DPC/PADI What's new in digital preservation
Issue no. 10 (January - May 2005)
Compiled by Michael Day (UKOLN, University of Bath) and Marian
Hanley and Gerard Clifton (National Library of
Australia)
27 May 2005
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.
Additional or related items of interest may also be included.
Contents:
- News from organisations and initiatives
1.1
US National Science Board 1.2 US Library
of Congress and the National Digital Information Infrastructure and
Preservation Program (NDIIPP) 1.3 PREMIS Working
Group 1.4 DigiCULT 1.5 UK Digital
Preservation Coalition (DPC) 1.6 UK Joint Information
Systems Committee (JISC) 1.7 International Council for
Science (ICSU)
- Specific themes
2.1 Peer-to-peer
preservation systems 2.2 The management of scientific
data 2.3 Metadata and object packaging 2.4
Personal archives 2.5 Storage media and
computer forensics 2.6 The evaluation and cost of
digital preservation strategies 2.7 Web
archiving
- Other publications
- Events
4.1 Recent
events 4.2 Forthcoming events
At the end of March 2005, the US National Science Board - an independent
policy body that provides advice on science and engineering matters for the
President and Congress as well as overseeing the National Science Foundation -
issued a draft report for public comment entitled "Long-lived digital data
collections: enabling research and education in the 21st century". The report
specifically tries to address the policy and strategy issues relevant to
long-lived digital data collections funded by the NSF, and to make
recommendations towards harmonising strategy, policies, processes and budgets
for maintaining these collections. The comment period expired at the end of
April.
Comments on the draft by the UK Digital Curation Centre are available on
the DCC Web site (Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://www.dcc.ac.uk/research/reports/nsbreport.pdf)
National Science Board. (2005). Long-lived digital data
collections: enabling research and education in the 21st century. National
Science Board draft report NSB-05-40, 30 March. Retrieved 27 May, 2005
from: http://www.nsf.gov/nsb/meetings/2005/LLDDC_draftreport.pdf
At the beginning of May, the Library of Congress National Digital
Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program and the National Science
Foundation announced the funding of 11 research projects designed to support
the long-term management of digital information. The titles of the projects
funded under the research programme are the following:
- Multi-Institution testbed for scalable digital archiving (University
of California San Diego, Scripps Institute of Oceanography, San Diego
Supercomputer Center; Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)
- Robust technologies for automated ingestion and long-term
preservation of digital information (University of Maryland)
- Digital engineering archives (Drexel University)
- Digital preservation lifecycle management: building a demonstration
prototype for the preservation of large scale multimedia collections
(University of California San Diego, San Diego Supercomputer Center)
- Investigating data provenance in the context of new product design
and development (University of Arizona)
- Incentives for data producers to create archive-ready data sets
(University of Michigan)
- Shared infrastructure preservation models (Old Dominion
University)
- Planning a globally accessible archive of MODIS data (University of
Tennessee at Knoxville)
- Preserving video objects and context: a demonstration project
(University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
- Securely managing the lifetime of versions in digital archives
(Johns Hopkins University)
Short project summaries are available in the press release issued by the
Library of Congress: Library of Congress and National Science Foundation
announce research awards of $3 million to advance digital preservation
[press release]. Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2005/05-118.html
In May 2005, OCLC Online Computer Library Center and the Research
Libraries Group published the final report of the PREMIS (Preservation
Metadata: Implementation Strategies) Working Group. This highly significant
report includes the PREMIS Data Model, version 1.0 of the PREMIS Data
Dictionary, as well as some examples and implementation guidance. A set of XML
Bindings is available separately.
PREMIS Working Group. (2005). Data dictionary for
preservation metadata: final report of the PREMIS Working Group. Dublin,
Ohio: OCLC Online Computer Library Center; Mountain View, Calif.: Research
Libraries Group, May. Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://www.oclc.org/research/projects/pmwg/
At the end of 2004, the DigiCULT consortium produced a report entitled
The future digital heritage space: an expedition report, edited by
Guntram Geser and John Pereira of Salzburg Research. Attractively illustrated
with images from the German Maritime Museum and using the analogy of a
scientific expedition, this important report explores the future landscape for
information and communications technology in cultural heritage applications and
is based on the contributions of 62 researchers and professionals to a DigiCULT
online consultation forum. The report covers a number of key themes in detail,
including: knowledge representation and semantics, the understanding of objects
in their appropriate contexts, user interaction and interfaces,
three-dimensional objects and virtual reality, distributed information systems,
and persistent and perpetual access. The report concludes with a summary and
recommendations.
Geser, G., & Pereira, J., eds. (2004). The future
digital heritage space: an expedition report. DigiCULT thematic issue 7,
December (88 pp.). ISBN 3-902448-04-0. Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://www.digicult.info/pages/themiss.php
DigiCULT has also published a technology watch report entitled "Core
technologies for the cultural and scientific heritage sector." Individual
chapters cover open-source software and standards, natural language processing,
information retrieval, location-based systems (e.g. using geographical
information systems (GIS) or Global Positioning System (GPS) technologies),
data visualisation, and the technologies of telepresence, haptics and
robotics.
Ross, S., Donnelly, M., Dobreva, M., Abbott, D., McHugh, A.,
& Rusbridge, A. (2005). Core technologies for the cultural and
scientific heritage sector. DigiCULT technology watch report 3, January
(296 pp.) ISBN 92-894-5277-3. Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://www.digicult.info/pages/techwatch.php
In February 2005 the Digital Preservation Coalition published a
technology watch report on the large-scale storage of digital objects. The
report was based on the practical experience in developing a Digital Object
Management system for the British Library. The report includes an overview of
general issues related to the building of large secure data storage systems,
including storage management, emerging technologies and software. A report from
a related DPC meeting on large-scale archival storage has also been published
on the DPC Web site (retrieved May 27, 2005, from:
http://www.dpconline.org/graphics/events/050422meeting.html.
