Today I attended a webinar from Sun Microsystems about the new Ex Libris Digital Preservation system. You can view the webinar here.
The talking points are they handle all the hardware and they can handle the software. They claim it’s secure and built with redundancy. The major problem is that they say you can’t provide access to the files without getting Primo (Ex Libris’s new Amazon-like catalog toy-which is looking fun). They won’t convert the files for you when the formats out of style, but they make it so that you can maintain and upgrade the files.
All and all, I like the idea of a comprehensive digital preservation system being handled by people who know hardware. I Just think it is going to be too expensive for most libraries. Time will tell how many libraries pick this up.
The talking points are they handle all the hardware and they can handle the software. They claim it’s secure and built with redundancy. The major problem is that they say you can’t provide access to the files without getting Primo (Ex Libris’s new Amazon-like catalog toy-which is looking fun). They won’t convert the files for you when the formats out of style, but they make it so that you can maintain and upgrade the files.
All and all, I like the idea of a comprehensive digital preservation system being handled by people who know hardware. I Just think it is going to be too expensive for most libraries. Time will tell how many libraries pick this up.
Comments
1. While SUN is an Ex Libris partner and did sponsor the webinar, the product is purely Ex Libris developed, sold, installed, maintained. Sun’s involvement would be IF the customer wanted to run on their hardware, which of course, is an excellent choice, but is also NOT a necessity. The software can run on numerous hardware platforms, so the customer does have the option to explore other hardware platforms.
2. We provide interfaces to access tools, we just don’t bundle one in DPS. So the system is really a lot more than just a place to park files. We mentioned that we supported standards like Z39.50/SRU/SRW -- all standards that support standardized search interfaces and thus permit you to use a wide variety of access tools. Of course, PRIMO would be an excellent choice as well, although I’m unclear what you mean by Amazon like “toy”? (Perhaps you meant “tool”?).
3. With regard to converting and/or migrating files, you might have missed the part where we briefly mentioned that as part of our Charter Customer Program, we’re looking for partners to help us further develop the basic tools that Yaniv described in the Q&A section (which might be what you’re referring to when you said “make is so that you can”). Migrating files will be a continuing process for the life of preservation systems and, in many ways, is just at the starting line, so what we’ve built is a system that will make it possible to plug that functionality in as it is developed and made available.
4. As for the cost of the system, we’d encourage organizations to contact us for a price quote. We think you might be pleasantly surprised. Especially when one considers the investment that could be lost if a preservation solution isn’t put into place!
Thank you for clarifying those points. I admit that I did not get to stick around to attend the question and answer section of the webinar.
Just to clarify, what I meant by "toy" was that Primo was looking fun compared to other catalogs. I have edited the post to refelect that.
Carl Grant
President
Ex Libris North America