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Projects

Here you will find links to reports that describe projects which address the preservation of access to digital material either as a major focus or as a single aspect of a wider project. Your contributions to this database are encouraged. Please send us details about your own project or any others which you would like us to include.

| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | XYZ

A

American Memory Backgroundpapers and technical information : documents relating to digitization efforts at the Library of Congress
Library of Congress (Regularly Updated) (USA)
This site contains background and technical information about the Library of Congress' program to digitise and provide access to the historical Americana holdings at the Library of Congress, including photographs, manuscripts, rare books, maps, recorded sound, and moving pictures.
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/ftpfiles.html
Arches: Archival Server and Test Bed
Research Libraries Group (Last Updated: Nov 1999) (USA)
The Arches project, a two-year project begun by the Research Libraries Group (RLG) in the United States in 1996, focused on the development of an online repository for digital resources of all types and the software environment to make this repository internationally accessible and responsibly maintainable. The Arches Testbed approach draws upon the infrastructure development of the Arches project.
http://www.rlg.org/strat/projarch.html
Australian Digital Theses Project
University of New South Wales (Last Updated: 10 Nov 1999) (Australia)
The aim of the project is to establish a distributed database of digital versions of theses produced by the postgraduate research students at the participating institutions. The theses will be available via the web. Participants are the University of New South Wales (lead institution), University of Melbourne, University of Queensland, University of Sydney, Australian National University, Curtin University of Technology and Griffith University.
http://www.library.unsw.edu.au/thesis/thesis.html

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B

BIBLINK
European Commission (Last Updated: 24 Sep 1998)
Project BIBLINK, funded through the European Commission's Telematics Applications Programme, aims to establish a relationship between national bibliographic agencies and publishers of electronic material, in order to establish authoritative bibliographic information that will benefit both sectors. Areas of investigation have included: metadata, permanent naming, data transmission and authenticity.
http://hosted.ukoln.ac.uk/biblink/
The British Library Digital Library Programme
The British Library Research and Innovation Centre (Last Updated: 7 Jun 1999) (UK)
This site describes the development of this program which aims to provide the British Library with the capabilities to acquire, store, preserve and access collection materials in digital form.
http://www.bl.uk/services/ric/diglib/digilib.html

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C

COPEARMS Project
International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (Last Updated: 5 Jan 1999)
COPEARMS (Coordinating Project for Electronic Authors' Rights Management Systems) is co-financed by the European Commission (EC) under the Esprit Program. Its aim is to assist other projects and organisations in the development of electronic rights management systems (ERMS), in order to encourage interoperability between systems and to prevent duplication of research and development.
http://www.ifla.org/VI/2/p5/
CURL Exemplars for Digital ARchiveS (CEDARS) Project
CURL (Regularly Updated) (UK) Has papers: Cedars Metadata Brainstorming : Cedars Project Document AIS03 ; Cedars Preservation Metadata Elements : Cedars Project Document AIW02
Under the overall direction of CURL (the Consortium of University Research Libraries), and with funding from JISC/CEI through the eLib programme, the CEDARS project aims to address the strategic, methodological and practical issues and will provide guidance for libraries in best practice for digital preservation. The project will produce guidelines for developing digital collection management policies and about preserving different classes of digital resources, an analysis of the cost implications of digital preservation and will run pilot projects to test and promote the chosen strategy for digital preservation. The CEDARS Data Preservation Strategies Working Group is looking at issues which include the strategies available for migration, emulation and data refreshing for a variety of materials including CD-ROMs. The CEDARS project home page provides links to project information and a glossary of commonly used terms.
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/cedars/

