Disaster Planning and Trustworthy Digital Repositories

Abstract

The goal of this study is to understand if digital repositories that have a preservation mandate are engaging in disaster planning, particularly in relation to their pursuit of trusted digital repository status. For those that are engaging in disaster planning, the study examines the creation of formal disaster response and recovery plans, finding that in most cases the process of going through an audit for certification as a trusted repository provides the impetus for the creation of formalized disaster planning documentation. This paper also discusses obstacles that repositories encounter and finds that most repositories struggle with making their documentation available.