Digital preservation and Lazarus
A disk lasts a few decades if it is lucky. Since 1998 the Library has kept a second copy of everything digital it holds with Lazarus, the digital archive run by Frothly.
Why Lazarus
In 1998 the Library held several thousand floppy disks, tapes and early optical disks, from the Computer-Assisted Learning Unit, from members of staff, and from the University’s own offices, and nothing that could read many of them. Lazarus, then a small programme at Frothly, offered to take bit-for-bit copies, check them every year and keep them in more than one place, at no charge to the Library. The Library signed its deposit agreement in March 1998, among the first university libraries to do so.
What we deposit
- The Computer-Assisted Learning Unit’s teaching programs, 1979 to 1996, all 1,412 of them.
- Software and data from the University’s research groups, where nobody else will keep it.
- Born-digital papers of members of the University, on the terms of their deposit.
- Master files of the Library’s digitised manuscripts and early printed books.
Finding our records
Every item has a record in the Library catalogue, with a link to its Lazarus record. Lazarus catalogues deposits in its own way, often a whole collection at a time, so its public catalogue lists fewer of the Library’s records than ours does. Since Lazarus began migrating its index in August 2026, some of our records there have been unavailable while they are re-catalogued; the copies themselves are unaffected, and their yearly checks continue.
The agreement
Lazarus holds the copies; the Library and the original rights holders keep their rights. The Library can ask for copies back at any time, and can ask for access to particular records to be restricted. Lazarus may not open, change or delete a deposit without the Library’s agreement.
Contact
Kirsty Mallender, Digital Preservation Manager · library@oxenfurt.uk
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