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D

DESIRE: Development of a European Service for Information on Research and Education.
European Union (Regularly Updated)
Desire is a major international project aiming to build large scale information networks for the research community. The project is aimed at meeting the needs of research users for better means of locating the information that is relevant to their research. There are two major elements: subject-based information gateways and exhaustive automated indexing of existing World Wide Web information sources in all subject areas.
http://www.ub2.lu.se/desire/
Digital Libraries Initiative
The National Science Foundation (Regularly Updated) (USA)
Digital Libraries Initiative Phase Two is a multiagency initiative which aims to encourage research which is fundamental to the development of digital libraries, to advance the use and usability of globally distributed, networked information resources, and to encourage communities to focus on innovative applications areas. This Initiative aims to stimulate partnering arrangements in order to create new operational systems in a range of subject areas. It will address the digital libraries life cycle from information creation, access and use, to archiving and preservation. Research to gain a better understanding of the long-term social, behavioural and economic implications of and effects of new digital libraries capabilities in such areas of human activity as research, education, commerce, defence, health services and recreation is an important part of this initiative. Phase One of the Digital Libraries Initiative comprised six research projects.
http://www.dli2.nsf.gov/
Digital projects of the University of California, Berkeley Library
University of California, Berkeley Library In: Berkeley Digital Library SunSITE (Regularly Updated) (USA)
This site lists projects which the University of California's Berkeley Library is undertaking in collaboration with a number of other organisations to build and preserve access to digital resources. Projects are listed under the following headings: creating and publishing content (includes resource discovery), building the digital library community and infrastructure development.
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/R+D/ucblibrary.html
Digital Services Project
National Library of Australia (Regularly Updated) (Australia)
The National Library of Australia has identified a requirement for robust, high performance systems to manage its present and future digital collections and to support shared access to digital collections in cooperation with other institutions. To this end it has commenced the Digital Services Project. The Library defines digital services to mean services exploiting digital technologies to provide access to traditional documentary resources and to ensure the long-term preservation of, and access to, documents available only in digital form.
http://www.nla.gov.au/dsp/
DONOR
National Library of Netherlands (Regularly Updated) (The Netherlands)
The objective of DONOR is to create an enabling infrastructure for information management and retrieval on SURFnet, the national research network of the Netherlands. It is intended to provide a coordinated approach to document and metadata management on the Web, with areas of investigation including persistent identifiers and metadata. The project website provides project details as well as links to related projects and resources.
http://www.konbib.nl/donor/index-en.html

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E

Electronic Publications Pilot Project (EPPP): summary of the final report
The National Library of Canada (Last Updated: 23 May 1996) (Canada)
This summary of the final report describes a pilot project that aimed to identify and understand the challenges associated with acquiring, cataloguing, preserving and providing access to Canadian electronic publications. The discussion focusses on two issues: firstly, the NLC's responsibility for storing and managing electronic publications that Canadian authors and publishers create; and secondly, the Library's role as creator and distributor of computerised documents.
ISBN: 0-662-24672-1
http://www.nlc-bnc.ca/e-coll-e/ereport.htm
Electronic Records in Office Systems (EROS) Project
Public Record Office, UK (Regularly Updated) (UK)
The overall goal of the EROS project is to ensure that electronic records of long-term value, created across government, are available for future access.
http://www.pro.gov.uk/recordsmanagement/eros/default.htm
eLib Electronic Libraries Programme
Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) (Regularly Updated) (UK)
The Electronic Libraries Program consists of projects funded to "transform the use and storage of knowledge in higher education institutions". The site contains information on the 60 or so projects that are currently being funded, and resources relevant to these projects.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/services/elib/
eLib Supporting Studies
Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) (Regularly Updated) (UK)
The eLib supporting studies are being carried out to support the electronic libraries program in a number of areas. They include evaluation studies which look at the role electronic publishing has in an educational context; preservation studies which looks at archiving isssues involving digital material; and supporting workshops focusing on the management of digital material.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/services/elib/papers/supporting/
EVA: European Visual Archive
(Regularly Updated)
This project will focus on the provision of easy access to the integrated collections and information held in European archives. Among other aspects, this project will investigate issues surrounding preserving access to digital resources including "archival standards" and methods of describing resources.
http://www.eva-eu.org/
EVA: the acquisition and archiving of electronic network publications
Helsinki University Library (Last Updated: 15 Dec 1997) (Finland)
The central aim of the project is to create methods and tools to collect, register and archive electronic publications distributed on the Internet and to investigate conditions for long-term preservation of them in libraries. EVA, coordinated by Helsinki University Library, is a joint project by libraries, publishers and expert organisations, being part of the Finnish Ministry of Education's strategy program: Education, Training and Research in the Information Society. See also: 'EVA - The Acquisition and Archiving of Electronic Network Publications In Finland' by Kirsti Lounamaa and Inkeri Salonharju in Tietolinja News.
http://linnea.helsinki.fi/eva/english.html

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I

Internet Archive
Kahle, Brewster (Last Updated: 3 Mar 1998)
A non-profit commercial venture, Internet Archive is collecting and storing public materials from the Internet such as the World Wide Web, Netnews, and downloadable software which have been donated by Alexa Internet. This collection will include all publicly accessible World Wide Web pages, the Gopher hierarchy, the Netnews bulletin board system, and downloadable software.
http://www.archive.org/
Internet Scout Project: Research
Computer Sciences Department, University of Wisconsin-Madison
"The Internet Scout Project's research team is charged with investigating resource discovery tools for the Internet. Their current project, with the working title Project Isaac, proposes to link geographically distributed collections of metadata into a virtual collection searchable as a unified whole."
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/index.html
InterPARES: International Research on Permanent Authentic Records in Electronic Systems
(Regularly Updated) (Canada)
The goal of the InterPARES Project is to use the tools of archival science and diplomatics to develop the theoretical and methodological knowledge essential to the permanent preservation of electronically generated records. On the basis of this knowledge it will formulate model strategies, policies and standards capable of ensuring their preservation. InterPARES is directed by Luciana Duranti, University of British Columbia's School of Library, Archival and Information Studies
http://www.interpares.org/
ISO archiving standards - reference model papers
NASA (Regularly Updated)
This site contains links to different versions of the "Archiving referencing model" being developed by NASA in support of standards for the long term preservation of digital information obtained from observations of the terrestrial and space environments. In addition there are links to overviews of the French and US efforts in this field.
http://ssdoo.gsfc.nasa.gov/nost/isoas/overview.html

