Digital Repository Legacies: A Case Study in Assessing Organizational Trustworthiness

Academic libraries rarely discuss cases of digital repositories that do not meet the standards expected of trusted digital repositories. Implications from inconsistent adherence to technical and professional criteria often surface during migration projects. In 2020, Stony Brook University Libraries began migrating assets to a mono-repository environment. Persistent historical factors presented challenges to repository trustworthiness. This case study discusses a survey project to evaluate legacy repository statuses in the contexts of infrastructure, documentation, and staff capacity. It considers a paradigm of organizational accountability in digital asset stewardship and offers insights for reconciling inherited legacies with aspirations to be a trusted repository.