# Preservation Activities at the Library of Congress

## Project Summary

**Prepared by Tom Delsey**

**Revised Draft**

**January 10, 2001**

#### Project Summary

## Background

The volume, range, and complexity of preservation activities carried out
by the Library of Congress have increased significantly over the past
several years. The Preservation Directorate currently handles
approximately 400,000 items a year. The scope of activities now extends
beyond the traditional binding, conservation, and microfilming processes
to encompass new preservation technologies such as mass deacidification
and digitization. Dealings with external service providers are
increasing in scope and complexity, and preservation activities overall
have become increasingly complex to plan, manage, and monitor.

Within the Library there is increasing recognition of the need for
effective and efficient information systems to support the preservation
function, and of the importance of addressing the systems requirements
of the Preservation Directorate in a more comprehensive and structured
way. The current systems environment within the Preservation Directorate
comprises a mix of vendor-supplied proprietary systems (e.g., LARS),
applications developed by the Library's Information Technology Services
(e.g., spine label production), and databases developed using consumer
software products (e.g., Microsoft Access). The Preservation Directorate
also makes use of Voyager, but given that the system currently provides
minimal support for preservation-related functions, its use is limited.
Virtually all of the systems currently used by the Directorate operate
in a stand-alone mode without any significant interfacing capability.

In the past year, the need to address the Directorate's systems
requirements has become more urgent due to the fact that the system the
Library relies on for communicating order information to its binding
contractors (LARS) is no longer supported by the vendor. The developers
of Voyager have announced plans for a new release in 2001 that will
include a binding module, but it is unclear whether the planned module
will adequately support the needs of the Directorate.

There is clearly a need for the Library, at this stage, to analyze and
define functional requirements for the support of its preservation
activities. It is in the Library's interest to define those requirements
as broadly as possible, regardless of whether it embarks on a full-scale
systems development project to address its needs in a comprehensive way,
or whether it continues its current practice of acquiring or developing
systems supporting single applications.

Within the Library there is also a recognition of the potential benefits
to be gained through the definition of functional requirements for
support of preservation activities in a form that would be relevant not
only to the Library itself but to other libraries and preservation
service providers as well. Libraries have a pragmatic interest both in
communicating information relating to the preservation of materials in
their own collections and in accessing information relating to the
preservation of materials in other library collections. The transfer of
information to service providers is also critical for the support of
binding, conservation, and microfilming, and digitization activities,
not only for the Library of Congress but for other libraries as well.
However, the benefits achievable through the communication and transfer
of preservation-related information are currently constrained by the
fact that there has been relatively little standardization of data and
communications protocols supporting the preservation function. The
benefits to be gained by the Library of Congress through promoting the
definition of functional requirements and the subsequent development of
data standards and protocols are considerable, both in terms of the
incentive that standardization would provide to systems developers and
the potential for reducing development costs for the Library, and in
terms of the recognition that the Library would gain within the larger
preservation community by providing leadership in this area.

### Project Objective

The primary objective of this project is to provide an analytical
framework both for the development of information systems supporting the
preservation function at the Library of Congress, and for the
development of standards to support cooperative effort among libraries
engaged in preservation activities and communications between libraries
and preservation service providers.

The documentation produced for the project is designed to serve as a
reference model delineating and defining the scope of the processes and
activities involved in the preservation function, their
interrelationships, and the nature of the information that is required
to support those processes. It is not meant to serve as a fully
articulated, detailed statement of requirements for systems supporting
the preservation function.

The models developed for the project function largely at a conceptual
and logical level. Although they have been derived from an in-depth
analysis of the processes carried out within the Preservation
Directorate and the data that is used and generated in those processes,
they are not exhaustive in incorporating the details of processing
workflows and individual data elements. They do, however, provide a
comprehensive overview of the processes and activities carried out
within the Directorate and the type of information required to support
those processes.

The models are designed specifically to reflect functional relationships
between processes and between the various classes of information that
are used to support individual processes. Although the models do not
define a systems architecture as such, they do provide sufficient
definition at an information architecture level to highlight the
interfaces required to support data transfer either between stand-alone
systems developed for specific processes or functions or between
discrete applications modules within an integrated system.