Linden, J., Martin, S., Masters, R., & Parker, R. (2005).
The large-scale archival storage of digital objects. DPC Technology
Watch Series Report 04-03, February (20 pp). Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://www.dpconline.org/docs/dpctw04-03.pdf
One of the many useful resources maintained by the DPC is the
Preservation Management of Digital Materials handbook, first published by the
British Library in 2001. Neil Beagrie outlines the handbook's current use in
training contexts and looks forward to its integration into a modular training
course on digital preservation being developed by the University of London
Computer Centre, Cornell University, the British Library and the DPC.
Beagrie, N. (2005). "Digital preservation: best practice and
its dissemination." Ariadne, 43, April. Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue43/beagrie/
The previous edition of this bulletin reported on the JISC's Digital
Preservation and Asset Management in Institutions programme. Leona Carpenter
provides a brief overview of the projects funded under this programme in the
April issue of Ariadne. One of the other projects in this programme, the espida
project led by the University of Glasgow, has published a report of its
inaugural event, a workshop on the "sustainable preservation of digital assets
in a university" held in February 2005 (retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://www.gla.ac.uk/espida/).
Carpenter, L. (2005). "Supporting digital preservation and
asset management in institutions." Ariadne, 43, April. Retrieved 27
May, 2005 from: http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue43/carpenter/
In February 2005, supported by a review commissioned from Heery and
Anderson (2005), the JISC issued a call for proposals for funding in the area
of digital repositories. The deadline for completed proposals was the 7 April
2005, so decisions on the projects funded will be published shortly.
Heery, R., & Anderson, S. (2005). Digital repositories
review. JISC, February. Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/rep-review-final-20050220.pdf
JISC Digital Repositories programme, retrieved 27 May, 2005
from:
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=programme_digital_repositories
At the end of 2004, the International Council for Science published the
report of the Committee on Scientific Planning and Review (CSPR) Assessment
Panel on Scientific Data and Information. Most fundamentally, this concluded
that the research community should assume responsibility for building a robust
data and information infrastructure for the future and produced a number of
recommendations to support this objective.
International Council for Science (2004). Scientific data
and information: report of the CSPR Assessment Panel, December. ISBN
0-930357-60-4. Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://www.icsu.org/Gestion/img/ICSU_DOC_DOWNLOAD/551_ DD_FILE_PAA_Data_and_Information.pdf
Some preservation strategies advocate the use of peer-to-peer systems
for replicating and preserving the integrity of digital resources. A good
example is the LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) system developed to
preserve electronic journals or other Web based information. Maniatis, et
al. (2005) provide an introduction to the LOCKSS system and present a
protocol that can be used to detect and repair damage within peer-to-peer
networks. Parno and Roussopoulos (2004) simulate the LOCKSS system's behaviour
using dynamic models, proposing and evaluating countermeasures to network
subversion. Rosenthal, et al. (2005) report on a implementation of
format migration for Web content in LOCKSS.
Researchers based at Stanford University describe a similar peer-to-peer
information preservation and exchange network (PIPE). Cooper, et al.
(2005) outline the services required in these networks, specifically to deal
with malicious sites that may delete or alter data, or refuse to serve it. In a
second article, Cooper and Garcia-Molina (2005) look at 'bid trading' between
sites in these networks, defining a range of trading scenarios. A more general
introduction to peer-to-peer preservation systems can be found in Bungale,
Goodell and Roussopoulos (2005).
References:
Bungale, P. P., Goodell, G., & Roussopoulos, M. (2005).
"Conservation vs. consensus in peer-to-peer preservation systems." 4th
International Workshop on Peer-to-Peer Systems (IPTPS '05), Ithaca, N.Y., USA,
February 24-25, 2005. Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://iptps05.cs.cornell.edu/PDFs/CameraReady_214.pdf
Preprint retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~mema/publications/iptps2005-Conservation.pdf
Cooper, B.F., Bawa, M., Daswani, N., Marti, S., &
Garcia-Molina, H. (2005). "Authenticity and availability in PIPE networks."
Future Generation Computer Systems, 21(3), 391-400. Avaialble (to
subscribers) from ScienceDirect: doi:10.1016/j.future.2004.04.017 Preprint
retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~cooperb/pubs/pipe.pdf
Cooper B.F., & Garcia-Molina, H. (2005). "Peer-to-peer data
preservation through storage auctions" IEEE Transactions on Parallel and
Distributed Systems, 16(3), 246-257. Available (to subscribers) from IEEE
Xplore: DOI: 10.1109/TPDS.2005.34 Preprint retrieved 27 May, 2005 from
http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~cooperb/pubs/bidtradingtpds.pdf
Maniatis, P., Roussopoulos, M., Giuli, T.J., Rosenthal, D.S.H.,
& Baker, M. (2005). "The LOCKSS peer-to-peer digital preservation system."
ACM Transactions on Computer Systems, 23(1), 2-50. Available (to
subscribers) from the ACM Digital Library, retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1047915.1047917 Preprint
retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://berkeley.intel-research.net/maniatis/publications/tocs2004.pdf
Parno, B., & Roussopoulos, M. (2004). "Defending a P2P
digital preservation system." IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure
Computing, 1(4), 209-222. Available (to subscribers) from: IEEE Xplore:
DOI: 10.1109/TDSC.2004.39 Preprint retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~mema/publications/defendingLOCKSS.pdf
Rosenthal, D. S. H., Lipkis, T., Robertson, T. S., &
Morabito, S. (2005). "Transparent format migration of preserved Web content."
