DPC/PADI What's new in digital preservation
Issue no. 2 (May 2002-June 2002)
compiled by Gerard Clifton (National Library of
Australia) and Michael Day (UKOLN,
University of Bath) 15th July 2002
This is a summary of selected recent activity in the field of digital
preservation compiled from the Preserving Access to Digital Information (PADI) Gateway and the
digital-preservation
and padiforum-l mailing
lists.
1.1 The Digital Preservation Coalition
The Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) launched its own web site on
May 31, 2002. Formerly hosted by the Joint Information Systems Committee, the
site provides an online edition of "Preservation Management of Digital
Materials: A Handbook" by Maggie Jones and Neil Beagrie, developed by Neil
Beagrie and Brett Scillitoe for the Digital Preservation Coalition and
including Web Hotlinks and fully updated URLs. Also available is information
about the DPC's missions, goals and principles, its program of work, and its
membership and affiliations. Related links, contact information and a list of
recent events and events in progress organised by the Digital Preservation
Coalition are available.
Among the meeting reports and presentations are those from the DPC forum
with industry "Future Research and Development for Digital Asset Preservation,"
held at Prospect House, London, on 5th June, 2002.
DPC Web Site: http://www.dpconline.org/
Events, reports and presentations:
http://www.dpconline.org/graphics/events/
Handbook: http://www.dpconline.org/graphics/handbook/
1.2 OCLC/RLG Working Groups
Both joint OCLC/RLG Working Groups have produced final recommendations
documents within the last two months.
The final report of the RLG/OCLC Digital Archive Attributes Working
Group was released in May 2002. The Working Group's deliberations and report is
in response to the perceived need for "a definition and consensus on the
characteristics of a sustainable digital archives for large-scale,
heterogeneous collections held by research repositories".
Available in PDF format and entitled "Trusted Digital Repositories:
Attributes and Responsibilities" the report many be obtained from the RLG web
site: http://www.rlg.org/longterm/repositories.pdf
In June 2002, the OCLC/RLG Preservation Metadata Working Group produced
a combined set of proposed metadata elements for OAIS-recommended "Content
Information" and "Preservation Description Information" (PDI), sets which had
been developed separately through the actions of the Working Group. Published
in PDF format, the combined document is entitled "Preservation Metadata and the
OAIS Information Model: A Metadata Framework to Support the Preservation of
Digital Objects" and is available from the OCLC web site at:
http://www.oclc.org/research/pmwg/pm_framework.pdf
1.3 Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC)
The Joint Information Systems Committee released a Consultation Draft
for comment on their intended directions for 2002-2005 - "Towards A Continuing
Access and Digital Preservation Strategy for the Joint Information Systems
Committee (JISC) 2002-2005, Consultation Draft Version 1.1," 30 May 2002. While
the deadline for comment (12 July 2002) has now passed, the document provides
useful information regarding JISC's future key aims and objectives,
implementation mechanisms, roles and responsibilities, and standards and models
for preservation, retention and digital preservation. See:
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/dner/preservation/dpstrategy2002b.html
2.1 The US National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation
Program (NDIIPP)
The NDIIPP recently launched its own web site at:
http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/ndiipp/.
The site provides information about the program's mission, advisory board,
funding and the Digital Strategy Oversight Group, as well as links to the
program's strategic planning directions and a number of papers and reports.
Among the reports are a series of background environmental scans by
recognised experts in six topic areas in which the Library of Congress "faces
collection-management issues: large Web sites, electronic books, electronic
journals, digitally recorded sound, digital film, and digital television."
The collected papers, including a summary by Amy Friedlander, are also
available as a Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR)
publication,"Building a National Strategy for Preservation: Issues in Digital
Media Archiving" at:
http://www.clir.org/pubs/abstract/pub106abst.html
2.2 Testbed Digitale Bewaring (Digital Preservation Testbed)
Part of a wider Digitale Duurzaamheid (Digital Longevity) programme, the
Digital Preservation Testbed was established by the Dutch Government to
research approaches for retaining long-term accessibility to government
information. The Testbed's research focuses on four document types (text
documents, email, spreadsheets and databases) using three preservation
approaches (migration, emulation, XML) and aims to examine the effectiveness,
limitations, costs and potential for application of each approach.
Maureen Potter, Experiment Operator with the project, recently provided
an update on the project's progress in RLG DigiNews, describing the work of the
Testbed, outlining the aims, experimental methodology and expected deliverables
of the project, as well as providing some preliminary findings for text
documents and emails:
Maureen Potter, "Researching Long Term Digital Preservation Approaches
in the Dutch Digital Preservation Testbed (Testbed Digitale Bewaring)." RLG
DigiNews, 6 (3) June 2002.
http://www.rlg.org/preserv/diginews/diginews6-3.html#feature2
The web site for the Testbed, in either Dutch or English, may be found
by following the links from the parent programme site:
http://www.digitaleduurzaamheid.nl/
2.3 Kulturarw3: "New Decree for Kulturarw3"
A special decree by the Swedish government, accepted on May 8, 2002,
authorises the Royal Library of Sweden to collect Swedish web sites from the
Internet and to allow the public access to the archive within the Library
premises.
