Middle-Where? Preservation as Negotiation for Workflow Integration

At Virginia Tech University Libraries (VTUL), our unit, Digital Imaging and Preservation Services (DI&PS), is a newly formed team whose goal is to establish a fully integrated digital curation system that encompasses data creation and digitization, long-term preservation and storage, and stable, robust access. Any new preservation work must be built on the remnants of what has gone before, both in terms of hardware and software, and in terms of institutional structures, procedures, and people. Development of a new digital curation systems is also constricted by available funding and expertise. Our case study addresses the challenges, pitfalls, and successes of our team's efforts to produce such a system, in terms of concrete, practical workflows. In order to accomplish our goals we are working together with units from all across the library in order to enable these technologies to work together in addition to their respective library department faculty working together.