D-Lib Magazine, 11(1), January 2005. Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/january05/rosenthal/01rosenthal.html
A number of conference and journal papers have reported on research work
in the area of the management of scientific data. Some of this work is not
directly related to long-term preservation, but they do point to some current
directions in scientific data management research.
Jim Gray of Microsoft Research and his various collaborators have
produced a series of recent papers looking at petabyte-scale data management
and related issues. The first of these looked at the lessons learned in the
development of management tools for data-intensive services like the World Wide
Telescope (Gray & Szalay, 2004). A more specialised paper given at the 2005
Conference on Innovative Data Systems Research (CIDR) looked at the interfaces
between database systems and Grid technologies, noting that databases are
currently rarely used in Grid projects to perform analytic tasks
(Nieto-Santisteban, et al., 2005). An third paper (Gray, et
al., 2005) looked at prospects for the coming decade, including the need
for new data-analysis methods, the growing importance of scientific data
centres, and the use of metadata for facilitating access and re-use.
Moore, Rajasekar & Wan (2005) of the San Diego Supercomputing Center
(SDSC) have produced an important paper looking at the potential for data
grids, digital library technologies and persistent archives to combine to
produce an integrated way of publishing, sharing and preserving research
data.
SDSC have also been collaborating with the University of Maryland and
the US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) on a NSF-funded
research project on Persistent Digital Archives. This has set up a distributed
pilot archive linked through the SDSC Storage Resource Broker (SRB) software.
As part of this project, the University of Maryland's Institute for Advanced
Computer Studies has been developing a system for ingest called the Producer -
Archive Workflow Network (PAWN), details of which have recently been published
(JaJa, McCall & Smorul, 2004; Smorul, et al., 2004). An update on
the project focusing on the issues of authenticity, cost and scalability was
recently presented at the annual Conference on Mass Storage Systems and
Technologies (MSST 2005) hosted by NASA Goddard (Moore, JaJa & Chadduck,
2005).
The 'data deluge' currently underway in many scientific disciplines
means that there is an increased interest in the storage and management of data
at the petabyte-scale. In the particle physics domain, the international BaBar
experiment based at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) has been
generating vast amounts of data since around 1999. A recent conference paper
has drawn on experience with SLAC's BaBar data store to investigate some of the
wider issues surrounding the management of petabytes of data (Becla & Wang,
2005). Some papers at the 2005 Mass Storage Systems and Technologies conference
also dealt with dealing with the problems of petabyte-scale storage; links to
all papers and presentation material can be found on the conference Web site
(Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from: http://www.storageconference.org/2005/).
Knowing the provenance (or lineage) of scientific datasets is essential
if they are to be understood or accurately re-used by other scientists. Bose
and Frew (2005) have produced a survey of data lineage research and propose a
metamodel that can be used for lineage retrieval. Other recent papers on the
provenance of scientific data include two technical reports issued by the PASOA
project led by the University of Southampton (Miles, et al., 2005;
Moreau, et al., 2005). Paskin (2005) also explores the potential
application of Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) to scientific data.
Zeller, Froese & Pauly (2005) highlight the problem of data loss in
the marine science domain, noting the importance of historical data for
investigating changes in biodiversity over time. They look in detail at the
creation of a database from data recorded (on paper) by the Guinean Trawling
Survey in the early 1960s, noting that such 'data recovery' was vastly cheaper
than the cost of the original survey. They recommend that research institutions
and funding agencies should make digital data globally available, e.g.
through services like the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF).
However, the authors do not really address the problem of curating the
databases resulting from the 'data recovery' processes they advocate.
A recent issue of CODATA's Data Science Journal (retrieved 27
May, 2005, from: http://www.datasciencejournal.org/)contains
a special section on the selection, appraisal and retention of scientific and
technical data. This contains the full-text of four papers (Anderson, 2004;
Eastwood, 2004; Fusco & van Bemmelen, 2004; Gutman, et al., 2004),
first presented at a joint CODATA and ERPANET workshop held in Lisbon in
December 2003. A report of the workshop by Esanu, et al (2004) was
also published in the same issue.
References:
Anderson, W. L. (2004). "Some challenges and issues in
managing, and preserving access to, long-lived collections of digital
scientific and technical data." Data Science Journal, 3, 191-202.
Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://journals.eecs.qub.ac.uk/codata/Journal/contents/3_04/3_04pdfs/DS389.pdf
Becla, J., & Wang, D. L. (2005). "Lessons learned from
managing a petabyte." Proceedings of the 2005 Conference on Innovative Data
Systems Research (CIDR), Asilomar, Calif, USA, January 4-7, 2005.
Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://www-db.cs.wisc.edu/cidr/cidr2005/papers/P06.pdf
Bose, R., & Frew, J. (2005). "Lineage retrieval for
scientific data processing: a survey." ACM Computing Surveys, 37(1),
1-28. Available (to subscribers) from ACM Portal, retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1057977.1057978.
Preprint retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/rbose/pubs/bose_2005_ACM_CS.pdf
Eastwood, T. (2004). "Appraising digital records for long-term
preservation." Data Science Journal, 3, 202-208. Retrieved 27 May,
2005 from:
http://journals.eecs.qub.ac.uk/codata/Journal/contents/3_04/3_04pdfs/DS387.pdf
Esanu, J., Davidson, J., Ross, S., & Anderson, W. (2004).
