apologies for any cross-posting
dear all
This is the first issue of a digest compiled by the Digital Preservation Coalition and the National Library of Australia as part of their joint Memorandum of Understanding. Feedback on the format and value of this first issue would be greatly welcomed and will help shape the development of future issues of "What's New in Digital Preservation?".
Neil
--------------------------------------------------------------
What's New in Digital Preservation?
A joint service of the Digital Preservation Coalition and PADI
compiled by Michael Day (UKOLN, University of Bath)
This is a summary of selected recent activity in the field of digital preservation compiled from the Digital Preservation and padiforum-l email lists and the Preserving Access to Digital Information (PADI) Gateway.
1. Organisations
1.1 The Digital Preservation Coalition
The Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) was officially launched at the
House of Commons on the 27 February 2002. This event was very successful
and gained a large amount of press-coverage for digital preservation
issues.
On the 25 March 2002 in London, the coalition organised a DPF Forum on
Web-archiving. Presentations included a general introduction to
Web-archiving issues and the UK Web domain; also descriptions of
Web-archiving activity in the BBC and the Bibliothèque nationale de
France. A workshop report and links to all presenters' PowerPoint slides
are available on the DPC Web-site:
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/dner/preservation/webforum.html
A more detailed review of recent DPC activity can be found in:
Neil Beagrie, "An update on the Digital Preservation Coalition," D-Lib
Magazine, 8 (4), April 2002.
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/april02/beagrie/04beagrie.html
1.2 The US National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP)
This initiative began in late 2000, when Congress called for the Library
of Congress (LC) to take the lead in a national collaborative planning
effort for the long-term preservation of digital content.
The April 2002 issue of D-Lib Magazine contained a progress report by Amy
Friedlander (Council on Library and Information Resources).
. Friedlander outlines the results of some stakeholder meetings held last November,
including the support for a national initiative from stakeholder groups
that are not part of the traditional scholarly community, e.g. the
entertainment industry. A research programme - which will be a key part of
NDIIPP - also aims to be collaborative in nature and LC is already working
with the National Science Foundation (NSF) and other federal agencies in
drawing up a research agenda. An invitational workshop to discuss the research
agenda was held in April 2002 in Washington and information is being posted to a
website mounted at the University of Michigan (www.si.umich.edu/digarch/ ).
An additional theme in NDIIPP is the importance of
building operational systems. It is acknowledged that mistakes may be
made, but that it is important to learn lessons from these. LC have also
worked on devising a conceptual framework in order to see how the many and
varied entities and functions related to the long-term preservation of
digital content might interact. This is also described briefly in this
paper.
Amy Friedlander, "The National Digital Information Infrastructure
Preservation Program: expectations, realities, choices and progress to
date," D-Lib Magazine, 8 (4), April 2002.
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/april02/friedlander/04friedlander.html
1.3 OCLC/RLG Working Groups
In April 2002, the OCLC/RLG Preservation Metadata Working Group published
a proposed metadata element set for what the OAIS model refers to as
'Preservation Description Information' (PDI). Previous documents from the
group had provided a state-of-the-art survey of preservation metadata
activities and a recommendation for OAIS 'Content Information.'
Publication of the PDI recommendation means that the group has almost
completed its commissioned task. A final document bringing together both
metadata recommendations is currently being compiled. All working group
documents are available in PDF from:
http://www.oclc.org/research/pmwg/documents.shtm
The other joint OCLC/RLG digital preservation initiative, the Digital
Archive Attributes Working Group, published a draft document entitled
Attributes of a Trusted Digital Repository in August 2001, This has been
very well received and is available in PDF from:
http://www.rlg.org/longterm/attribswg.html
2. Projects:
2.1 The Cedars project
Work on the Cedars (CURL Exemplars in Digital Archives) project finished
in March 2002. The project had been going for almost four years and a
final workshop was held in Manchester on the 25-26 February in order to
disseminate information about the project, put that work into a wider
context and to look forward to what should happen after the project had
ended. A short summary of this event has been published in the April
edition of RLG DigiNews, while a longer version is available on the Cedars
Project Web-site:
Michael Day and Maggie Jones, Cedars Final Workshop, Manchester Conference
Centre, UMIST, Manchester, 25-26 February 2002, Leeds: Cedars Project, 22
April 2002.