## Scope

The models developed for the project are centred on the processes and
activities carried out within the Preservation Directorate at the
Library of Congress and on the information used to support those
processes and activities. They are intended to reflect the full range of
those processes and activities and to provide a comprehensive inventory
of the classes of information used to manage the processes and
activities for which the Directorate is responsible. Further
consultation within LC will be required to determine how fully the draft
model reflects preservation activities managed in custodial divisions
outside the Preservation Directorate.

## Process Model

The process model developed for the project is a structured
representation of the processes and activities for which the
Preservation Directorate is responsible. It serves as a means of
clarifying the extent of those processes and activities, their
interrelationships, and the information transactions associated with
them.

The process model identifies five processes that might be considered to
be at the centre of the preservation activity: *housing*, *binding*,
*treatment*, *reformatting*, and *replacement*. Those central processes,
however, are bracketed, as it were, by another thirteen that might be
considered as preliminary, post-processing, or ancillary activities in
the preservation workflow: *monitoring*, *assessing*, *marking*,
*scheduling*, *preparation*, *shipping*, *receiving*, *quality*
*review*, *storing*, *disposition*, *delivery*, *routing*, and
*tracking*. In addition, the model identifies five activities that
function outside the processing workflow *per se*: *planning*,
*maintaining* *equipment* *and* *supplies*, *research*, *training*, and
*outreach*.

An analysis of tasks and information transactions associated with each
of the processes that was conducted on a division-by-division basis
indicates that virtually all the processes identified in the model are
carried out in more than one division, and that in many instances a
particular task or type of information transaction is common to all five
divisions within the Directorate.

The analysis of tasks and information transactions also serves to
highlight the fact that the most information intensive aspects of the
preservation activity as a whole are not the "technical" processes *per
se* (*housing*, *binding*, *treatment*, and *reformatting*), but the
preliminary and post-processing stages of the workflow (particularly
*assessing*, *preparation*, and *quality* *review*).

Details of the process model and the task analysis are documented in
Part 1.

## Information Model

The information model developed for the project is a structured
representation of the information required to manage the processes and
activities for which the Preservation Directorate is responsible. It
serves as a means of clarifying the extent of the Directorate's
information requirements and the interrelationships between and among
those requirements. It also serves as a means of identifying areas of
interface between the information required to manage the preservation
activity *per se* and information that is generated and/or used in other
library functions.

The model comprises seventeen entity-relationship diagrams depicting the
various objects, agents, activities, events, etc. about which
information is required in order to support the activities of the
Preservation Directorate.

The model builds on the work done for the IFLA study on the Functional
Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR), which serves as a point
of reference both for the *item* entity and for its aggregate and
component entities (*item aggregate*, *item part*, and *element*). Those
entities, along with two other key entity groups are central to the
model developed for this project. The second group comprises the "tools
of the trade" for the preservation activity: *procedure*, *material*,
*equipment*, *system*, and *facility*. The third group comprises the
*employee* and the related entities *skill time* and *unit*.

Using those three key entity groups as their primary point of reference,
the remaining diagrams in the information model depict the entities
associated with each of the processes and activities identified in the
process model. Each process or group of processes represented in the
model has associated with it several entities in addition to the twelve
represented in the three central entity groups noted above; in total,
there are seventy-two entities defined in the model. They represent a
broad range of actions and transactions, events, objects, and other
"things" about which information is used or generated in the course of
the preservation activity. Included in the model are entities associated
with the *monitoring* process (*environment*, *survey*, *incident*,
*response*, etc.), entities associated with the *assessing* and
*scheduling* processes (*assessment*, *recommended* *action*, *action*
*request*, *scheduled* *action*, etc.), entities associated with the
*preparation* and *quality* *review* processes (*order* *item*,
*vendor*, *contract*, *commitment*, *delivered* *product*, etc.), and
entities associated with the planning activity (*proposal*, *project*,
*budget*, *allocation*, *audit*, etc.), in addition to many others.

