UNC Project Offers LIS Students Lifelong Data Storage Space

The University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill's School of Information and Library Science (SILS) recently unveiled a new perk for its incoming students: the LifeTime Library, in which SILS students will receive free web-based data storage space, hosted by the school, for life.

According to SILS dean Gary Marchionini, about 90 students out of the SILS incoming class of 150 have decided to use the free space offered-currently about 250 gigabytes for each student, or a quarter-terabyte.

Students will be using an application on their laptops called iDrop, under development for the past year, to drag-and-drop files into their storage space; researchers are currently working on methods to allow accessibility via a variety of mobile devices.

The project, if successful, could be more than a simple perk. It could change the way that students deal with personal information-urging them toward preservation in a time when much personal information seems disposable. "More and more traces of our lives are captured in these cyber-environments," Marchionini said. "As a leading school, I think it's our obligation to not only help our own students, but everybody, grapple with what that might mean."

Marchionini expects students (and future alumni) to eventually use the secure space for all sorts of personal materials-including images, social-networking content, even finance and health records-and be able to access those materials for the rest of their lives. Currently, most universities delete student materials on university servers after graduation. But the vision of the LifeTime Library, according its online project profile, is that it "will not only help students lead successful digital lives beyond the university, but can also serve as a link to who stay in touch and participate in campus activities."

Marchionini says that the LifeTime Library is still a pilot project, although the first research and testing began in the fall of 2010. It's being developed in conjunction with researchers at UNC's Data Intensive Cyber Environment (DICE) Center, using open-source Integrated Rule-Oriented Data System (iRODS) software. It's even being incorporated into a few SILS classes, including a digital-library class led by DICE Center director Reagan Moore, in which students are urged to create applications to help students use the storage better.

There are some restrictions on how students can use the space, per UNC's standard terms of service-a student can't use the space as part of business down the line, for example. (Students are also currently asked to take part in surveys about the project as it is being developed.) But the lifetime of UNC storage space has two clear advantages over other free storage services. One is the amount of space available-around 250 gigabytes for now-far exceeds those of Dropbox's free service, for instance, which offers just 2 gigabytes. The other advantage, if the model turns out to be sustainable, is the near-certainty that UNC will be around in a decade or two-which can't be said about a company vulnerable to the whims of the market.

Hammering out the details
Being a pilot, several aspects of the project have yet to be worked out. For example, the university uses the Sakai learning management system for online course materials, and Marchionini said that the aim is to allow students to "harvest" at least some of these materials for their personal storage. But the software for such harvesting, and the policies regarding which materials would be harvestable, are still under development. Marchionini also envisions similar functionality for social-networking content down the line.

Right now, only a relative handful of students are using the storage space, making it easy for a school like SILS to manage it and pay for it. But Marchionini envisions it expanding in the future beyond SILS to the entire university. As the project expands, the numbers of students and alumni, and the amount storage space they take up, will ramp up quickly. SILS, in the project's online profile, estimated that 6000 students and alumni could require a daunting 120 petabytes (or 120,000 terabytes) of storage space, at a cost of $240 million over 20 years. If the "lifetime" part of the LifeTime Library is to be sustained, it's likely that UNC will have to partner with organizations used to that kind of storage volume.

Indeed, Marchionini has been talking with several large companies-though he declined to name them at this point-about potentially partnering with SILS to sustain and expand the project with funding, or with donated equipment or services.