Navy higher education libraries announce digital archives and preservation collaborative

NEWPORT, R.I. -- U.S. Naval War College (NWC) Library has announced initial implementation of TRIREME digital repository and preservation system. The name TRIREME comes from the ancient Mediterranean maritime vessels with three banks of oars. It stands as a metaphor for the three institutions of higher education involved in the initial pilot project: the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif.; the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.; and NWC.

TRIREME is the result of a two-year collaboration between Navy higher education libraries and a leading software developer in digital preservation technology and was launched worldwide today. It is open to the public. 

The system is now in full production, storing metadata and content in the cloud and holds approximately 1,600 items from the initial test cases ingested by the three institutions participating.

“TRIREME addresses a growing institutional need to preserve, curate, and disseminate the U.S. Navy’s intellectual output and permanent federal records that originate in a variety of analog and digital formats,” said Allen Benson, director of the NWC Library. "Among the major current issues are never-ending electronic records management tasks and protecting against file format obsolescence. These are time-consuming activities for archivists, records managers, and their institutions to manage and ensure the permanent accessibility—forever—of digital content with maximum integrity. TRIREME promises to make this easier and more affordable through a three-institution partnership.” 

The NWC Library is now seeking to extend the scope of TRIREME to include preserving For Official Use Only (FOUO) information and documents containing Personally Identifiable Information (PII), for example, to meet the federal requirements for capturing and managing e-mail as permanent electronic records. This project will explore the adaptability of TRIREME to non-public, restricted access information, developing documentation for future implementations by the other Navy libraries, and investigating new types of services that can be built on a shared platform. 

“We believe that by employing the same software, standards, and protocols,” Benson said, “the sustainability and potential for future development of TRIREME are enhanced.”

The future goals of TRIREME focus on three areas: development of a comprehensive corpus of electronic documents that represent all the intellectual output of the U.S. Navy’s higher education institutions since their founding, digitization of special collections, and development of long-term preservation policies that comply with published standards and adhere to a professional code of ethics.

The publicly accessible website is https://trireme.access.preservica.com

About this News Article

Article Information

U. S. Naval War College Library
February 21, 2017

News, Media, & Events

Executive Level Operational Level of Warfare Course

Mar. 18-22, 2024
Evans Hall, U.S. Naval War College, 686 Cushing Rd, Newport, RI 02841