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The National Science Foundation's Digital Government Research Program (DG) is part of a major collaborative effort to establish a research program to support and encourage innovative information technologies, policies, economic models, and education and training that will preserve cultural heritage materials for future generations. The DG Research Program funds research and solicits proposals in the following areas: 1) Multi-disciplinary and multi-sector partnerships of researchers in information technologies and government agencies at all levels in order to foster collaboration among societal sectors; and 2) Social, political, and behavioral research on the effect of information technologies on the forms, processses, impact and outcomes of IT within government, both from the standpoint of government agencies and from the public at large. The DG Research Program holds workshops to develop a research agenda on a specific topic which serves as a guide for grant proposers to the Program.
This workshop, co-sponsored by ARL, SPARC and CNI was held October 18, 2002 in Washington, D.C. Focused on assisting academic and research library and IT directors to begin planning and developing strategies for establishing and managing institutitional repositories. This site provides access to the agenda and some of the papers presented at the event.
This workshop was held in Geneva on October 17 - 19, 2002 and organized by LIBER, SPARC-Europe and the CERN Library. The authors provide brief summary of the main themes and discussions at the workshop. The discussions on transforming scholarly communication were concerned with economic, sociological, and legal issues. The emerging OpenURL specification for reference linking was discussed as well. Other topics included SPARC's efforts to change the state of scholarly publishing, the Budapest Open Access Initiative, the Open Archive Forum project, Scirus, SciX and overviews of software systems for open archiving were provided. The conference had 22 presentations with presentors from nine countries.
The Handbook aims to identify good practices in the creation, management, and preservation of digital materials and to provide a range of practical tools to assist in that process. This html version of the Handbook will be maintained and updated by the Digital Preservation Coalition in collaboration with the National Library of Australia and the PADI Gateway. The print edition of the Handbook published by the British Library is out-of-print.
This report documents the progress that the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP) has made from the initial planning phase. It provides a plan for preserving digital information of national significance; reports on the planning approach and lessons learned from a variety of activities; and proposes the next actions to begin the practical applications and modeling approaches to implementation of NDIIPP.
The author discusses some of the key factors in determining repository storage costs at two Harvard central repositories. Storage costs are recovered by charging owners at annual rates per billable square foot and per gigabyte. However the author notes that format alone does not dictate costs. Content integrity and preservation risk factors must also be taken into consideration in determining repository storage costs.
At the April 2002 CENDI meeting, Ms. Frangakis covered NAL's past and current activities involving the preservation of USDA digital materials. Major accomplishments to date include the development of a survey instrument to identify digital publications produced by USDA; a metadata conference for USDA staff to raise awareness and to educate staff to achieve buy in; and the development of draft digital preservation guidelines. Technical requirements for the long-term management of digital publications continue to be developed and funding continues to be a challenge for this effort. Ms. Frangakis closed by saying that the Open Archival Information System (OAIS) Reference Model is being used and that they have successfully mapped their prototype to this model. Other standards and processes (MARC, Dublin Core, and CORC) have been incorporated as well.
At the April 2002 CENDI meeting, Ms. Davids provided a brief overview of the metadata template being used at NAL. It is used for documents created by NAL staff and for materials that are digitized from print for preservation purposes. Elements of the template include preservation, content stability, and support access. NAL is using Handles in the prototype system. XML will be included in the final system.
This is a two-year project funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) to develop a national service provider repository of e-print records based at the University of Bath, derived by harvesting metadata from institutional and subject-based e-prints archives using the Open Archive Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH). This report is an impact assessment that introduces the concept of institutional e-print respositories in the context of open-access initiatives and reviews the relevant repositories in the UK and the possible impacts ePrints UK may have in supporting learning, teaching and research. Possible impediments are discussed as well as the ongoing evaluation criteria for the project.
At the February 4, 2003 CENDI meeting at the National Library of Medicine, Mr. James gave a history of GPO's role in collecting, managing, and distributing government information. He remarked that less than 50 percent of GPO's output ever sees paper and that the trend is towards more digital products. Ms. Russell is the 22nd Superintendent of Documents. She stressed the need for agency collaboration and the opportunities of agencies to provide improved access to federal information. In particular she discussed the need to review the FDLP program and is interested in seeking more partnerships with CENDI to further progress toward common goals.
At the February 4, 2003 CENDI meeting at the National Library of Medicine, Dr. Bellardo, reviewed NARA's goals in light of several new NARA initiatives. These include the Records Management Initiative (RMI), the Electronic Records Management (ERM), and the Electronic Records Archives (ERA). Each of the initiatives were discussed in detail. Dr. Bellardo closed his presentation by emphasizing the interests that NARA and CENDI share including preservation and access to information over time, especially in the areas of scientific and technical data, research and development data, and government publications. He identified the development of metadata standards, harvesting of metadata and content, and initiatives surrounding the E-Government Act as being possible areas for collaboration.
