Dear All,
Just as the standard archiving file format for vector data is .dxf, then there should be recommended image file formats for appropriate HER purposes. Do we store images as .bmp? .jpg? .tif?, .gif? What is best for long-term stability / retrieval ? One archaeologist used to say that the best long-term digital storage for archives was to write everything to ASCII format, which could always be retrieved. MIDAS needs to state resolutions. HERs are often only indexes to original material, so there is no need to store high resolution stuff all the time. Under what cicumstances should we retain high resolution imagery ? For local authorities where there is always a gap between installed and required digital storage, it would be useful to have guidelines on standard resolutions (like HER benchmarks: low for starter HERs, high for Beacon HERs).
I think it is also possible to treat "landscapes" as kinds of imagery (afterall, they are 'scapes' which implies a visual thing). To effectively record Landscapes, one needs the following categories of evidence: polygon(s), imagery, text data, DTM perhaps, and some metadata to indicate, among other things, what map projection or what cultural tradition the Landscape has been identified in (it is possible that one tradition's landscape is another tradition's geomorphology). I think geographers may say that it is also possible to characterise landscapes numerically, with a series of matrices, but this is why MIDAS should not try to be everything to everybody. HERs have to communicate the value of landscape, best done through imagery rather than obscure numerical datasets.
That's all for now.
Cheers,
Neil
>>> [log in to unmask] 09/09/2003 09:32:07 >>>
Hello Neil,
Thanks for your comments. You wrote...
> I don't think MIDAS should be expanded much at all. Right
> now it is nicely focussed and is relevant to HER work.
Certainly that would make things a lot simpler for FISH! but I think there
is a need for HER work to develop (for example the need to record historic
landscapes as well as monuments) that is not currently well covered by
MIDAS. Anyone else got any thoughts on this.
> Admittedly, it needs a section on digital imagery, but I
> don't think it should try to be all things to all Records
> centres.
What would be the issues here? File formats, optimum file sizes or
resolutions? Is MIDAS the place for that sort of thing, or should this
belong in other heritage sector sources of advice (e.g. the ADS Guides to
Good Practice series)?
> Right now, a significant issue for most HERs is how to store,
> index and hold the metadata for historic mapping, plans,
> Tithe maps, slides, prints and aerial photographs, ranging in
> size from A0 to A6 or so. Some practical guidance on this
> would most useful.
I agree. More on the use of metadata for archive items (of all sorts) would
be a good thing. So far the idea would be to divide up some of the units of
information (e.g. to separate archive Format from Archive Type - they are
currently lumped together). The rather unlovely 'Bibliography, Documentary
Archive and Objects' information scheme will also be retitled 'Resources' to
reflect the wider range.
That said I don't think it should be the role of MIDAS to duplicate the
standards covered more appropriately by e.g. ISADG or Encoded Archival
Description. But perhaps we need enough detail so that HERs and similar
bodies could make use of (and provide) data on theor specialist archive
holdings to archival record holders.
Edmund Lee
English Heritage Data Standards Unit
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