RP-38-2021, Content Platform Migrations

Achieving a smooth platform migration requires effort from multiple parties. There are typically four major stakeholder groups involved when a publisher moves content from one hosting platform to another. 

1) The Publisher: the entity that is producing and publishing the content and that initiated a project to move the content from one hosting platform to another.
2) The Content Platform Vendors: the organizations responsible for the systems and services involved in hosting content. Both the prior and new Content Platform Vendors are involved in technical details of the migration. Note that this could be the publisher or an outside vendor. Unless otherwise noted, “Platform Vendor Responsibilities” in the Recommendations for Responsibilities area refers to the new Platform Vendor.
3) The Library and Library Consortia: the primary subscribing entity to the content. A major part of the effort in a successful content migration is ensuring that libraries and their patrons continue to have access to the content during and after the migration.
4) Library Solutions Providers: There are many other entities and solution providers that create or hold data or metadata relevant to the content being migrated. They may include data wranglers, usage statistics vendors, preservation services, discovery vendors, knowledge base and metadata providers, etc. These entities need to be made aware of the migration and updated appropriately during the process. 

This Recommended Practice attempts to lay out the core concepts, approaches, and tasks to facilitate a successful migration with minimal disruption. The main document provides context, descriptions, and definitions. Each section concludes with recommendations related to each topic, with bulleted lists of example tasks for each stakeholder group. The recommendations are also provided as a Checklist in a spreadsheet, so they can be sorted, filtered, and customized (see Appendix G). Both versions of the Recommendations identify the stakeholder that is likely to have responsibility for a given task.

More information is also available at the Content Platform Migrations Working Group page.