Dear Colin,

That's great, thank you. Some very to-the-point definitions there, I
only wish I had the ability to be so brief and precise! Also, these
sound like really "workable conceptions" i.e. the way that you think
about these issues day to day, as opposed to being purely academic,
constructed for the sake of debate but not necesarily applied; and that
is very valuable for my research. I'm not sure if I agree that different
interpretations either won't exist or won't matter if no-one asks what
is meant by a term, but it's a nicely optimistic approach!

Despite what I just said about brevity, would you mind expanding just a
little on your take on digital objects? Do you mean that they can be
conceived of as a whole? Or is it simply that they can be addressed,
from a technical standpoint?  There's a case to be made for either of
these. Or am I missing the point entirely?

It's interesting that you emphasise the maintenance of identitifiers
with regard to preservation. This issue seems to me to straddle the
boundary between (my definitions of) preserving and sustaining, in that
I can't quite decide if it's to do with ensuring the continued existence
of a resource, or the continued usability/utility/functioning of it.
Anyway, it's refreshing that simply preserving the bits was not top of
the list for you - certainly that is rarely sufficient in itself but it
gets an awful lot of attention (then again, it's not straightforward so
I guess that's justified).

As for sustainable=inexpensive, there must be plenty in that. At least I
hope so! The next question would be "exactly what is it inexpensive to
accomplish?" Perhaps this is as broad as "maintaining the availability
and functioning of a resource"; perhaps you would include utility,
relevance or prominence too; or perhaps it would involve dis-integrating
the digital objects as I take you to mean, identifying the most
important aspects of them (data, functionality, community, trust...),
and focussing ones efforts on ensuring that those aspects are supported
long-term (instead of the entire assembly).

Thanks again, have a good weekend.

Jeremy





Jeremy Ottevanger
Web Developer, Museum Systems Team
Museum of London Group
Mortimer Wheeler House
46 Eagle Wharf Road
London. N1 7ED
Tel: 020 7410 2207
Fax: 020 7410 2201
Email: [log in to unmask]
www.museumoflondon.org.uk

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From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Colin Baird
Sent: 22 September 2006 16:50
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [MCG] Sustainable new media

Dear Jeremy. Interesting question.

They way I do it is this: if no one asks you what you mean then you
either both mean the same thing or it doesn't matter.

sustainable = inexpensive
digital object = something that can be reified.
preservation = maintaning an identifier (or indentity) over time

Regards,

Colin Baird

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