"Selection, appraisal, and retention of digital scientific data: highlights of
an ERPANET/CODATA workshop." Data Science Journal, 3, 226-232.
Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://journals.eecs.qub.ac.uk/codata/Journal/contents/3_04/3_04pdfs/DS390.pdf
Fusco, L., & van Bemmelen, J. (2004). "Earth observation
archives in digital library and grid infrastructures." Data Science
Journal, 3, 222-226. Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://journals.eecs.qub.ac.uk/codata/Journal/contents/3_04/3_04pdfs/DS388.pdf
Gray, J., & Szalay, A. S. (2004). "Where the rubber meets
the sky: bridging the gap between databases and science." IEEE Data
Engineering Bulletin, 27(4), 3-11. Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://research.microsoft.com/research/pubs/view.aspx?tr_id=815 Also
available (retrieved 27 May, 2005) from:
http://arxiv.org/abs/cs.DB/0502011
Gray, J., Liu, D. T., Nieto-Santisteban, M., Szalay, A. S.,
DeWitt, D., & Heber, G. (2005). "Scientific data management in the coming
decade." Technical Report MSR-TR-2005-10, Redmond, Wa.: Microsoft
Research. Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://research.microsoft.com/research/pubs/view.aspx?tr_id=860.
Also available (retrieved 27 May, 2005) from:
http://arxiv.org/abs/cs.DB/0502008
Gutmann, M., Schüer, K., Donakowski, D., & Beedham, H.
(2004). "The selection, appraisal, and retention of social science data."
Data Science Journal, 3, 209-221. Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://journals.eecs.qub.ac.uk/codata/Journal/contents/3_04/3_04pdfs/DS386.pdf
JaJa, J., McCall, F., Smorul, M., Moore, R., & Chadduck, R.
(2004). Digital archiving and long-term preservation: an early experience
with Grid and digital library technologies. THIC Meeting, Upper Marlboro,
Md., USA, October 26-27, 2004. Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://www.archives.gov/electronic_records_archives/papers/thic_04.html
JaJa, J., Smorul, M., McCall, F., & Yang, W. (2005).
"Scalable, reliable marshalling and organization of distributed large scale
data onto enterprise storage environments." Proceedings of the 22nd IEEE /
13th NASA Goddard Conference on Mass Storage Systems and Technologies (MSST
2005), Monterey, Calif., USA, April 11-14, 2005, Los Alamitos, Calif.:
IEEE Computer Society, 197-201. Available (to subscribers) from IEEE Xplore:
doi:10.1109/MSST.2005.29 Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://www.storageconference.org/2005/papers/18_jajaj_marshalling.pdf
Miles, S., Groth, P., Branco, M., & Moreau, L. (2005). "The
requirements of recording and using provenance in e-science experiments."
University of Southampton Electronics and Computer Science Technical
Report. Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/10269/
Moore, R. W., JaJa, J. F., & Chadduck, R. (2005).
"Mitigating risk of data loss in preservation environments." Proceedings of
the 22nd IEEE / 13th NASA Goddard Conference on Mass Storage Systems and
Technologies (MSST 2005), Monterey, Calif., USA, April 11-14, 2005, Los
Alamitos, Calif.: IEEE Computer Society, 39-48. Available (to subscribers) from
IEEE Xplore: doi:10.1109/MSST.2005.20 Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://www.storageconference.org/2005/papers/04_moorer_risk.pdf
Moore, R.W., Rajasekar, A., & Wan, M. (2005). "Data grids,
digital libraries, and persistent archives: an integrated approach to sharing,
publishing, and archiving data." Proceedings of the IEEE, 2005, 93(3),
578-588. Available (to subscribers) from IEEE Xplore:
doi:10.1109/JPROC.2004.842761 Preprint retrieved 27 May 2005, from:
http://www.sdsc.edu/dice/Pubs/IEEE_Moore.doc
Moreau, L., Chen, L., Groth, P., Ibbotson, J., Luck, M., Miles,
S., Rana, O., Tan, V., Willmott, S., & Xu, F. (2005). "Logical architecture
strawman for provenance systems." University of Southampton Electronics and
Computer Science Technical Report. Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/10796/
Nieto-Santisteban, M. A., Gray, J., Szalay, A. S., Annis, J.,
Thakar, A. R., & O'Mullane, W. J. (2005). "When database systems meet the
grid." Proceedings of the 2005 Conference on Innovative Data Systems
Research (CIDR), Asilomar, Calif, USA, January 4-7, 2005. Retrieved 27
May, 2005 from:
http://www-db.cs.wisc.edu/cidr/cidr2005/papers/P13.pdf
Paskin, N.(2005). "Digital object identifiers for scientific
data." Data Science Journal, 4, 12-20. Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://journals.eecs.qub.ac.uk/codata/Journal/contents/4_05/4_05pdfs/DS392.pdf
Smorul, M., JaJa, J., Wang, Y., & McCall, F. (2004). "PAWN:
Producer - Archive Workflow Network in support of digital preservation."
Technical Report CS-TR-4607 UMIACS-TR-2004-49. College Park, Md.:
University of Maryland. Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://www.umiacs.umd.edu/research/adapt/papers/UMIACS-TR-2004-49.pdf
Zeller, D., Froese, R., & Pauly, D. (2005). "On losing and
recovering fisheries and marine science data." Marine Policy, 29(1),
69-73. Available (to subscribers) from ScienceDirect:
doi:10.1016/j.marpol.2004.02.003
The publication in May 2005 of the PREMIS Working Group's Data
Dictionary for Preservation Metadata is a highly significant step (retrieved 27
May, 2005 from: http://www.oclc.org/research/projects/pmwg/),
as noted in the section on the PREMIS Working Group, above.