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/cedars/pubconf/umist/finalWorkshopRep.html
Michael Day, "The Final Cedars Workshop: a report from Manchester, UK,"
RLG DigiNews, 6 (2) April 2002.
http://www.rlg.org/preserv/diginews/diginews6-2.html#conference
In the first quarter of 2002, the Cedars project has also published a
series of guides to various digital preservation issues. Available in
print form (and in PDF) are guides to intellectual property rights,
preservation metadata and digital collection management. Each of these is
about 20 pages long, and are intended to provide non-technical
introductions for anyone interested in aspects of digital preservation,
including librarians, archivists, records managers and the creators of
digital content. The guides describe some specific outcomes of the Cedars
project (e.g. the draft metadata specification) but also attempt to
provide a more general view and give indications of further reading. In
the same series, a guide to digital preservation strategies is now
available in HTML and an introduction to the Cedars digital archive
prototype is under preparation. These guides are available in digital form
(PDF or HTML) from the Cedars project Web-site:
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/cedars/pubconf/pubconf.html
2.2 ERPANET
ERPANET (Electronic Resource Preservation and Access NETwork) has been
funded by the European Commission to help bring together all types of
organisation interested in digital preservation issues. It will primarily
provide awareness about digital preservation by providing information and
advice services, thematic workshops, training seminars, guidelines, etc.
The project started in November 2001. Project partners are the Humanities
Advanced Technology and Information Institute (HATII) at the University of
Glasgow, the Schweizerisches Bundesarchiv (Swiss Federal Archives), the
Rijksarchiefdienst (National Archives of the Netherlands) and the
Institute for Archival and Library Science at the University of Urbino.
More information on ERPANET can be found on the project's Web pages at:
http://www.erpanet.org/
2.3 Preservation of electronic scholarly journals
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has funded seven major US libraries to
investigate the development of digital repositories for e-journals. Work
on these projects is continuing, but the Harvard University E-Journal
Archiving project has recently (December 2001) published a report produced
by Inera, Inc. on the feasibility of developing a common archival article
Document Type Definition (DTD). The report recommended the creation of an
XML DTD (or Schema) which would permit "successful conversion of
significant intellectual content from publisher SGML and XML files into a
common format for archival purposes." Also in December, the Harvard
project published a draft proposal for the technical specifications of a
Submission Information Package (SIP) that defined data formats, file
naming conventions, metadata, etc. Both of these documents are available
in PDF from the Digital Library Federation (DLF) Web-site:
Inera, Inc., E-Journal Archive DTD feasibility study: commissioned by the
Harvard University Library, Office for Information Systems, E-Journal
Archiving Project, 5 December 2001.
http://www.diglib.org/preserve/hadtdfs.pdf
Harvard University Library, Harvard E-Journal Archive: Submission
Information Package (SIP) specification, v. 1.0 draft, 19 December 2001.
http://www.diglib.org/preserve/harvardsip10.pdf
General information on the Mellon-funded programme can be found on the DLF
Web-site:
http://www.diglib.org/preserve/presjour.htm
3. Other events
A meeting of the US National Information Standards Organization (NISO)
Book Industry Study Group (BISG) took place during the American Library
Association's Midwinter 2002 Conference on the 20 January. This was
entitled 'Archiving Electronic Publications' and included progress reports
from two of the Mellon funded e-journal projects: Harvard University's
E-Journal Archiving project and Elsevier Science's collaboration with Yale
University Library. A final presentation reported on collaboration between
OCLC and the US Government Printing Office (GPO) on a Web Document Digital
Archive pilot project. A short summary of the meeting can be found at:
http://www.niso.org/presentations/niso-bisg-rpt.html
4. Other recent publications:
Michael K. Bergman, "The deep Web: surfacing hidden value," Journal of
Electronic Publishing, 7 (1), August 2001.
http://www.press.umich.edu/jep/07-01/bergman.html
This 'white paper' is concerned with the so-called 'deep Web,' whereby
information is buried deep within dynamically generated sites and which
can not, therefore, be easily reached by standard search engines. The
paper is essentially marketing a product (search technology from a company
called BrightPlanet) and is not about preservation, but it may be able to
inform harvesting-based Web-preservation initiatives on the nature of
dynamic or database-driven Web-sites.
Hilary Berthon, Susan Thomas and Colin Webb, "Safekeeping: a cooperative
approach to building a digital preservation resource," D-Lib Magazine, 8
(1), January 2002.
