth”; (6) the
development and ma<strong>in</strong>tenance of “open standards and tools”; and f<strong>in</strong>ally (7) the creation digital
collections that are both extensive and can be reused.
Questions of preservation and susta<strong>in</strong>ability will likely rema<strong>in</strong> difficult ones for the foreseeable future.
One useful list<strong>in</strong>g of the components of susta<strong>in</strong>ability, as stated by Don Waters and recalled by Roger
Bagnall, is “a product people want, a functional governance structure, and a workable f<strong>in</strong>ancial model”
(Bagnall 2010). Similarly, the ARL report stated that the multi-<strong>in</strong>stitutional repository the
HathiTrust 700 might f<strong>in</strong>d long-term success because they have already confronted the issue of
“balanc<strong>in</strong>g govern<strong>in</strong>g and fund<strong>in</strong>g” (ARL 2009b). In fact, secur<strong>in</strong>g long-term fund<strong>in</strong>g, particularly for
staff and basic technical <strong>in</strong>frastructure, is perhaps the critical issue that rema<strong>in</strong>s without many tractable
solutions, as recognized by Edmond and Schreibman (2010):
How do we ensure that the <strong>in</strong>terfaces, web applications, or digital objects are ma<strong>in</strong>ta<strong>in</strong>ed for
future use by the scholarly community We should be devot<strong>in</strong>g more resources to the
699 http://www.hastac.org/
700 The HathiTrust (http://www.hathitrust.org/) was created by the 13 universities of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation and the University of
California to establish a shared digital repository for preservation and access. It <strong>in</strong>cludes all of the books digitized for these universities by Google Books.
A number of other research libraries have jo<strong>in</strong>ed HathiTrust, and currently the repository provides access to over six million volumes. In addition to
provid<strong>in</strong>g preservation for and access to digitized volumes, the HathiTrust has also recently jo<strong>in</strong>ed <strong>in</strong> a partnership with Indiana University and the
University of Ill<strong>in</strong>ois to create the HathiTrust Research Center (HTRC), which will develop tools and cyber<strong>in</strong>frastructure “to enable advanced
computational access to the grow<strong>in</strong>g digital record of human knowledge” (http://news<strong>in</strong>fo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/18245.html).