Amongst other publications, Brindley, Muir and Probets (2004)
investigate the possibility of using the ONIX metadata schema used by
publishers for generating preservation metadata. Brown (2005) provides an
update on the PRONOM format registry system developed for the UK National
Archives, describing enhancements to the technical registry, unique identifiers
for file formats, and development of a tool for automatic file format
identification. The US Government Printing Office (GPO) published a report of a
Meeting of Experts on Digital Preservation: Metadata Specifications on
their Web site (retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/about/reports/metadata.html).
The packaging of complex digital objects is another area of relevance to
those interested in digital preservation, with a great deal of current interest
in the Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard (METS). Researchers at the
University of Ghent have looked at the MPEG-21 Digital Item Declaration (DID)
as a promising new packaging format, making comparisons with METS, the Sharable
Content Object Reference Model (SCORM), and the Content Packaging XML Binding
of the Instructional Management System (IMS) project (Bekaert, De Kooning,
& Van de Walle, 2005).
Regarding specific formats, the JPEG2000 in Libraries and Archives Web
site (retrieved 27 May, 2005 from: http://j2karclib.info/) was launched in early
2005, and allows users to register and post their own information on best
practice, articles, projects, and products that use the standard. The Web site
also provides access to a report of a 2004 Symposium on JPEG2000 and other
resources. The Web site has a companion mailing list discussing the application
of JPEG2000 in libraries and archives.
References:
Bekaert, J., De Kooning, E., & Van de Walle, R. (2005).
"Packaging models for the storage and distribution of complex digital objects
in archival information systems: a review of MPEG-21 DID principles."
Multimedia Systems, 10(4), 286-301. Available (to subscribers) from
SpringerLink: DOI: 10.1007/s00530-005-0163-x
Brindley, G., Muir, A., & Probets, S. (2004). "Provision of
digital preservation metadata: a role for ONIX?" Program, 38(4),
240-250.
Brown, A. (2005). "Automating preservation: new developments in
the PRONOM service." RLG DigiNews, 9(2), 15 April. Retrieved 27 May,
2005 from: http://www.rlg.org/en/page.php?Page_ID=20571#article1
Interest in the preservation of personal archives is increasing, as is
reflected in the development of new initiatives and projects, including the
Paradigm project and Ourmedia.
JISC has funded the Paradigm (Personal Archives Accessible in Digital
Media) project as part of its Supporting Institutional Digital Preservation and
Asset Management programme. It is a two-year exemplar project exploring the
issues involved in the long-term preservation of digital private papers. Using
the digital papers of contemporary UK politicians, the project will test
digital preservation tools and digital repository software, and produce an
online "Digital Private Papers Workbook" that will include template policies
and procedures (Paradigm project Web site retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://www.paradigm.ac.uk/).
Launched in 2005, Ourmedia (retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://ourmedia.org/) is a project that
allows third parties to store personal files (e.g., images, audio,
video and games) in its managed digital repository. The project's FAQ page says
that the site will act as "a central gathering spot where professionals and
amateurs come together to share works, offer tips and tutorials, and interact
in a combination community space and virtual library that will preserve these
works for future generations." Partners in Ourmedia include the Internet
Archive, which has undertaken to provide storage space for submitted files for
"generations to come."
While they are only one part of a long-term digital preservation
strategy, there is still a keen interest in the reliability and longevity of
storage media.
The United States government has developed a survey that seeks opinions
on the longevity of optical disks. The survey, developed by the Government
Information Preservation Working Group (GIPWoG) is working with the National
Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to establish a "long-term, or
archival, standard measurement for recordable CD and DVD media". The deadline
for submission is May 31 2005.
Government survey: how long do you want digital storage media to
last? Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://www.dvda.org/html/nist_survey.php
In other publications, Slattery, et al. (2004) of the US
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has produced a study of
commercially available recordable CD and DVD media that shows wide differences
in the stability of the products of different manufacturers. Wirth, et
al. (2005) have compared the use of different media types (hard disk
arrays, magneto-optical disks, magnetic tape) in medical picture archiving and
communication systems (PACS), but their recommendations are based on retrieval
times rather than media stability.
Forensic computing is another area of growing interest, with new
journals like Digital Investigation providing a focus for new research
and discussion. A general introduction to the subject is the paper by Wang,
Cannady & Rosenbluth (2005). Articles frequently touch on media issues: for
example, Nikkel (2005) looks at the recovery of evidential data from magnetic
tapes. An article by Fernandez, et al. (2005) argues that there is a
growing need to include courses in forensics in computer science education.
BouHaidar (2005) provides a short introduction to Web sites of relevance to
forensic computing.
References:
BouHaidar, R. (2005). "Forensic webwatch: forensic computing."
Journal of Clinical Forensic Medicine, 12(1), 47-49. Available (to
subscribers) from ScienceDirect: doi:10.1016/j.jcfm.2005.01.001
Fernandez, J. D., Smith, S., Garcia, M., & Kar, D. (2005).
"Computer forensics: a critical need in computer science programs." Journal
of Computing Sciences in Colleges, 20(4), 315-322. Available (to
subscribers) from the ACM Portal, Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1047846.1047894
Nikkel, B. J. (2005). "Forensic acquisition and analysis of
magnetic tapes." Digital Investigation, 2(1), 8-18. Available (to
subscribers) from ScienceDirect: doi:10.1016/j.diin.2005.01.007
Slattery, O., Lu, R., Zheng, J., Byers, F., & Tang, X.
