Skip to content

4.3.4 Provide evidence of the effectiveness of its preservation activities

Requirement Text

The repository shall provide evidence of the effectiveness of its preservation activities.

Supporting Text

This is necessary in order to assure the Designated Community that the repository will be able to make the information available and usable over the mid-to-long-term.

Examples for Meeting the Requirement

Collection of appropriate preservation-related information; proof of usability of randomly selected digital objects held within the system; demonstrable track record for retaining usable digital objects over time; Designated Community polls.

Discussion

The repository should be able to demonstrate the continued preservation, including understandability, of its holdings. This could be evaluated at a number of degrees and depends on the specificity of the Designated Community. If a Designated Community is fairly broad, an auditor could represent the test subject in the evaluation. More specific Designated Communities could require significant efforts.

Evidence Provided

APTrust uses a subset of fields from the PREMIS metadata schema to record and report preservation event metadata.

APTrust maintains a central registry (a SQL database that is replicated across multiple AWS availability zones in Virginia and to Oregon) describing all intellectual objects, which files belong to each object, and where those files are stored. Based on the metadata attached to the files, APTrust is able to reconstruct all ingested bags and know which institutions those bags and files belong to. See the Preservation Policy and Preservation and Storage.

APTrust may decide to trigger an action on the content for various reasons, including:

Many depositors have successfully restored bags. As of 2/11/2026, depositors have performed 14,391 successful restorations. Restored bags (DIPs) differ slightly from the original SIPs; these differences are documented for the Designated Community.