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J

The Joint NSF/JISC International Digital Libraries Initiative
Wiseman, Norman; Chris Rusbridge; Griffin, Stephen In: D-Lib magazine (Date Created: Jun 1999)
"The overall goals of the JISC/NSF program are to foster common approaches to shared problems, promote common standards, share expertise and experience and build on complementary organisational strengths and approaches in digital library research." Practical studies of the emulation strategy for digital preservation are planned as part of a collaborative effort involving the CEDARS project team and researchers at the University of Michigan with funding through the Joint NSF/JISC International Digital Libraries Initiative.
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/june99/06wiseman.html
JSTOR (Journal Storage): Redefining access to scholarly publishing
JSTOR Journal Storage (Regularly Updated) (USA)
One of JSTOR's aims is to build a reliable and comprehensive archive of important scholarly journal literature. Back issues of paper journals have been converted into electronic formats allowing savings in space (and in capital costs associated with that space) while simultaneously improving access to the journal content. It is also hoped that the project may offer a solution to preservation problems associated with storing paper volumes.
http://www.jstor.org/

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K

Kulturarw3
National Library of Sweden (Regularly Updated) (Sweden)
The aim of this project, inaugurated by the The National Library of Sweden, is to test methods of collecting, preserving and providing access to Swedish electronic documents which are accessible on line. This site includes brief descriptions of the scope of collecting and collecting methods, preservation and access considerations, and progress of the Kulturarw3 Heritage Project.
http://kulturarw3.kb.se/html/kulturarw3.eng.html

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L

Library of Congress Manuscript Digitization Project
Sharpe, Louis H. ; Ott, D. Michael; Fleischhauer, C.; Library of Congress (Date Created: 15 Oct 1998) (USA)
This report provides some answers to the following questions: What type of image is best suited for the digitisation of large manuscript collections, especially collections consisting mostly of twentieth century typescripts? What level of quality strikes the best balance between production economics and the requirements set by future uses of the images? Will the same type of image that offers high quality reformatting also provide efficient online access for researchers? The report, which includes a summary of project findings, also contains sections on types, resolution and enhancements for preservation-quality images and data compression.
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/pictel/index.html

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M

The MetaWeb Project
Australian Defence Force Academy, Charles Sturt University, Distributed Systems Technology Centre, National Library of Australia (Last Updated: 7 Jun 1999)
The aim of the Metadata Tools and Services project - known as MetaWeb - was to develop indexing services, user tools, and metadata element sets in order to promote the use of, and exploitation of metadata on the Internet. The Australian MetaWeb Project's search services index tags in HTML documents and provide an attribute-based search interface. An accompanying metadata editor, Reggie, provides a template for marking up metadata in Dublin Core (DC), Australian Government Locator Service (AGLS), the Education Network of Australia (EdNA)and the Australian & New Zealand Land Information Council (ANZLIC) metadata set.
http://www.dstc.edu.au/Research/Projects/metaweb/

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N

NEDLIB: Networked European Deposit Library
National Library of the Netherlands (Regularly Updated)
This site is the homepage of NEDLIB, a collaborative project consortium, headed by the National Library of the Netherlands (Koninklijke Bibliotheek) and including eight other European national libraries, a national archive and three main publishers. The main goal is to find ways to preserve access to both online and offline (physical format) digital publications. It aims to construct the basic infrastructure upon which a networked European deposit library can be built.
http://www.konbib.nl/nedlib/
The Nordic Metadata II project
Hakala, Juha (Last Updated: 10 Jun 1998) (Scandinavia)
The main task of the proposed Nordic metadata II is to develop further the tools built in the Nordic metadata I, and also improve the Dublin Core itself.
http://renki.lib.helsinki.fi/meta/nm2plan.html

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O

Open eBook Initiative
Open eBook Initiative
One element of the Open eBook initiative is a specification for eBook file and format structure based on HTML and XML, the languages used to format information for websites. The specification defines the format that content will take when it is converted from print to electronic form.
http://www.openebook.org/
Our Digital Island
State Library of Tasmania (Last Updated: 27 Feb 1999) (Australia)
Our Digital Island provides access to Tasmanian Web sites that have been preserved for posterity by the State Library of Tasmania. It includes sections on: Selection policy, Metadata development, and a description of the project.
http://www.tased.edu.au/tasonline/history/