(2004) "Stability comparison of recordable optical discs - A study of error
rates in harsh conditions." Journal of Research of the National Institute
of Standards and Technology, 109(5), 517-524. Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://www.itl.nist.gov/div895/gipwg/StabilityStudy.pdf
Wang, Y., Cannady, J., & Rosenbluth, J. (2005).
"Foundations of computer forensics: a technology for the fight against computer
crime." Computer Law & Security Report, 21, 119-127. Available (to
subscribers) from ScienceDirect: doi:10.1016/j.clsr.2005.02.007
Wirth, S., Treitl, M., Lucke, A., Mittermaier, I.,
Nissen-Meyer, S., Villain, S., Pfeifer, K. -J., & Reiser, M. (2005).
"Empfehlungen zur Medienwahl für die Archivierung radiologischer Bilddaten
auf der Basis einer Analyse der Zugriffszeiten auf verschiedene
PACS-Archivebenen" [Recommendations for the selection of storage media for
archiving digital radiological image data based on the comparisons of retrieval
times at different PACS archive levels]. RöFo - Fortschritte auf dem
Gebiet der Röntgenstrahlen und der bildgebenden Verfahren, 177(2),
250-257.
Oltmans & Kol (2005) make cost comparisons of migration and
emulation strategies. They use the example of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek's
e-Depot and predict that an emulation strategy will be more cost effective in
institutions which have larger collections.
A key issue for preservation services is the need to make the links
between the significant properties of resources, file formats, and preservation
strategies. Rauch and Rauber (2004) of Vienna University of Technology present
an interesting approach to the selection of preservation strategies based on an
adapted version of Utility Analysis, used to gather requirements for the
preservation process.
Van der Hoeven, van Diessen & van der Meer (2005) introduce
preservation strategies based on emulation and describe the development of an
enhanced Universal Virtual Computer (UVC) developed for the Koninklijke
Bibliotheek (National Library of the Netherlands) for emulating the JPEG and
GIF97a formats. The UVC tool is available on the Alphaworks Web site for
testing.
References:
Oltmans, E., & Kol, N. (2005). "A comparison between
migration and emulation in terms of cost." RLG DigiNews, 9(2), 15
April. Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://www.rlg.org/en/page.php?Page_ID=20571#article0
Rauch, C., & Rauber, A. (2004). "Preserving digital media:
towards a preservation solution evaluation metric." In: Chen, Z., et
al. (eds.), Digital libraries: international collaboration and
cross-fertilization: 7th International Conference on Asian Digital Libraries,
ICADL 2004, Shanghai, China, December 13-17, 2004: proceedings,
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 3334, Berlin: Springer Verlag,
203-212. Available (to subscribers) from SpringerLink: DOI: 10.1007/b104284
Preprint retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://www.ifs.tuwien.ac.at/~andi/publications/pdf/rau_icadl04.pdf
Van der Hoeven, J.R., van Diessen, R.J., van der Meer, K.
(2005). "Development of a Universal Virtual Computer (UVC) for long-term
preservation of digital objects." Journal of Information Science,
31(3), 196-208.
The first phase of the UK Web Archive - a searchable collection of Web
sites selected for their scholarly, cultural and scientific value - was made
available in early May 1005 (retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://www.webarchive.org.uk/)
Reports of the Archiving Web Resources conference held at the National
Library of Australia in November 2004 are now available on the NLA Web site
(retrieved 27 May, 2005 from: http://www.nla.gov.au/webarchiving/)
and in RLG DigiNews (Phillips, 2005).
Some publications from the Centre for Internet Research at the
University of Aarhus deal with what is called the micro archiving of Web sites,
that is, the storage of sites by researchers who want to keep them for further
study. Brügger (2005) provides an introduction and an outline of
methodological issues, plus a step-by-step guide to archiving Web sites. The
related paper by Thomasen (2004) tests some of the available software.
Hiiragi, et al. (2004) present a Web archiving system that is
designed to collect resources in accordance with separately defined
policies.
References:
Brügger, N. (2005). Archiving Websites: general
considerations and strategies. University of Aarhus, Centre for Internet
Research (78 pp). ISBN 87-990507-0-6. Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://cfi.imv.au.dk/eng/pub/webarc
Hiiragi, W., Sakaguchi, T., Sugimoto, S., & Tabata, K.
(2004). "A policy-based system for institutional web archiving." In: Chen, Z.,
et al. (eds.), Digital libraries: international collaboration and
cross-fertilization: 7th International Conference on Asian Digital Libraries,
ICADL 2004, Shanghai, China, December 13-17, 2004: proceedings,
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 3334, Berlin: Springer Verlag,
144-154. Available (to subscribers) from SpringerLink: DOI: 10.1007/b104284
Phillips, M. E. (2005). "Archiving Web Resources International
Conference: issues for cultural heritage organisations." RLG DigiNews,
9(1), 15 February. Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://www.rlg.org/en/page.php?Page_ID=20522#article2
Thomasen, B. H. (2004). "Tests of software and strategies for
micro-archiving Websites." University of Aarhus, Centre for Internet Research,
December. Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://cfi.imv.au.dk/eng/pub/webarc/test_premises_thomasen.pdf
Bradley, R. (2005). "Digital authenticity and integrity: digital
cultural heritage documents as research resources." Portal: Libraries and
the Academy, 5(2), pp 165-175.
Presents the results of a North American survey investigating
the authenticity and integrity of digital content.
