The functional components of the digital archive will be modular

The proposed architecture is modular. The three components are not tied to each other. This is important for at least three reasons:

• Modularity allows LC to experiment with different approaches in the early years of developing a digital archive. Since appropriate systems are not available as off-the-shelf commercial products in early 1996, this is particularly important.
• Modularity will permit incorporation of items in digital form that are not produced by LC, but are acquired by the library either by purchase or by copyright deposit. This is not a focus of the current NDLP effort, but is being addressed in part by the CORDS project in the U.S. Copyright Office. Providing access to resources acquired by LC in digital form or digitized and stored elsewhere will become increasingly important over the next few years.
• Modularity allows phased transitions as new technologies become available. In particular, this modularity will allow the current implementation of a digital archive to co-exist with the more powerful prototype under development.

The key to modularity will be careful definition of the interactions between the modules. These interactions should be based on well-defined protocols, taking advantage, as far as possible, of existing standards and widely deployed protocols, such as HTTP.

Continue through this section:

• Prototype under development

Delve deeper for further discussion of:

• The CORDS project at the U.S. Copyright Office, which will enable copyright applicants to prepare their copyright applications and deposit materials in machine readable formats.

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(12/27/95)