What should be done?

• Create and support a central registry for all digitized material
  A basis could be something like http://www.math.uni-bielefeld.de/~rehmann/DML/dml_links.html

• Encourage all repositories to support that central registry actively
  (e.g., by presenting public OAI records for their material).

• Issue some detailed "best practice" recommendations for displaying the digitized material like http://www.mathematik.uni-bielefeld.de/~rehmann/DML/dml_standards_fin/

  Don't leave things vague here!

• Give recommendations concerning copyright and maintenance of digital resources,
  which encourage the distribution of data and the mirroring at many places.

  Keep in mind: this probably gives a proactive basis for long term preservation:
  see the Stanford LOCKSS philospophy ("Lots Of Copies Keep Stuff Safe!").

  (Imagine what could have been saved if the material from the Anna-Amalia Library at Weimar had been digitized and distributed to various places before it burned down!!)

  A good model for the developement of the DML is given by the Open Software movement.

  Also, this may initiate evolutionary processes of presenting and maintaining the material:
  If one site has a not so well working setup, but cannot improve it for lack of man power or of other resources, another site could take over and improve things.

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  To view the DjVu files, you will need a DjVu viewer. It is freely available from DjVuLibre (free software).

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  Copyright © 2005 by Ulf Rehmann