The information model serves not only to illustrate the diversity of
information required to support preservation activities, but to
highlight as well the information interdependencies between the various
processes involved. Not only do the central entity groups (*item*,
*item* *aggregate*, *item* *part*, *element*; *procedure*, *material*,
*equipment*, *system*, *facility*; *employee*, *skill* *time*, *unit*)
come into play in virtually every process and activity, but other
entities as well (e.g., *project*, *scheduled* *action*, *order*,
*delivered* *product*) recur at several key points throughout the
processing workflow. The model makes it clear that information flow is
an essential part of the processing workflow, and that the design of
systems supporting the preservation function must take into account the
complex interdependencies and interfaces between and among the various
information sources that the processes draw on.

Details of the information model are documented in Part 2.

Appendix A includes a comprehensive listing of attributes associated
with each of the entities identified in the information model and the
relationships that operate between each of the entities.

## Functional Requirements

The statement of functional requirements developed for the project is
designed to encapsulate the range of information transactions that occur
across the organizational units within the Preservation Directorate and
across discrete processes, and to relate them to a structured set of
information management functions.

The requirements statement is structured around broad information
management functions. For each function, requirements are identified
relative to specific classes of information derived from the entity
analysis in the information model. For each class of information
relevant to a given function, requirements are specified according to
four categories of transactions derived from the information transaction
analysis in the process model (create/update, search, format, and
compile).

The ten information management functions around which the statement of
functional requirements is structured are the following:

-   Manage item description and action information

-   Manage environmental and collections monitoring information

-   Manage supplies and equipment inventory information

-   Manage routing and tracking information

-   Manage processing information

-   Manage order, shipping, and receiving information

-   Manage employee and unit performance information

-   Manage policy and procedures information

-   Manage planning information

-   Manage research, training, and outreach information

In effect, the statement of functional requirements takes a higher-level
view of the preservation activities carried out within the Directorate
than what is depicted in the process model. Both the process model and
the statement of functional requirements provide an overview that cuts
across the organizational structure of the Directorate, but the
statement of functional requirements goes further in that it also cuts
across the work processes defined in the process model. Extrapolating
from the information transactions associated with each of those work
processes, the statement of functional requirements defines a set of
information processes representing functions that are relevant in most
cases to more than one work process.

The structuring of the requirements statement around these broader
information management functions serves two purposes. First, it provides
a structure to facilitate a senior management assessment and strategic
prioritization of the Directorate's needs for systems development.
Second, it provides a definition of requirements in a form designed to
facilitate discussion with systems developers on the scope of the
Directorate's needs and the kinds of applications that would be best
suited to address those needs. In addition, the statement of functional
requirements provides sufficient definition at an information
architecture level to highlight the interfaces required to support data
transfer between existing applications (e.g., the module of Voyager that
supports the management of item description) and any new applications
developed to support specific processes or functions.

Details of the information model are documented in Part 3.

## External Review

In addition to being reviewed by managers and staff within the
Preservation Directorate, the models developed for the project were
reviewed by an external working group of representatives from a number
of major research libraries in the U.S. The objectives of the external
review were as follows:

a)  to determine whether the processes reflected in the draft process
    model for the Library of Congress are consistent with the processes
    that comprise the preservation function in other libraries;

b)  to determine whether the range of information reflected in the draft
    information model is consistent with information requirements in
    other libraries; and

c)  to identify a subset of information requirements that libraries
    would want to share or have access to across institutions (i.e., via
    MARC records).

Overall, input from the external working group indicates that the
processes and activities identified and defined in the process model are
consistent with the processes that comprise the preservation function in
the libraries represented by the working group participants and that the
range of information reflected in the information model is consistent
with the information requirements of those libraries.

The external working group also provided helpful input in re-assessing
the use of the "Action Note" field in the MARC 21 format as a vehicle
for communicating information on action taken to preserve an item to
external organizations.

Details of the external review are documented in Appendix B.

Recommendations on the use of the "Action Note" in MARC 21 are
documented in Appendix C.