At the CENDI meeting on February 4, 2003 at the National Library of Medicine, Dr. Ackerman introduced the Embryo Project which is funded under NLM's Next Generation Internet (NGI). The Embryo project will provide digitized embryo data from the Carnegie Collection through a system of visualization/collaboration workstations using high performance networking.
This draft version is a white paper that was discussed at the Coalition for Networked Information's Spring meeting. The authors explore the potential interactions between information environments and learning environments with a special focus on architecture, standards, and interfaces. Some of the major difficulties and technical challenges from the library and institutional perspective are discussed at length.
ERPANET's goal is to enhance the knowledge base for the preservation of cultural and scientific digital objects by providing access to experience, and sharing policies and strategies. The ERPANET web site provides access to case studies; digital preservation professionals who can answer about and assist with digital preservation projects; assessments of digital preservation literature, technical guidelines and standards; digital preservation training; and tools to enable institutions to approach digital projects proactively. ERPANET is composed of a Management Board with partners and an Advisory Committee. Partners include The Humanities Technology and Information Institute (HATII); Nationaal Archief van Nederland; Institute for Archival and Library Science (Universita degli Studi di Urbino); and Schweizerisches Bundesarchiv.
The CLIR commissioned a survey of North American based digital cultural heritage initiatiaves (DCHIs) in 2002 to identify the scope, financing, organizational structure, and sustainability of DCHIs. The survey was the initial step in a larger effort aimed at developing recommendations for a coordinated strategy to sustain and strengthen digital cultural heritage initiatives. The Survey revealed a vast array of missions, services, programs, and products. Most DCHIs are membership organizations with foundations being the largest source of financial support for digital cultural initiatives. Many DCHIs are not in a sustainable state. Recommendations for sustainability include conducting needs assessments, improved training, clarification of missions, improved communications, and identifying stable repositories.
Report by the Task Force on Archiving of Digital Information which was commissioned by The Commission on Preservation and Access and The Research Libraries Group, Inc. The Report covers a joint commission initiative to investigate issues related to the permanent archiving and preservation of digital materials, provides an analysis of the issues, and presents the infrastructure and organizational roles required to preserve electronic resources.
The digital archival records research program at the Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications investigates all aspects of creating and disseminating digital collections including proposed and adopted standards, emerging technologies and formats, effects on previously established processes, and protection of original materials. An example of early work conducted in this area is the Regional Medical Programs collection. Lister Hill is currently working with the NLM's History of Medicine Division (HMD) to effect a technology transfer which will result in a digital library developed and maintained by the Modern Manuscripts section of HMD. The section will house and disseminate historically significant digitized collections, particularly those of prominent biomedical scientists.
Access to and Services for Federal Information in the Networked Environment is a white paper whose goal is to guide higher education and other institutions, such as state and public libraries, in the development of strategies for providing access to and services for federal information by their constituencies using the powerful and rapidly expanding global information infrastructure. It addresses issues of service, access, collections, preservation, and infrastructure at the enterprise-wide or institutional level.
This "index" page links to individual issues of the quarterly newsletter that provide coverage of scientific and technical electronic information, Internet, the Web, and related issues such as policy and standards, Web site development guidelines, and topical resources with S&T information content.
This five page document summarizes the discussions on building a scientific electronic archive presented during the ICSTI 1997 General Assembly. Reviews are included for each speaker's presentation. Comparisons of the print and electronic publishing environment are made. Examples of electronic publishing projects in Japan are given. Final discussion centered on national and international issues in implementing a scientific electronic archive.
ICSU is a non-governmental organization, founded in 1931 to bring together natural scientists in international scientific endeavor. The Council acts as a focus for the exchange of ideas and information and the development of standards. This site links to the conference program, committees, and summaries of invited papers for this joint conference with UNESCO. The 13 invited papers cover topics on standards, archiving, electronic publishing in developing countries, digital libraries, S&T information, copyright, data security, and economics of information.
CLIR brings together libraries, archives, and information organizations to address issues of digital resources and services, preservation and access. The CLIR Home Page gives information on the Council and its publications and provides links to the Commission on Preservation & Access, digital libraries, economics of information, leadership and to a directory of public access networks.
The DLF operates under the Council on Library and Information Resources for the purpose of creating, maintaining, expanding and preserving distributed collections of digital materials. The site contains information about the Federation including DLF presentations and publications and links to Web resources on digital libraries.
This assessment presents issues in improving public access to electronic Federal Government information from the Federal Depository Library Program and Federal Government information in general. Media types, formats, performance criteria, costs, and national federal policy for electronic information products are discussed.
