This paper introduces the write-once/read-many XMLtape/ARC storage approachfor Digital Objects and their constituent datastreams. The approach combinestwo interconnected file-based storage mechanisms that are made accessible in aprotocol-based manner. First, XML-based representations of multiple DigitalObjects are concatenated into a single file named an XMLtape. An XMLtape is avalid XML file; its format definition is independent of the choice of theXML-based complex object format by which Digital Objects are represented. Thecreation of indexes for both the identifier and the creation datetime of theXML-based representation of the Digital Objects facilitates OAI-PMH-basedaccess to Digital Objects stored in an XMLtape. Second, ARC files, asintroduced by the Internet Archive, are used to contain the constituentdatastreams of the Digital Objects in a concatenated manner. An index for theidentifier of the datastream facilitates OpenURL-based access to an ARC file.The interconnection between XMLtapes and ARC files is provided by conveying theidentifiers of ARC files associated with an XMLtape as administrativeinformation in the XMLtape, and by including OpenURL references to constituentdatastreams of a Digital Object in the XML-based representation of that DigitalObject.
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