AONS System Documentation

Abstract

AONS (Automated Obsolescence Notification System) is a system to analyse digital repositories and determine whether any digital objects contained therein may be in danger of becoming obsolescent. It uses perservation information about file formats and the software which supports these formats to determine if the formats used by digital objects are in danger. The information used is gleaned from various registries (PRONOM1 and LCSDF2) and stored in a MySQL3 database. AONS will then periodically check the contents of the repository for formats in danger of becoming obsolescent. When the repository is found to contain such formats a notification report will be sent to the repository manager responsible. AONS supports multiple repositories with fully independent scheduling. Currently AONS only supports the DSpace4 digital repository; however, the interface between the repository and AONS is simple and well defined and it shouldn't be too hard to extend to other repositories in the future.