A first national Italian register for digital resources for both cultural and scientific communities (communication)

Abstract

In this paper we present an Italian initiative, involving relevant research institutions and national libraries, aimed at implementing an NBN Persistent Identifiers (PI) infrastructure based on a novel hardware/software architecture. We describe a distributed and hierarchical approach for the management of an NBN namespace and illustrate assignment policies and identifier resolution strategies based on request forwarding mechanisms. We describe interaction and synergy with the 'Magazzini Digitali' project for the legal deposit of digital contents just launched by the Italian Ministry of Culture. Finally, we draw some conclusions and point out the future directions of our work. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.