XML
XML (Extensible Markup Language) can describe many different kinds of structured data and documents and can be used for data interchange and document storage. It is an international non-proprietary standard administered by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). XML has potential application to digital preservation in several areas, including as a data exchange standard in distributed archives, data storage and retrieval, and as a standard for metadata preservation.
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Archiving Scientific Data
Buneman, Peter; Khanna, Sanjeev; Tajima, Keishi; Tan, Wang-Chiew
(Date Created: Jun 2002)
- A paper presented at ACM SIGMOD 2002, describing the development of an archiving tool for XML data that allows retention of all previous states of the data as it changes over time. Meaningful change descriptions, retrieval of specific versions and history over time for any element in the archive are supported. The paper is available in a number of formats.
- http://db.cis.upenn.edu/research/ki.html
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Bits and Bites of Data Formats : Stainless Design for Digital Endurance
Aschenbrenner, Andreas
In: RLG DigiNews
(Date Created: Feb 2004)
- This paper analyses the use of XML as a preservation format, particularly in those areas which may be problematic. The article discusses the ideal design criteria for the development data types and then concentrates on the shortcomings or concerns of XML in preserving data formats.
- http://worldcat.org/arcviewer/1/OCC/2007/08/08/0000070511/viewer/file3
683.html#article2
- Corporate Alzheimer's : Coping With Forgotten File Formats
Waters, John K.
(Date Created: 04 Apr 2006)
(United States of America)
- This brief article describes the latest developments in XML based 'open file' formats that claim to free documents from the restrictions of proprietary software for long term access.
- http://www.law.com/jsp/PubArticle.jsp?id=900005450719
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E-Mail-XML Demonstrator: Technical Description
Testbed Digitale Bewaring
(Date Created: Oct 2002)
(Netherlands)
- This report describes the prototype software developed by the Dutch Testbed Digitale Bewaring project in its investigations of the issues of long-term preservation of email messages. The solution is based on customisation of Microsoft Outlook to allow communication with a central server responsible for metadata collection, conversion and archiving of both messages and metadata in XML. The report is in PDF format.
- http://www.digitaleduurzaamheid.nl/bibliotheek/docs/email-demo-en.pdf
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ERPANET Workshop: XML as a Preservation Strategy - Papers
ERPANET
(Date Created: 09 Oct 2002)
- Presentations from the ERPANET Workshop of XML as a Preservation Strategy, held in Urbino, Italy, 9-11 October, 2002. Various experiences to date and potential roles for XML in preservation of digital information are covered.
- http://www.erpanet.org/events/2002/urbino/index.php
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EXtensible Past : The Relevance of the XML Data Format for Access to Historical Datasets and a Strategy for Digital Preservation
Kramer, Rutger; van Horik, René; van Nispen, Annelies
In: D-Lib magazine
(Date Created: Feb 2005)
(Netherlands)
- This article describes the 'X past' project undertaken by the Netherlands Historical Data Archive (NHDA) which was developed to investigate how OAI PMH (Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting) can be used for long term access to historical datasets. The development of a prototype to investigate the practical considerations of whether XML can be used for long term preservation of datasets is also discussed.
- http://www.dlib.org/dlib/february05/vannispen/02vannispen.html
- From Legacy Documents to XML : a Conversion Framework
Chanod, Jean-Pierre; Chidlovskii, Boris; Dejean, Herve; Fambon, Olivier; Fuselier, Jerome; Jacquin, Thierry; Meunier, Jean-Luc
(Date Created: Oct 2005)
- Digital archives are often faced with large quantities of formats that are unsuitable for preservation. This is particularly the case in institutions that collect text-based documents for long-term preservation, yet lack influence on the publishing process. The authors of this paper have developed an approach to converting text-based formats - such as PDF or Microsoft Word - into XML. The approach aims to identify structural information in the conversion process and allows for semantic annotations.
- http://www.springerlink.com/content/5xnqptg4hrdqmy3g/?p=92854330c8c041
1b8e5772deb4c9ef5e&pi=8
- Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 3652/2005 - Research and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries: 9th European Conference, ECDL 2005, Vienna, Austria, Sept 18-23, 2005. Proceedings.pp 92-103
- Metadata Enrichment for Digital Preservation
Dubin, Dubin; Futrelle, Joe
(Date Created: Aug 2006)
(United States of America)
- This paper delivered at Extreme Markup Languages 2006 reports on a project to address the problems related to use of markup languages in digital preservation. The work done as part of the Echo DEPository Project, considers enrichment of metadata using RDF (Resource Description Framework).
- http://www.ideals.uiuc.edu/handle/2142/9461
- Metadata for Digital Libraries: State of the Art and Future Directions
Gartner, Richard
(Date Created: Apr 2008)
(United Kingdom)
- This JISC TechWatch report (19 p.) considers the need for standardisation and integration within the Library community and the importance of metadata to simplify user access. This report argues that existing standards based on XML (including METS) should be used to produce a coherent integrated metadata strategy for digital libraries.
