apologies for any cross-posting
The following seminar being held in UNESCO headquarters in Paris in February next year may be of interest to members of the list. There is no fee for attendance but registration is required. Further details below.
Neil
Seminar on Digital Preservation of the record of Science- state of the art
Paris, France, February 14-15 2002
Introduction
ICSTI, the International Council for Scientific and Technical Information, has been encouraging discussion, debate and actions on ensuring that the record of Science continues to preserved. With the progressive movement towards digital production and distribution of scientific information there is a risk that the record represented by this material will be lost. Although many of the parties concerned with digital production and distribution have taken measures to preserve the material the effort is diffused and overall co-ordination may be necessary.
In February 2000 ICSTI held a seminar, with support from UNESCO, during which the issues were discussed and contact was established between a number of groups active in the area of digital preservation. It was suggested then that a further meeting be held at a later date to review the situation and to formulate any actions deemed necessary.
Many other bodies in the Science community, such as CODATA, IUPAP, ICSU, interests from the international standards arena, those concerned with the creation of "open archives" as well as the scientific publishing community both the traditional and the newer actors, are all involved in one sense or another with preservation. In addition the library community and the representatives of the history of science community are intimately concerned.
While, as noted, many activities and initiatives are under way and research programmes are in progress, the cost of digital preservation can be significant and the need to avoid duplication of effort is paramount. The need for a federal approach to both the preservation process and access to the archives has been suggested; this requires co-ordination.
The objectives of the meeting in February are:
· To ensure all the interests in digital preservation in Science are aware of all current activities in the field
· To evaluate the needs for co-ordination of the efforts.
· To create any necessary structures and work programmes to ensure co-ordination of the activities.
The proposed meeting, which has received the support of UNESCO, will deal with the following issues, and any other topics the attendees may raise.
· What are the varieties of S&T information that must and will be archived
· What are the likely future uses for this information
· What is the minimum amount of information (data fields) needed to locate and identify different kinds of information
· Who is creating what kinds of standards related to location and basic identification
· What kinds of "business" and "information" models are relevant in a situation where there might be multiple owners, managers, driving forces and multiple standards (or what is a federated model of archiving and archiving standards)
· If a federated model is not appropriate, what model is
· What are the appropriate structures to get the various groups involved in digital preservation to work together to develop workable solutions (assuming there is agreement that workable solutions are needed).
· Specifically - what additional issues related to scientific factual data need to be addressed.
· How will future access to digitally archived information be arranged
· What are the common issues with preservation of cultural archives, apart from the record of Science and how can these be accommodated
Who should attend?
The topics to be discussed will be of interest to:
· authors and publishers of scientific information, in particular developers of newer digital methods;
· those concerned with the short and long term storage and distribution of this material, librarians and archivists;
· developers of computer systems for digital archiving;
· those involved in the creation of national and international standards, as well as subject or data-type oriented codes of practise;
· national and international representatives from the Science community, specifically the professional and other bodies with interests in science subjects;
· representatives of the scientific data community.
In addition, representatives of the history of Science and those concerned with the preservation of cultural artefacts in published form should be present.
The Venue
The meeting will be held at the premises of UNESCO, with the kind permission of the Assistant Director General for Science.
There is no fee for attendance but neither UNESCO nor ICSTI is in a position to offer support for travel or accommodation.
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Programme
Thursday Feb 14 2002
09.00 Registration
09.30 Welcome - UNESCO representative
09.45 Introduction Kurt Molholm, President ICSTI
10.15 The CODATA interest, CODATA activities and developments
William Anderson, US Representative, CODATA Data Archiving Working Group
10.45 Questions/Clarifications
10.50 Coffee
11.15 ICSU activities and developments
Sir Roger Elliot, Chairman, ICSU Press
11.45 Digital Preservation; overview of current developments
Gail Hodge, Independent Consultant
12.30 IUPAP Initiatives, report from the Lyon Workshop
Franck Laloë and/or Marty Blume
13.00 Lunch
14.00 STM Members; viewpoint and developments
Bob Campbell, Blackwell Publishers
14.30 Developments in related fields
Metadata and pre-print archives Herbert van de Sompel, British Library
Deposit Libraries TBA
Digital Object Identifiers Norman Paskin, DOI Foundation.
15.30 Tea
16.00 Specific Examples and issues
JSTOR Kevin Guthrie, JSTOR
Preservation of Cultural materials UNESCO representative
17.00 Discussion and Close of day 1
Feb 15 2002
10.00 Review of Day 1
10.30 Research Projects underway and planned
Neil Beagrie, UK JISC Digital Preservation Focus
11.00 Coffee
11.30 Next steps -
Standardisation activities Gail Hodge
Metadata and preservation Deborah Woodyard,
British Library
Liaison between different interest groups Sally Morris, APLSP
Guidelines for digital preservation actions: TBA
The requirements for guidelines
12.30 Lunch
14.00 Proposed Actions
Establishing Working parties:
Guidelines development
Liaison between different interests
Others
16.00 Tea
16.30 Timetable for further actions and wrap-up
17.30 Close
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Registration:
Please complete the attached application form and send it by email to [log in to unmask] or
fax to +33 1 42 15 12 62
Seminar on Digital Preservation of the record of Science- state of the art
Paris, France, February 14-15 2002
Application Form for attendance
Name:……………………………………………………………………..
Organisation:………………………………………………………………..
Address 1:………………………………………………………………………
Address 2:……………………………………………………………………….
City:……………………………………………………………………………….
Country:…………………………………………………………………………..
Email:………………………………………………………………………………
Telephone:………………………………………………………………………….
Fax:…………………………………………………………………………………
Will attend the seminar in Paris, representing the following interest(s) in digital preservation:
………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Confirmation of the reservation will be made to the above email address unless an alternative address is specified below:
……………………………………………………………………………………..
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