Fostering Equitable and Sustainable Digital Preservation in the MetaArchive Cooperative

Katherine S Kim

Funding Area: Capacity building / Construcción de capacidad

Problem Statement: The MetaArchive Cooperative has almost twenty years of demonstrated success and longevity, as one of the only examples of an independent member-owned cooperative that supports decentralized, risk-mitigating digital preservation storage. As a cooperative, MetaArchive thrives on the investments that its members make to the organization. These investments, however, have become increasingly difficult for MetaArchive members to sustain over time. As IT infrastructure in academia and cultural heritage organizations is overwhelmingly outsourced to cloud service providers, maintaining open technical infrastructure components on premises has become less tenable for many MetaArchive members. Furthermore, MetaArchive is in a moment of transition due to turnover in community membership and leadership, which has led to reduced commitments from members. Simultaneously, MetaArchive is well-positioned to serve under-resourced cultural heritage organizations, but needs to make efforts to effectively lower the structural and financial barriers to participation. The work proposed in this application would reinvigorate our collaborative community and reduce financial barriers to participation through a revisioning of MetaArchive’s membership tiers and membership agreements through an equity lens.

Proposed Activities: November 2023 - January 2024: Systematic review of community documentation (e.g., charter, membership agreements, and technical specifications) and external resources (e.g., other community membership tier structures and agreements) by organizational development consultants, community facilitator, and MetaArchive leadership (10 hrs of consultant time, 60 hrs of community facilitator time) February - March 2024: Community survey to gather information about MetaArchive member organizations (e.g., number of staff, collections budget, population served), created, distributed, and synthesized by organizational development consultants, community facilitator, and MetaArchive leadership (10 hrs of consultant time, 40 hrs of community facilitator time) April - May 2024: MetaArchive focus group discussions to re-envision member commitments, facilitated by organizational development consultants (30 hrs of consultant time, 40 hrs of community facilitator time) May - June 2024: Organizational development consultants, community facilitator, and MetaArchive leadership review draft equity-based membership tiers (10 hrs of consultant time, 40 hrs of community facilitator time) June 2024: MetaArchive member feedback period (20 hrs of community facilitator time) July - August 2024: MA member feedback on equity-based membership tiers addressed by organizational development consultants, community facilitator, and MetaArchive leadership.Updated tiers and agreements reviewed by legal counsel. (15 hrs of consultant time, 40 hrs of community facilitator time) August 2024: Drafts of equity-based membership tiers and agreements circulated to other digital preservation networks and communities for feedback (20 hrs of community facilitator time) September - October 2024: Finalization and socialization of equity-based membership tiers and agreements by organizational development consultants, community facilitator, and MetaArchive leadership. (10 hrs of consultant time, 40 hrs of community facilitator time). November - December 2024: Publication by MetaArchive leadership of generalizable framework for equity-based membership tiers and agreements that can be used and adapted by other community-owned digital preservation networks (20 hrs of community facilitator time) Throughout this period, the project team will work with Educopia’s communications on strategic communications to announce and socialize changes among members, to assist with outreach to new members under the new membership tiers, to make updates to the website, and to create new promotional materials (e.g., funder pitch deck, graphics for social media) (70 hrs of communications time)

Openness: The proposed work will build upon several aspects of openness in the MetaArchive Cooperative. MetaArchive utilizes LOCKSS, an open-source software for distributed digital preservation developed and maintained by Stanford University. Furthermore, the MetaArchive network is community-owned: members host “nodes” and are responsible for maintaining technical infrastructure and digital content on behalf of all members. MetaArchive also endeavors to make the social infrastructure of the cooperative as open and transparent as possible: governance and technical documentation are published on the MetaArchive website and wiki. MetaArchive also supports sustained open access to scholarly works over time: most MetaArchive members utilize the preservation network to preserve electronic theses and dissertations, as well as datasets. The proposed work would engage other digital preservation networks and communities in providing feedback on deliverables, as well as publishing a generalizable framework for membership tiers and agreements under a permissive Creative Commons license.

Challenges: The creation of equity-based membership tiers may introduce a sliding scale approach to membership fees for the first time in the MetaArchive Cooperative. A sliding scale will make membership more expensive for some organizations, in order to make it more affordable for organizations that may not have the resources to procure a digital preservation service. While there is strong values alignment and support for this work among member representatives, there will likely be some pushback from other members of their organizations. Similarly, there may be organizations that are unable to commit more volunteer time and/or resources to MetaArchive under a new agreement with firmer commitments. This is why the project activities include an intentionally long and iterative period of data gathering, community feedback, and socialization.

Neglectedness: MetaArchive has recently completed a change management process (in July 2023) that surfaced the need and willingness of the community to revise membership tiers and agreements. As such, MetaArchive has not yet applied for other funding for this work. Funding for this work could be sought through other funders of Educopia-affiliated projects (e.g., Mellon, Sloan, IMLS) – however, none of these funders have an explicit focus on building capacity for community-owned open infrastructure, and other funders are not as well-positioned as IOI to support broad outreach and publication of open resources addressing this critical aspect of open infrastructure.

Success: Success for this work would be demonstrated through the creation and distribution of the new framework and agreements. Another metric of success would be the retention of at least 70% of current member organizations after the new tiers and agreements are rolled out, as well as the successful recruitment of new organizations that could not have joined under previous membership terms and fees. Success will also be determined by the successful recruitment of at least seven new member representatives to serve on community governance and committees. Successful implementation of this work would also include broader discussion about equitable membership tiers and agreements throughout the broader preservation and academic cooperative landscape.

Total Budget: 24,860

Affiliations: MetaArchive Cooperative, Educopia Institute

LMIE Carveout: No

Team Skills: Membership in the MetaArchive Cooperative is open to any organization whose activities are consistent with MetaArchive’s mission and principles, including research libraries, consortia, and museums. MetaArchive leadership (responsible for overall management, coordination, communication, and reporting on behalf of the MetaArchive Cooperative), include professionals from the Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library, the University of Louisville, Virginia Tech University, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. In addition to MetaArchive’s leadership team, the cooperative maintains several committees that are tasked with strengthening the capacity and operations of the preservation network and the membership community. MetaArchive will leverage its strong community participation to support the success of the project. Hannah Wang, MetaArchive Community Facilitator, has over six years of experience in digital preservation. The facilitator will serve as an important liaison between the project team and the broader MetaArchive membership, as well as a conduit between MetaArchive and other digital preservation networks. Educopia consultants have extensive history working with community-based organizations to facilitate conversations with diverse stakeholders and work with organizational leadership to develop priorities, manage changes, and develop plans for future community engagement in a sustainable and equity-focused manner.

How Did You Hear About This Call: Word of mouth (e.g. conversations and emails from IOI staff, friends, colleagues, etc.) / Boca a boca (por ejemplo, conversaciones y correos electrónicos del personal del IOI, amigos, colegas, etc.)

Submission Number: 148