Preservation and Access of Collections
Long term preservation and access are key elements in the IISH collection management policies. For both the analog and digital materials that the IISH collects it is important that they are findable and usable by researchers from all over the world.
Since the early nineties the IISH has been active online to make the collections available, as much as possible as Open Data.
To ensure interoperability and cooperations with other (collection) institutions in our field of socio-economic history the IISH uses international metadata standards (MARC, EAD, METS, PREMIS, DDI) for describing our collection objects. We make references to international vocabularies like VIAF and AAT.
All digital objects are stored in a digital repository, where every object is stored four times on different (Dutch) locations in internationally accepted formats. The IISH uses Archivematica as digital preservation management system and will obtain a Core Trust Seal to certify the digital repository.
To make sure long term and persistent references can be made to our material we use persistent identifiers (Handle system ) for all objects and descriptions. This will guarantee future access to the IISH sources used in scientific research publications.
To encourage use of the collections the IISH does provide machine readable access to our objects and descriptions. The collections are also available as Linked Open Data.
In our collection management policies we are following international developments and standards, as well as principles of the Dutch national strategies on digital cultural heritage and the network Netwerk Digitaal Erfgoed .