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P

PANDORA - Preserving and Accessing Networked Documentary Resources in Australia
National Library of Australia (Regularly Updated) (Australia)
PANDORA is a project initiated by the National Library of Australia to investigate strategies and implement procedures for the capture, storage, preservation and access to digital data by creating an electronic archive of library materials. It is interested in capturing the full range of materials published online in Australia - including serials, newspapers and books, as well as unique online formats such as homepages (see also Digital Services Project).
http://www.nla.gov.au/pandora/
PRESERV - The RLG Preservation Program
The preservation program (PRESERV) managed by the Research Libraries Group on behalf of its members, is a program of projects and activities that support local institutions in their efforts to preserve and thereby improve access to endangered research materials. PRESERV focuses on achieving collaborative and innovative solutions to common preservation problems by inventing and testing new models for cooperation.
http://www.rlg.org/preserv/
Preservation Management of Digital Materials Study
Maggie Jones In: RLG DigiNews (Last Updated: 15 Oct 1999) (United Kingdom)
This study, funded by the Arts and Humanities Data Service, aims to define best practice and create guidelines for digital preservation.
http://www.rlg.org/preserv/diginews/diginews3-5.html#announcements
The Preservation of the integrity of electronic records
Duranti, Luciana; Eastwood, Terry; University of British Columbia, School of Library, Archival and Information Studies (Date Created: 15 Apr 1997) (Canada)
This website describes research carried out between 1994-1997 within the University of British Columbia's School of Library, Archival and Information Studies. The aim of this research was to identify and define the requirements for creating, handling and preserving reliable and authentic electronic records.
http://www.slais.ubc.ca/users/duranti/intro.htm
Projekt Indoreg
Dansk Biblioteks Center (Date Created: 16 Sep 1997) (Denmark)
Project report on the Danish Library Centre InDoReg (Internet Document Registration) on bibliographic control of Danish Internet documents.
http://purl.dk/rapport/html.uk/

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R

Recordkeeping Metadata Project
Records Continuum Research Group, Monash University (Last Updated: 24 Apr 1999) (Australia)
This project aims to "provide a framework for standardising sets of recordkeeping metadata that can be attributed to records from their point of creation, eg by embedding, encapsulation or linking to metadata stores. It will develop a standardised set of interoperable recordkeeping metadata elements, classified according to purpose, and mapped against related generic and sector-specific metadata sets." Recordkeeping metadata is defined to include "all standardised information that identifies, authenticates, describes, manages and makes accessible documents created in the context of social and business activity."
http://www.sims.monash.edu.au/rcrg/research/spirt/
ROADS (Resource Organisation And Discovery in Subject-based services)
In: eLib Electronic Libraries Programme (Regularly Updated)
The ROADS project aims to produce a software package which can be used to set up subject-specific gateways, investigate methods of cross-searching and interoperability within and between gateways and to participate in the development of standards for the indexing, cataloguing and searching of subject-specific resources
http://www.ilrt.bris.ac.uk/roads/

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S

Services of the Preservation Research and Testing Division
Library of Congress (Last Updated: 21 Apr 1999)
This is a very brief summary of the Library of Congress' testing and monitoring project for CDs, initiated in late 1995. Project objectives included developing guidelines for storage conditions that would maximize the useful life of CDs.
http://lcweb.loc.gov/preserv/resear.html#cd

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U

UPF (Universal Preservation Format) Home Page
Thom Shepard, UPF (Regularly Updated) (USA)
Sponsored by the WGBH Educational Foundation and funded in part by a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission of the National Archives, the Universal Preservation Format initiative advocates a platform-independent format that will help make accessible a wide range of data types. The UPF is characterized as "self-described" because it includes, within its metadata, all the technical specifications required to build and rebuild appropriate media browsers to access contained materials throughout time. The project's central goal is to work with representatives from standards organisations, hardware and software companies, museums, academic institutions, archives and library science communities to produce and publish a Recommended Practices document.
http://info.wgbh.org/upf/

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V

Victorian Electronic Records Strategy Project
Public Records Office, Victoria (Last Updated: 31 Mar 1999) (Australia)
The Victorian Electronic Records Strategy (VERS) Project was undertaken by Public Record Office Victoria (PROV) in conjunction with the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and Ernst & Young from April to December 1998. The project aimed to demonstrate the feasibility of capturing and preserving electronic records in such a way that they may be readily accessed in the long term; and to provide a set of functional descriptions for electronic archiving which can be used by Victorian government agencies to implement electronic archiving systems and strategies. The projects findings, functional descriptions and a general description of the demonstrator system have been published in the Victorian Electronic Records Strategy Final Report.
http://home.vicnet.net.au/~provic/vers/

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