Chen, S. S. (2004). "Digital preservation and workflow process." In:
Chen, Z., et al. (eds.), Digital libraries: international
collaboration and cross-fertilization: 7th International Conference on Asian
Digital Libraries, ICADL 2004, Shanghai, China, December 13-17, 2004:
proceedings, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 3334, Berlin: Springer
Verlag, 61-72. Available (to subscribers) from SpringerLink: DOI:
10.1007/b104284
Discusses three factors (archival stability, organizational
process, and technology continuity) that are essential for digital preservation
strategies to succeed.
Cloonan, M.V., & Sanett, S. (2005). "The preservation of digital
content." Portal: Libraries and the Academy, 5(2), 213-237.
Presents work undertaken in the Preservation Task Force of the
InterPARES (International Research on Permanent Authentic Records in Electronic
Systems) project, incorporating the results from surveys and interviews
undertaken between 2001 and 2003.
Danner R.A. (2004). "Issues in the preservation of born-digital
scholarly communications in law." Law Library Journal, 96(4), 591-604.
Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://eprints.law.duke.edu/archive/00000878/
A general introduction to the influence that 'born-digital'
information has on scholarly communication in the law domain.
Honey, S.L. (2005). "Preservation of electronic scholarly publishing: an
analysis of three approaches." Portal: Libraries and the Academy,
5(1), 59-75.
Looks at three approaches to the preservation of scholarly
communication in digital form: dark archives, moving wall and
caching.
Keller, M. A. (2004). "Gold at the end of the digital library rainbow:
forecasting the consequences of truly effective digital libraries." In: Chen,
Z., et al. (eds.), Digital libraries: international collaboration
and cross-fertilization: 7th International Conference on Asian Digital
Libraries, ICADL 2004, Shanghai, China, December 13-17, 2004: proceedings,
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 3334, Berlin: Springer Verlag
84-94. Available (to subscribers) from SpringerLink: DOI: 10.1007/b104284.
Preprint retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://library.stanford.edu/staff/pubs/Forecasting_Effective_Digital_Libs.pdf
Looks at the requirements of effective digital libraries,
including long-term preservation.
Lynch, C. (2004). "Preserving digital documents: choices, approaches,
and standards." Law Library Journal, 96(4), 609-617. Retrieved 27 May,
2005 from: http://www.aallnet.org/products/2004-40.pdf
Surveys technology approaches to preserving born-digital
objects and the use of standards to aid preservation.
Marcum, D.B. (2004). "Landscape of digital archiving." Law Library
Journal, 96(4), 605-608. Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://www.aallnet.org/products/2004-39.pdf
An overview projects and initiatives in the area of digital
archiving within government, non-profit and university sectors, and
internationally, emphasising the importance of collaboration.
Prudlo, M. (2005). "E-archiving: an overview of some repository
management software tools." Ariadne, 43, April. Retrieved 27 May, 2005
from: http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue43/prudlo/
Examines three of the more popular repository management
systems - LOCKSS, EPrints and DSpace - in terms of functionality, costs, users
and required skills.
Van Nispen, A., Kramer, R., & van Horik, R. (2005). "The eXtensible
past: the relevance of the XML data format for access to historical datasets
and a strategy for digital preservation." D-Lib Magazine, 11(2),
February. Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/february05/vannispen/02vannispen.html
Describes the use of XML for historical datasets in the X-past
project undertaken by the Netherlands Historical Data Archive
7th International Conference on Asian Digital Libraries (ICADL 2004),
Shanghai, China
ICADL 2004 was held in Shanghai, China, on 13 -17 December 2004, under
the theme "Digital Libraries: International Collaboration and
Cross-Fertilization". Topics included the information society, digital library
infrastructure, data semantics, knowledge representation and discovery, digital
rights management, web archiving and multimedia libraries.
All peer-reviewed papers accepted for the conference were published by
Springer, in the series Lecture Notes in Computer Science (Vol. 3334,
ISBN 3-540-24030-6, book details retrieved 27 May, 2005, from:
http://www.springeronline.com/sgw/cda/frontpage/0,11855,5-40109-22-37162301-0,00.html).
22nd IEEE - 13th NASA Goddard Conference on Mass Storage Systems and
Technologies (MSST2005), Monterey, California USA
Papers and presentations are available from MSST2005, which was held on
11 - 14 April 2005 at the Monterey Marriott and the Monterey Convention Center,
Monterey, California. With "Emerging Trends in Scalable Storage" as the theme,
presented papers covered topics such as mass storage system architecture,
lifecycle management, file systems and preservation.
Papers are available on the conference Web site, retrieved 27 May, 2005
from: http://www.storageconference.org/2005/papers-presentations.html
Conference proceedings are also available from IEEE in print (ISBN
0-7803-9228-0) or CD-ROM (ISBN 0-7803-9229-9), or via online subscription to
IEEE Xplore, retrieved 27 May, 2004, from:
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/tocresult.jsp?isnumber=30571&isYear=2005
Selected papers are noted in the section on management of scientific
data, above.
DPC Meeting on the Large-scale Archival Storage of Digital Objects,
York, United Kingdom
A report of the DPC meeting held at BioCentre, York Science Park, York,
on 22 April, 2005 is available from the Digital Preservation Coalition Web
site, retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://www.dpconline.org/graphics/events/050422meeting.html
Society for Imaging Science and Technology (IS&T) Archiving
Conference 2005, Washington, D.C., USA
Proceedings are available for IS&T's 2005 Archiving Conference,
which was held in Washington, D.C., on 26 - 29 April, 2005. Papers presented at
the conference covered topics such as digital repositories and lifecycles,
formats and metadata for digital archiving, and strategies and tools for
preservation, and included several case studies.