The Royal Library has previously rejected all requests to access the
material it has been collecting from the Swedish Web since 1996, as it
considered any right to acquire, preserve and make the material available to be
only indirectly approved by legislation. A challenge to the legitimacy of the
project in 2001 led to the further support and authorisation of the Royal
Library's web-archiving operation.
The press release is available at:
http://www.kb.se/Info/Pressmed/Arkiv/2002/020605.htm
(Swedish)
http://www.kb.se/Info/Pressmed/Arkiv/2002/020605_eng.htm
(English)
3.1 Recent Events:
3.1.1 DLM-FORUM 2002 - Access and Preservation of Electronic
Information: Best Practices and Solutions held at Palacio de Congresos de
Cataluña, Barcelona, Spain, 7-8 May 2002. Links to PDF versions of
conference conclusions, summaries of six Industry White Papers and a speakers
book and abstracts is available at:
http://www.dlmforum2002.org/angles/programa.htm
An event report by Rosilind Johnson was published in Cultivate
Interactive, issue 7, July 2002:
http://www.cultivate-int.org/issue7/dlm/
3.1.2 Multimedia Archive Preservation Workshop, London, 22-24 June,
2002. An event report by Richard Wright (BBC) was published in Cultivate
Interactive, issue 7, July 2002:
http://www.cultivate-int.org/issue7/prestows/
3.1.3 Future Research and Development for Digital Asset Preservation
held at Prospect House, London, 5 June 2002. A meeting report and
presentations from the Digital Preservation Coalition's forum with industry (as
already noted in Section 1.1) are available from:
http://www.dpconline.org/graphics/events/rdfuture.html
3.2 Forthcoming Events:
3.2.1 Society of American Archivists Professional Education Offering:
Archival Perspectives in Digital Preservation 19 Aug 2002 , Birmingham,
Alabama (United States of America)
http://www.archivists.org/prof-education/workshop-detail.asp?id=320
3.2.2 ECDL 2002: 6th European Conference on Research and Advanced
Technology for Digital Libraries 16 - 18 Sep 2002, Pontifical Gregorian
University, Rome (Italy) http://www.ecdl2002.org/
3.2.3 La Pérennisation et la Valorisation des Données
Scientifiques et Techniques / Ensuring Long-Term Preservation and Adding Value
to Scientific and Technical Data 5 - 7 Nov 2002, Centre National d'Etudes
Spatiales (CNES), Toulouse (France)
http://www.mediatec-dif.com/pvdst/pvdstfr.html
3.2.4 European Expert Seminar on Methods of Digital Archival Description
and Access 21 - 22 Nov 2002, Copenhagen (Denmark)
http://www.sa.dk/sa/omarkiverne/english/activities/euseminar/default.htm
3.2.5 The 5th International Conference on Asian Digital Libraries -
ICADL2002 11 - 14 Dec 2002, Nanyang Technological University
(Singapore) http://www.cais.ntu.edu.sg:8000/icadl2002/
4.1 NISO Z39.87-2002 AIIM 20-2002, Data Dictionary - Technical
Metadata for Digital Still Images. Draft Standard for Trial Use. Bethesda,
Md.: National Information Standards Organization; Silver Spring, Md.: AIIM
International, 2002.
http://www.niso.org/standards/resources/Z39_87_trial_use.pdf
Released as a Draft for Trial Use over the period 1 June
2002 to 31 December 2003, this NISO document (NISO Z39.87-2002 AIIM 20-2001)
has been produced "to facilitate the development of applications to validate,
manage, migrate and otherwise process images of enduring value" and "to
facilitate interoperability between systems, services and software, as well as
to support the long-term management of and continuing access to digital image
collections". A corresponding XML schema to assist in implementation is
available from the Library of Congress at:
http://www.loc.gov/standards/mix/
4.2 Stephen Pinfield, Michael Gardner and John MacColl "Setting Up an
Institutional E-Print Archive," Ariadne, Issue 31, March-April 2002.
http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue31/eprint-archives/
Based on the experiences at the universities of
Edinburgh and Nottingham in setting up pilot e-print servers, this article
provides an account of several practical issues, including document types and
formats, submission procedures, metadata standards and digital preservation
issues, as well as encouraging user participation in the archive. The archives
were set up and operated using the principles and software tools of the Open
Archives Initiative (OAI).
