Rockin' Robin: Robin Goldfarb Wilensky's Weblog

This one is from a few months ago but I just discovered it in EducationCommons.org (Yet another really cool thing Sun is doing to promote participation from the next generation!)

New Zealand Digitizes & Preserves National Heritage - Read about it

About the customer

• The National Library of New Zealand is collaborating with Sun to create next-generation digital libraries. They will develop the technical architecture to support the library's National Digital Heritage Archive (NDHA) Program, a national initiative to access, manage and preserve New Zealand's digital heritage.
  

About the DIFFERENCE

• Reduce the cost of managing data and, in the future, will revolutionize the way students and citizens can access information.
  
• Strengthen national identity.
  
• Promote the development of an inclusive and increasingly creative economy.
  
• Foster the development of digital preservation practices that will form an essential foundation to the take-up of e-government and the trust of the e-citizen.
  
• Provide a framework to encourage and assist New Zealanders to improve their technical and information literacy skills.
  
• Create fairer educational opportunities.
  

About the solution

• Utilizing Sun's newly acquired StorageTek systems & local Sun services, the National Library and Sun will develop an advanced information lifecycle management system, which will serve as an international model for the implementation of digital repositories and preservation management. This system will ensure the long-term storage and preservation of New Zealand's digital material and provide authenticity and integrity of data.
  
• Additionally, the National Library has been named a Sun Center of Excellence!!
  
• "The key objective is to make New Zealand's digital heritage available in perpetuity. We do not want to fail the future by leaving a gap in New Zealand's history because we were too slow or unwilling to confront the challenge of digital preservation now," said Penny Carnaby, National Librarian and Chief Executive of the National Library of New Zealand.
  

The solution will be international in scope, able to be replicated in other organizations that wish to preserve and mine information, and provide scalability over time.