- http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/techwatch/tsw_0801pdf.pdf
- JISC Technology and Standards Watch Report TSW080. Available in PDF, Word and OpenOffice formats from http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/services/services_techwatch/techwatch/techwatch_ic_reports2005_publ
- METS : Standardized Encoding for Digital Library Objects
McDonough, Jerome P.
(Date Created: Feb 2006)
- Description from abstract - METS is an XML document format intended for the encoding of complex objects within digital libraries. It provides the means to record all of the descriptive, administrative, structural and behavioral metadata needed to manage and provide access to complex digital content. While it was designed to promote interoperability of digital content between digital library systems and contribute to the preservation of digital library materials, a variety of practical barriers to achieving these goals remain. However, many of these obstacles are shared by other communities of practice, such as the eLearning community working on the IMS content packaging standards and the MPEG-21 community, and the digital library community faces a unique opportunity at the moment to work closely with others to try to improve the interoperability of our content not only with our own repository systems, but those being used by others.
- http://www.springerlink.com/content/1665225r3412540x/
- International Journal on Digital Libraries, Volume 6, Number 2 / April, 2006. Available via subscription
- Past, present and future: XML, archaeology and digital preservation
Kilbride, William
(Date Created: 2005)
- This article discusses the use of XML as a preservation ready format for use by archaeologists when they create archaeological data sets. The author discusses and gives examples of current and potential uses of XML in the preservation of archaeological data.
- http://csanet.org/newsletter/winter05/nlw0502.html
- CSA Newsletter, Vol. XVII, no. 3 (Winter 2005)
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Preservation of Digital Data with Self-Validating, Self-Instantiating Knowledge-Based Archives
Ludaescher, Bertram; Marciano, Richard; Moore, Reagan
(Date Created: 2001)
(United States of America)
- This article depicts a fully XML-based archival infrastructure and seeks to show how this architecture can be extended to further include information about the archived information. The notions of self-validating and self-instantiating archives are given precise meanings based on a formalization of the ingestion process. The article includes a case study from a collaboration with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
- http://www.sdsc.edu/NARA/Publications/Web/kba.pdf
- Relational Database Preservation through XML Modelling
Castro, Rui; Faria, Louis; Ferreira, Miguel; Ramalho, José Carlos
(Date Created: Aug 2007)
- This paper given at Extreme Markup Languages 2007 (7-10 August 2007, Montreal Quebec) describes the process of ingesting a relational database by migrating the original database to an XML representation. This representation (DBML- database markup language) was defined according to requirements to preserve the database content, structure and attributes.
- http://repositorium.sdum.uminho.pt/bitstream/1822/7120/1/EML2007-final
.pdf
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Using XML for Long-term Preservation : Experiences from the DiVA Project
Andersson, Stefan; Hansson, Peter; Klosa, Uwe; Muller, Eva; Siira, Erik
(Date Created: May 2003)
(Sweden)
- This paper describes the DiVA (Digitala vetenskapliga arkivet) Project which originated at Uppsala University in Sweden. The goal of the project is to create a searchable archive (DiVA Archive) for the long term preservation of those documents which are published in an electronic form such as theses, essays and working papers. This paper includes discussion of XML as a long term preservation format, the DiVA document format and the use of URN (uniform resource names) as persistent identifiers.
- http://edoc.hu-berlin.de/etd2003/hansson-peter/HTML/index.html
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XML and Digital Preservation
Testbed Digitale Bewaring
(Date Created: Sep 2002)
(Netherlands)
- This paper describes XML and how it is useful for preserving digital information. A summary of current knowledge and research into XML is also provided.
- http://www.digitaleduurzaamheid.nl/bibliotheek/docs/white-paper_xml-en
.pdf
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XML for Digital Preservation : XML Implementation Options for E-Mails
Potter, Maureen
(Date Created: 11 Oct 2002)
(Netherlands)
- This article reports on progress at the Digital Preservation Testbed (Testbed Digital Bewaring) of the Netherlands in using XML as a preservation approach. It notes the advantages and disadvantages of XML for archival preservation and discusses three implementation options for conversion or provision of emails in XML. The article is in PDF format.
- http://www.digitaleduurzaamheid.nl/bibliotheek/docs/email-xml-imp.pdf
- XML, Databases and Standardised Terminology for Archaeological Data
Eiteljorg, Harrison
(Date Created: 2005)
- This article discusses the use of XML and databases for archaeological data.
- http://csanet.org/newsletter/spring05/nls0501.html
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- 2009 Conference and Members' Meeting of the TEI Consortium: Text Encoding in the Era of Mass Digitization
11 - 15 Nov 2009
, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
TEI Consortium
(United States of America)
- This conference is organized around the theme 'text encoding in the era of mass digitization'. It will feature keynote lectures, parallel sessions, the annual TEI business meeting, a poster session/tools demonstration and slam, and special interest group (SIG) meetings.