4.3 William LeFurgy, "Levels of Service for Digital Repositories,"
D-Lib Magazine, 8 (5), May 2002.
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/may02/lefurgy/05lefurgy.html
William LeFurgy of the US National Archives and Records
Administration (NARA) outlines conditions governing persistence of digital
objects, including system architecture and material specification, and suggests
a model for future levels of service for digital repositories, considering
three levels of tools and processes and three levels of persistence of
materials.
4.4 Brewster Kahle, "The Internet Archive, An Interview with Brewster
Kahle," RLG DigiNews, 6 (3), June 2002.
http://www.rlg.org/preserv/diginews/diginews6-3.html#interview
Brewster Kahle, founder and director of the Internet
Archive, discusses the organisational infrastructure, policies and processes of
the Internet Archive and the Wayback Machine and touches on various aspects of
technical, financial and legal issues in digital
archiving.
4.5 Jim McCue, "Can You Archive the Net?" Times Online, April 29, 2002.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7-281852,00.html
A news article from the Times Online, describing the
British Library's establishment of a pilot digital store for web-archiving of
material of British interest. It sets the initiative in the context of similar
efforts in other countries and the technical, economic and intellectual
property issues raised by such activity.
4.6 Kyong-Ho Lee, Oliver Slattery, Richang Lu, Xiao Tang and Victor
McCrary, "The State of the Art and Practice in Digital Preservation,"
Journal of Research of the National Institute of Standards and
Technology, 107 (1), 2002, 93-106.
http://nvl.nist.gov/pub/nistpubs/jres/107/1/cnt107-1.htm
A team from the US National Institute of Standards and
Technology (NIST) has produced this recent survey of ideas and practice in
digital preservation. It first elaborates the various proposed strategies for
digital preservation (including emulation and migration) before introducing a
number of projects and case studies from Australia, Europe and North America.
This section also describes some of NIST's own digital preservation projects. A
final section recommends the development of preservation standards based on
XML, and outlines some critical issues that still need to be
resolved.
4.7 Howard Besser, "The Next Stage: Moving from Isolated Digital
Collections to Interoperable Digital Libraries," First Monday, 7 (3),
3rd June 2002. http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue7_6/besser/
In this paper, Howard Besser of UCLA notes that many
existing digital library developments are primarily collection based and that
they often lack service or preservation components. He then discusses various
ways in which we may be able to move from these isolated digital collections to
a network of interoperable digital libraries. In doing so, he emphasises that
libraries are not just collections but organisations that provide a variety of
services (including their long-term stewardship over collections) and uphold
ethical traditions (e.g. on privacy and equal access).
4.8 Clifford Lynch, "Digital Collections, Digital Libraries and the
Digitization of Cultural Heritage Information," First Monday, 7 (5), 6th
May 2002. http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue7_5/lynch/
Clifford Lynch is the Director of the Coalition for
Networked Information (CNI) and this is a transcript of a keynote paper that he
gave at the Web-Wise 2002 conference held in Baltimore on 20-22 March 2002. The
paper is not uniquely concerned with digital preservation, but it provides a
wide-ranging and thought-provoking look at the sustainability and reusability
of digital content, the distinction between digital collections and digital
libraries and many other issues.
4.9 Sarah Thomas, "From double fold to double bind," Journal of
Academic Librarianship, 28 (3), 2002, 104-108.
This paper by Sarah Thomas of Cornell University is a
general introduction to digital preservation issues with special focus on
recent US-based developments, e.g. Cornell's projects PRISM and
Harvest.
4.10 Neil Beagrie and Philip Pothen, "Web-archiving: Managing and
Archiving Online Documents and Records Monday 25th March, 2002,"
Ariadne, 32, June-July 2002.
http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue32/web-archiving/
A summary of the DPC forum on Web-archiving held in
London.
5.1 DigiCULT.Info Newsletter
http://www.digicult.info/pages/newsletter.html
With its mix of news items, announcements and articles,
this newsletter, produced by the Europe-based Digital Culture (DigiCULT) Forum,
will provide a regular look into selected technology areas affecting the
cultural domain, along with summarising the progress of DigiCULT
Forum.
5.2 Creating and Managing Digital Content
http://www.chin.gc.ca/English/Digital_Content/index.html
Maintained by the Canadian Heritage Information Network,
this web site provides guidance on creating and managing digital resources for
heritage projects, including an overview of issues and resources in
preservation of digital materials.
NATIONAL LIBRARY OF AUSTRALIA, Canberra, ACT 2600, AUSTRALIA
Telephone + 61 2 6262 1111; Facsimile +61 2 6257 1703; Telephone Typewriter
Number: 1800 026 372
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