The Use of Quality Management Standards in Trustworthy Digital Archives

Abstract

Quality management is one of the essential parts to become a trustworthy digital archive. The German network of expertise in Digital long-term preservation (nestor), in cooperation with the German Institute for Standards (DIN) has undertaken a small study in order to systematically analyse the relevance und usage of quality management standards for long-term preservation and to filter out the specific standardisation need for digital archives. This paper summarises the first results of the study. It gives a first overview on the differences in understanding the task “quality management” amongst different organisations and how they carry out appropriate measures like documentation, transparency, adequacy, and measureability in order to demonstrate the trustworthiness of their digital archive.