- http://www.lib.umich.edu/spo/teimeeting09/
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ERPANET Experts' Workshop on XML : Urbino Workshop Report
9 - 11 Oct 2002
, Facolta' di Giuridsprudenza, Aula Magna, Urbino
(Italy)
Has papers: ERPANET Workshop: XML as a Preservation Strategy - Papers
- "Over the course of the three days, participants were provided with papers and examples presented by experts before analysing and discussing the issues and challenges arising from the use of XML in digital preservation."
- http://www.erpanet.org/events/2002/urbino/Urbino%20Workshop%20Report.p
df
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TEI and XML in Digital Libraries
30 Jun - 1 Jul 1998
, Library of Congress
(United States of America)
- This two day meeting focused on institutional applications of the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI), particularly in library settings. The Digital Library Federation sponsored this meeting to give focus, for the first time, to institutional applications of the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI), particularly in library settings. The meeting was organized as a set of concurrent working groups focusing on specific application issues, and introductory and concluding plenary sessions.There are links to presentations and summary recommendations.
- http://www.lib.umich.edu/digital-library-production-service-dlps/tei-a
nd-xml-digital-libraries
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Organisations and Websites
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- OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument)
OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards)
(Date Created: May 2005)
- The OASIS Open Document format is an XML-based file format specification for office applications. The OpenDocument v1.0 specification was officially approved as an OASIS standard on 1 May 2005 and can be downloaded from the Office Document Format Technical Committee web page.
- http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=office
- textMD Technical Metadata for Text
Library of Congress
(Date Created: Oct 2007)
(United States of America)
- This XML schema has been maintained by the Library of Congress since October 2007. TextMD was originally created by the New York University Digital Library Team. It is endorsed by METS and commonly used as an extension schema with METS adminstrative metadata section but also can be used alone or in the future with PREMIS. The schema is focused on documenting technical metadata for text based objects including OCR files.
- http://www.loc.gov/standards/textMD/
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Policies, Strategies & Guidelines
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From Digital Volatility to Digital Permanence : Preserving Text Documents
Testbed Digitale Bewaring
(Date Created: Dec 2003)
(Netherlands)
- The Testbed Digitale Bewaring has released its final recommendations on the long term preservation of electronic text documents. The publication covers the characteristics of electronic texts and their authenticity requirements and compares migration, conversion to XML and emulation as preservation strategies. The report proposes conversion of texts to PDF and XML as the most suitable preservation strategy for text documents and details an approach to implementing this strategy, including a PDF conversion guide. It also provides action plans targeted towards specific groups such as managers, IT specialists and end users.
- ISBN: 9080775819
- http://www.digitaleduurzaamheid.nl/bibliotheek/docs/volatility-permane
nce-textdocs-en.pdf
- OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument)
OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards)
(Date Created: May 2005)
- The OASIS Open Document format is an XML-based file format specification for office applications. The OpenDocument v1.0 specification was officially approved as an OASIS standard on 1 May 2005 and can be downloaded from the Office Document Format Technical Committee web page.
- http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=office
- textMD Technical Metadata for Text
Library of Congress
(Date Created: Oct 2007)
(United States of America)
- This XML schema has been maintained by the Library of Congress since October 2007. TextMD was originally created by the New York University Digital Library Team. It is endorsed by METS and commonly used as an extension schema with METS adminstrative metadata section but also can be used alone or in the future with PREMIS. The schema is focused on documenting technical metadata for text based objects including OCR files.
- http://www.loc.gov/standards/textMD/
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Projects and Case Studies
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- Testbed Xmail
Testbed Digitale Bewaring
(Date Created: Nov 2005)
(Netherlands)
- The Digital Preservation Testbed from the National Archives of the Netherlands has developed an application to preserve their email in accordance with legal requirements. This application demonstrates how email messages can be created in a sustainable manner and preserved for the long term using XML (eXtensible Markup Language). This application is now freely available an open source software for download.
- http://www.digitaleduurzaamheid.nl/index.cfm?paginakeuze=299&categorie
=6
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Xtensible Past: XML as a Means for Easy Access to Historical Research Data and a Strategy for Digital Preservation
NIWI (Netherlands Institute for Scientific Information Services). Dept. of History
(Date Created: 24 Mar 2003)
(Netherlands)
- This 12 month project, 1 February 2003 - 1 February 2004, aimed to provide the research community with a virtual archive environment (collaboratory) for the exchange and sharing of historical research data, easy access to data at different locations, user-friendly presentation of data, search and download facilities as well as developing a strategy for long-term preservation of heterogeneous research data based on XML (report). The project aimed to develop a new protocol for managing and preserving the collections of the NHDA (Netherlands Historical Data Archive), based on XML as a strategy for the digital preservation.
- http://web.archive.org/web/20070211020453rn_1/www.niwi.knaw.nl/nl/gesc
hiedenis/projecten/xpast_copy1/
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Broader Topic:
Document markup languages
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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