## Next Steps

This project was designed as the first stage of a longer-term initiative
to address the systems needs of the Preservation Directorate. The models
produced for the project serve to document the extent of Directorate's
activities and its information requirements in a structured form that is
designed to serve as an overall frame of reference for subsequent, more
detailed analysis.

In order to move the systems development initiative forward from this
stage, efforts need to be focussed next on strategic planning,
standardization, a review of current systems initiatives within the
Directorate, and an extension of the models and statement of functional
requirements to cover preservation activities managed by other divisions
within the Library.

##### Strategic Planning

It is clear from the models developed for this project that the scope of
work involved in developing automated systems to support the
preservation function will be substantial. The range of processes
involved, the extent of the Directorate's information requirements, and
the diversity of applications and interfaces that will have to be put in
place all indicate that addressing the Directorate's systems needs in a
meaningful way will require a significant investment in time and money.
Given the scope of the effort involved and the probability that
addressing the full range of requirements will take a considerable
length of time, it is essential for senior management to undertake a
strategic assessment of its needs and to establish a set of priorities
to guide longer-term planning.

The models and statement of functional requirements developed for this
project provide a framework that senior management can use to focus its
strategic planning. It is recommended that the planning process begin
with a review of the ten information management functions identified in
the statement of functional requirements, in the context of program
priorities for the Library as well as the operational priorities of the
Directorate. For each of the information management functions
identified, senior management should assess the strategic benefits to be
achieved through systems support, and estimate the investment required
for each in terms of approximate order of magnitude.

Once senior management has completed its strategic assessment of
benefits and costs, and established its systems priorities, a more
detailed analysis of requirements will need to be done for the
function(s) and/or application(s) determined to have the highest
priority.

##### Standardization

The external review served to confirm the applicability of the models
developed for the project to preservation activities in other libraries.
It can be assumed, therefore, that systems development undertaken to
address requirements identified by the Library of Congress has the
potential to serve the needs of a wider community of users as well. From
a systems developer's perspective, the market potential is likely to
have a significant bearing both on the priority assigned to the
development effort and on the calculation of costs to the client.
However, in assessing the market potential for applications supporting
the preservation function, systems developers will also give significant
weight to the use of standards for data and communications in the area
of the application. Standardization is also a critical factor for those
applications that involve communications between the library and its
service providers.

The models developed for the project provide a well structured starting
point for assessing the needs and potential for standardizing
preservation data and communications. In order to move the
standardization process forward, however, further analysis is needed to
evaluate the suitability and adequacy of existing standards (e.g. the
ANSI/NISO Z39.76 standard on data elements for binding library
materials), as well as to assess needs in areas where there are
currently no widely implemented standards. The assessment and analysis
will require consultation with other libraries, service providers, and
systems developers.

##### Current Systems Initiatives

There are a number of systems initiatives currently underway within the
Directorate to address specific operational needs. For the most part,
they are being planned and implemented at the divisional level. However,
it is evident from the process analysis conducted in this project that
in several cases the initiatives have the potential to serve parallel
needs in other divisions within the Directorate as well. It is
recommended that senior management review systems activities across the
Directorate (including projects at the planning stage as well as those
for which implementations are currently in place) to assess the
potential for wider application and increased benefits to the
Directorate as a whole.

It is also recommended that the Directorate initiate discussion with the
ILS Program Office on the feasibility of enhancing the data structures
currently defined in Voyager at the holdings and item level to
accommodate some of the additional requirements for item description
identified in the information model. Part of that discussion should
focus on metadata requirements relating to the digital reformatting of
collection materials.

##### Extension of the Models

The models and statement of functional requirements developed for the
project were based exclusively on an analysis of activities and
information requirements within the Preservation Directorate. As such,
they represent key elements of the preservation function, but do not
encompass the full extent of preservation activity within the Library.

It is recommended that the models be reviewed with other divisions
within the Library that have significant preservation responsibilities
to determine how fully they reflect the preservation activities managed
in those other divisions, and to assess the need for extending the
models and the statement of functional requirements to encompass the
full range of preservation activity within the Library.