Individual full-text papers are available for purchase in PDF, or the
entire proceedings may be purchased in hardcopy (ISBN 0-89208-255-0). Abstracts
are available online, retrieved 27 May, 2005, from:
http://www.imaging.org/store/physpub.cfm?seriesid=28&pubid=692
14th International World Wide Web Conference (WWW 2005), Chiba City,
Japan
Full papers are available from the 14th International World Wide Web
Conference, which was held on 10 - 14 May, 2005, in Chiba City, Japan.
Retrieved 27 May, 2005, from: http://www2005.org/cdrom/contents.htm
2005
June
DELOS summer school on Digital Preservation in Digital
Libraries, 5-11 June 2005, INRIA, Sophia Antipolis, France. Retrieved 27
May, 2005 from: http://www.dpc.delos.info/
Joint Conference on Digital Libraries 2005 : Digital Libraries
Cyberinfrastructure for Research and Education, 7 - 11 June 2005 , Denver,
Colorado, USA. Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://www.jcdl2005.org/
ELPUB 2005 : From Author to Reader : Challenges for the
Digital Content Chain, 8 - 10 June 2005, Leuven-Heverlee, Belgium.
Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from :
http://www.elpub.net/
Digital Curation Centre (DCC) Workshop on Persistent
Identifiers, 30 June - 1 July 2005 , Wolfson Medical Building, University of
Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom. Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://www.dcc.ac.uk/piworkshop.html
July
Digital Curation Centre (DCC) Workshop on Long-term Curation
within Digital Repositories, 6 July 2005, University of Cambridge, United
Kingdom. Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://www.dcc.ac.uk/drworkshop.html
2nd DSpace Federation User Group Meeting, 7 - 8 July 2005 ,
University of Cambridge, United Kingdom. Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/dspace/usergroup2005/
Digital Preservation Management: Implementing Short Term
Strategies for Long Term Problems, 17 - 22 July 2005, Ithaca, NY,
USA. Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://www.library.cornell.edu/iris/dpworkshop/
Joint Digital Curation Centre (DCC) and Digital Preservation
Coalition Workshop on Digital Curation Cost Models, 26 July 2005, British
Library, London, United Kingdom. Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://www.dcc.ac.uk/cmworkshop.html
August
Digital Libraries à la Carte : Choices for the Future,
22 - 26 August 2005 , Tilburg University, Tilburg, Netherlands. Retrieved
27 May, 2005 from: http://www.ticer.nl/05carte/
September
DC-2005: International Conference on Dublin Core and Metadata
Applications 2005, 12 - 15 September 2005, Madrid, Spain. Retrieved 27 May,
2005 from: http://dc2005.uc3m.es/
ECDL 2005: 9th European Conference on Research and Advanced
Technology for Digital Libraries, 18 - 25 September 2005, Vienna,
Austria. Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from: http://www.ecdl2005.org/
IWAW '05: 5th International Web Archiving Workshop and Digital
Preservation, 22 - 23 September 2005, Vienna, Austria. Retrieved 27 May,
2005 from: http://www.iwaw.net/05/
ETD 2005 : 8th International Symposium on Electronic Theses and
Dissertations, 27 - 30 September 2005, Sydney, Australia. Retrieved 27 May,
2005 from: http://adt.caul.edu.au/etd2005/
Refresh : First International Conference on the Histories of
Media Art, Science and Technology, 28 September - 3 October 2005, Banff,
Canada. Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://www.mediaarthistory.org/
DCC (Digital Curation Centre) Conference 2005, 29 - 30
September 2005, Hilton Bath City, Bath, United Kingdom. Retrieved 27 May,
2005 from: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/events/dcc-2005/
October
Joint Digital Curation Centre (DCC) and ERPANET Workshop on
Long-term Curation of Medical Databases, 13-14 October 2005, Gulbenkian
Institute, Lisbon, Portugal. Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://www.dcc.ac.uk/mdbworkshop.html
Digital Preservation Management: Implementing Short Term
Strategies for Long Term Problems, 31 October - 4 November 2005, Ithaca, NY,
USA. Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://www.library.cornell.edu/iris/dpworkshop/
November
Sommet Mondial sur la Société de l'Information
2005 : World Summit on the Information Society Conference 2005, 16 - 18
November 2005, Tunis, Tunisia. Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://www.smsitunis2005.org/plateforme/home.htm
Ensuring Long-term Preservation and Adding Value to Scientific
and Technical Data, 21 - 23 November 2005, Royal Society, Edinburgh, Scotland,
United Kingdom. Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from:
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/events/pv-2005/
December
8th International Conference on Asian Digital Libraries : ICADL
2005, 12 - 15 December 2005, Imperial Queen's Park Hotel, Bangkok, Thailand.
Retrieved 27 May, 2005 from: http://www.icadl2005.ait.ac.th/
A comprehensive and frequently updated list of forthcoming events is
available from the PADI Web site:
http://www.nla.gov.au/padi/format/event.html
Last updated: 27-May-2005 Links last checked: 27-May-2004
Warning! Web site links tend to have very short lifetimes, as documents
are frequently updated or deleted, Web sites are restructured, domains are
renamed or moved, etc. The compilers of this bulletin, therefore, cannot
guarantee that all of the URLs in this document will successfully resolve to
the resources described here. However, in these cases, try searching for the
same resource on the PADI gateway (http://www.nla.gov.au/padi/), which will
provide updated URLs wherever possible.
NATIONAL LIBRARY OF AUSTRALIA, Canberra, ACT 2600, AUSTRALIA
Telephone + 61 2 6262 1111; Facsimile +61 2 6257 1703; Telephone Typewriter
Number: 1800 026 372
|