The article describes a Web-based electronic journal publishing project and underlying concepts for electronic publishing from the Physics community. Three fundamental elements are a preprint server, a peer-reviewed and edited journal, and an electronic archive. Discusses difficulties in transitioning role of archive from libraries to publishers; product design; computer network and software tools to support the product; and cost models. This prototype explores issues in moving to Web-based systems for e-publishing.
COOL is a full-text library of materials on conservation of library, archives, and museum materials. The site provides access by topic, author, professional, and organization. Links are included to electronic journals, Listserv archives, vendors and other links on conservation of materials. Among the alphabetical list of topics are copyright and intellectual property, digital imaging, and ethics.
The workshop focused on the characteristics and features of images, image production and reformatting features, and image identification and integrity issues in relation to preservation and archiving. The group agreed on a preliminary list of technical metadata elements specifically required for images, and follow-up efforts needed to future standardize
This report, conducted through interviews with organizations that have digital archiving projects in prototype or operational stages, describes the status of the practice, identifies outstanding issues, describes a typology of archiving models, and makes recommendations for follow-up by ICSTI and CENDI.
This web site outlines the project and provides information for ordering the paper report. Also identifies contact information for electronic copies of the white papers presented at the workshop.
Dr. Nelson identified four major issues and policy areas in which he is working. Vision includes the education of the public to new technologies and their benefits. Research and Technology includes making technologies more reliable, more robust and more usable. In the area of Information Policy, the major efforts include intellectual property and copyright in the digital environment and telecommunications. In the area of security, the Critical Infrastructure Protection Commission was recently established. Additional discussion between Dr. Nelson and the CENDI members included a discussion of information life cycle management and preservation and archiving. Changing scientific communication practices, the CIO Council, electronic Freedom of Information Act compliance, and intellectual property and copyright.
This web site outlines the joint Research Library Group-Digital Library Federation project to gather and analyze existing digital preservation policies and practices in the areas of institutional records, locally digitized materials (institutional projects) and electronic publications. The site includes links to other RLG-DLF publications, the problem statement, the task group members, and the work plan and timeline. Information will continue to be added to the site as the project continues.
The report investigates the means of ensuring the long-term storage of records in digital electronic form. The problem is framed, critical issues are defined, and recommended actions are presented for each issue. Alternatives to technology refreshing are explored. It emphasizes both the need to protect against media deterioration and technological obsolescence. The development of a national system of digital archives is described.
This is the report of a study of RLG member institutions. It describes the current state of resources, education, equipment, and digital preservation activities. Recommendations are made for closing the gap between current models for digital preservation and the status of preservation at member activities.
The author describes and links the economics of digital preservation to incentives to preserve materials amongst key decision-makers in the the digital preservation process. Incentives impact three key economic decision-makers in the digital preservation process are the rights holders, archive, and beneficiary. With these roles, the author defines five organizational models or scenarios, under which digital preservation activities could take place. The author found that many organizational models often provide insufficient incentives to undertake digital preservation projects. He also discusses a four-point agenda for future research into the economics of digital preservation: accumulation and synthesis of digital preservation case studies; the development of incentive policies for digital preservation; characterizing and understanding the market structure for digitial preservation; and developing sustainable pricing strategies for digital preservation services.
In 1994, the Council for Preservation and Access funded a project calle The Yale Social Science Data Preservation Project. This report of that project discusses mechanisms for preserving and archiving social science data and its documentation. Issues addressed include technology migration, hardware/software independent formats, and user accessibility. While the emphasis is on social science data, it is expected that the information in this report would be of value to scientific numberic data as well.
This is the Web site for a joint project of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutes Core Programmes and UNESCO. Many libraries world-wide are engaged in digization projects. However, there is no single resource from which to locate these projects. The goal of this project is to create a virtual library for these digitization projects. In addition, the programme is studying the issues related to such large scale projects and the provision of such a virtual library.
In 1999 key managers of the Los Alamos National Laboratory's e-print server sent out a call to experts to join an initiative aimed at discussion and resolution of interoperability problems among and across author self-archiving systems, such as e-print and preprint archives. This site will include access to meeting minutes, white papers and prototype systems.
This is a report that reviews the application of Knowledge Organization Systems to the digital environment. Such systems include term lists, classification schemes, glossaries, and thesauri.
This workshop -sponsored by ICSTI and ICSU Press- brought together representatives from the stakeholder groups as well as representatives from other groups working in the area of digital archiving to discuss key issues, particularly in the areas of system models, economic models, standards and policies.
This is a report on the ICSTI/ICSU Press workshop on digital archiving and describes the major themes for the workshop including models for digital archiving, the economics of sustainable archives, and standards and best practices.