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/january02/berthon/01berthon.html
This paper describes the National Library of Australia's Safekeeping
project, which has funding from the Council on Library and Information
Resources (CLIR). The project is trying to facilitate a distributed
network of 'safekept' resources relating to digital preservation (selected
from the PADI database) by encouraging resource owners to take
responsibility for providing long-term access - or to nominate third
parties who could do so on their behalf. The co-operative model of the
Safekeeping project is interesting because it might encourage the creators
and owners of resources to face up to the responsibilities that they hold
with regard to maintaining long-term access.
Stewart Granger, "Digital preservation and deep infrastructure," D-Lib
Magazine, 8 (2), February 2002.
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/february02/granger/02granger.html
This is an 'opinion' piece by Stewart Granger of the University of Leeds.
Anne R. Kenney, Nancy Y. McGovern, Peter Botticelli, Richard Entlich, Carl
Lagoze and Sandrea Payette, "Preservation risk management for Web
resources: virtual remote control in Cornell's Project Prism," D-Lib
Magazine, 8 (1), January 2002.
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/january02/kenney/01kenney.html
This paper suggests that Web preservation strategies could use risk
management methodologies. It is based on the work of Cornell University's
Project Prism, funded as part of the second phase of the US Digital
Libraries Initiative.
Julia Martin and David Coleman, "Change the metaphor: the archive as an
ecosystem," Journal of Electronic Publishing, 7 (3), April 2002.
http://www.press.umich.edu/jep/07-03/martin.html
The authors of this paper are researchers at the University of New South
Wales and the University of Sydney. The paper argues that there is
unlikely to be any single solution to the digital preservation problem but
that rapid technological change will mean that preservation solutions will
need to be in a state of constant change.
Michael L. Nelson and B. Danette Allen, "Object persistence and
availability in digital libraries," D-Lib Magazine, 8 (1), January 2002.
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/january02/nelson/01nelson.html
This paper - produced by researchers working at the NASA Langley Research
Center - looked at the persistence and continued availability of 1,000
digital library objects. These were mostly found in Web-based e-print
services like arXiv, CogPrints and PubMed Central. The authors found that
in just over one year, 3% of the tested objects no longer appeared to be
available. With an assumption that objects placed in e-print services
should persist longer than the average Web page, the authors cautiously
conclude that this finding may have relevance for those concerned with
long-term preservation. However, Nelson and Allen consider that more
detailed studies of digital library object persistence need to be made.
Elizabeth Yakel, "Digital preservation," Annual Review of Information
Science and Technology, 35, 2001, 337-378.
A general overview of digital preservation issues by an assistant
professor in the School of Information at the University of Michigan.
5. Other links:
From the Digitale Duurzaamheid Digital Preservation Testbed
(http://www.digitaleduurzaamheid.nl/):
Migration context and current status. Digital Preservation Testbed White
Paper, 5 December 2001.
http://www.digitaleduurzaamheid.nl/bibliotheek/Migration.pdf
Approaches towards the long term preservation of archival digital records.
Digital Preservation Testbed Infosheet,v. 1.7, 19 September 2001.
http://www.digitaleduurzaamheid.nl/index.cfm?paginakeuze=186&categorie=2
Also (from the [log in to unmask] and
[log in to unmask] e-mail lists):
Andreas Aschenbrenner, Long-Term Preservation of digital material -
building an archive to preserve digital cultural heritage from the
Internet, Masters Thesis, Technical University Vienna, December 2001.
Available in various formats from:
http://www.ifs.tuwien.ac.at/~aola/publications.html
Arthur Smith, Long Term Archiving of Digital Documents in Physics, report
of an IUPAP (International Union of Pure and Applied Physics) Conference
held in Lyon, 5-6 November 2001.
http://publish.aps.org/IUPAP/ltaddp_report.html
Dollar Consulting, Archival preservation of Smithsonian web resources:
strategies, principles, and best practices. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian
Institution Archives, 20 July 2001.
http://www.si.edu/archives/archives/dollar%20report.html
VERS (Victorian Electronic Records Strategy) Web-site:
http://www.prov.vic.gov.au/vers/
*************************************************************************************
Neil Beagrie JISC Digital Preservation Focus
Programme Director Secretary, Digital Preservation Coalition
JISC London Office, Tel/Fax/Voicemail :+44 (0)709 2048179
King's College London email: [log in to unmask]
Strand Bridge House url: www.jisc.ac.uk/dner/preservation/
138 - 142, The Strand, email list: www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/digital-preservation
London WC2R 1HH
*************************************************************************************