Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2000 10:50:24 +0100
From: William Kilbride <[log in to unmask]>
Dear all,
Thought I would chip in here. It's really encouraging to hear people
talking about digital archiving: we probably couldn't have had this
conversation 5 years ago. There are lots of issues raised in the
perceptive emails from Tom and Paul. I will restrict myself to 3: two
comments from an ADS perspective, and one from a 'William' point of you.
1. On archiving. Paul unassumingly says he is unfamiliar with the work
of the ADS, then hits the nail on the head in terms of migration and
refreshment. There are three possible approaches to digital archiving:
migration, emulation and maintenance. Maintenance means keeping old
machines alive, and would be very expensive in the long term; emulation
means engineering a software environment where old software can work on
new platforms as and when the need arises, and would be labour
intensive. Migration is the preferred option because it means a
constant, but relatively low level vigil on data, moving to new formats
when appropriate. It also means planning deposition from the start.
The ADS was only founded in 1996, so Paul's quite right in saying that
we can't point to any long term successes (unless you consider 4 years
long term!). But, our partners in the Arts and Humanities Data Service
have a very long track record in this field. In many respects, the ADS
have been working to translate their expertise into a language familiar
to archaeology, and to explore the issues of digital archiving that may
be specific to this field.
2. On archiving again. Formats are important, as are the physical
media: but for now our experience at the ADS suggests that the key to
archiving is documentation. For flat text this should be less of a
problem, because a good article explains it's own context, and helps the
reader make sense of what is being said. However, once we start doing
clever things with databases and GIS, then we need to be a bit more
careful. It's important not to confuse metadata for resource discovery
with documentation about the archive.
3. On Books and Stuff (a william thought). Books have a history: they
are not a given. Discussions about how to publish archaeology would
benefit from a social history of reading and writing - of literacy -
over the last four hundred years (or why not four thousand?). If
nothing else, this would remind us that we are not the first people to
be presented with an information revolution; that books have a track
record of social exclusion just as surely as computers do; and that, if
not curated with a persistent low level vigil, they disappear just as
easily. Perhaps this history will reveal that we are currently
imperceptibly renegotiating literacy.
Any way, that's enough from me.
All best wishes,
William
--
William Kilbride
User Services Manager
Archaeology Data Service
Dept of Archaeology t 0044 (0)1904 433954
University of York f 0044 (0)1904 433939
England YO1 7EP, UK m 0044 (0)7967 128632
http://ads.ahds.ac.uk e [log in to unmask]
e [log in to unmask]
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