This document is the result of a study focused on new insights into digital archiving issues based on many of the baseline studies and white papers on this subject. The project was conducted through surveys of ICSTI and CENDI members, literature review and contacts with experts.
This site provides links to large-scale digital preservation initiatives and projects, standards, and technologies. It is a high-level introduction to third-party directories and sites which will provide exhaustive coverage.
Gateway to the independent USA Federal agency that helps preserve USA's history by overseeing the management of all USA Federal records. Links are available to grants, employment, internships and volunteering opportunities.
Home page for the Cedars Project. The Project is a Higher Education initiative funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee through the eLib program. Cedars stands for CURL (Consortium of University Libraries) exemplars in digital archives.
This discussion paper looks at three current sites for digital information: ACM Digital Library, the Internet RFC series, and D-Lib Magazine. Implications for long-term preservation, publishers as archivists, organizational stability, copyright, technology standards, long-terms strategies, partnerships, and preservation independent of the original publisher are discussed.
This report is the result of a review of the Library of Congress' status of information technology planning by the Committee on an Information Technology Strategy. The report includes specific recommendations for enhancing its technology infrastructure in the areas of networks, databases, and information technology security. The Committee is convinced that the Library's future lies in: (1) inventing a new form for acquiring and preserving materials that includes digital information in all its forms; (2) opening itself to broader and deeper dialogue with the world of information professionals beyond its walls; (3) finding the management vision and making paradigmatic change happen in the organization; and (4) investing in the technology infrastructure required to support such change. This report details the Committee's concerns with the management and human resources processes and provides details on some aspects of the technology itself.
In 1998, the Council on Library and Information Resources asked Cornell University Library to undertake a risk assessment of migrating a small number of common file formats. This report resulting from their invesitgation is meant to be a practical guide to assessing the risks associated with the migration of various formats and to making informed preservation decisions on the basis of that assessment. The process of file migration is presented in a workbook. Two case studies involving image files and numeric files are also given.
This report documents the results of the Commission's research, interviews, public meetings, and other fact and opinion gathering efforts regarding the closure of the National Technical Information Service (NTIS). The report also includes the Commission's findings, conclusions, and recommendations. The Commission recommended that NTIS be retained at least temporarily until a more thorough study can be made; that the Department of Commerce be allowed to use the money in its Supplemental FY 2000 budget request to keep NTIS operational; that Congress should authorize an appropriation of $5M for FY 2001 to sustain NTIS; and that the final decision on NTIS not be made solely on the requirement that it failed to recover its operating costs primarily through the collection of fees.
This article describes Harvard's efforts in building its first-generation digital library infrastructure. Some of the key issues addressed include: metadata, technical formats, reformatting, legal issues, preservation, interfaces and access. Other areas discussed include the development of a core set of systems to support digital collections and the definition of an overall technical framework.
This Workbook is intended to provide guidance to a broad audience including institutions at national, regional and local levels, administrators and practitioners, service providers and to data creators. Case studies and interviews are included to ensure that key issues are addressed. The book builds on existing work and provides more detailed guidance to all involved with digital materials. It identifies good practice in creating, managing, and preserving digital materials and also provides some practical tools to assist in that process.
This Web site provides a bibliography of documents related to digital information longevity. The resources are grouped as follows: key information sources; longevity-related projects; other sources, position papers, etc., and sites for general conservation/preservation/longevity information. The resources include journal articles, workshops, reports, Web sites, and projects.
This article highlights some of the findings in the report "A Digital Strategy for the Library of Congress." The author chaired the committee responsible for the document. In essence, the Library of Congress (LC) has no clear digital vision and has not begun to deal successfully with its responsibility to acquire, select, and preserve materials in this format. A major effort needs to be made to create a seamless system that enforces the mandatory deposit provisions of US law by acquiring, selecting, cataloging and making accessible material in electronic form. The author also noted that LC has some management issues that need to be resolved.
Digital preservation has become an important issue in libraries. Two of the prinicipal problems are the fragility of digital media and the rapid obsolesence of computer hardware and software. This article discusses the use of emulation as a digital preservation strategy. This technique involves running software on the new/current platform that emulates the original platform. The author offers technical approaches to emulation, discusses the issues of intellectual property rights, standards and specification, and also provides some imaginary scenarios to illustrate different preservation strategies.
This article reports on the ongoing work of the International Research on Permanent Authentic Records in Electronic Systems (InterPARES). This project is involved in taking a record-centric approach to the development of a typology of requirements for maintaining the authenticity of records over time. Authenticity issues and long-term preservation are central to the work of this project. The article covers the requirements for preserving the authenticity of electronic records, provides a template for analysis and a model of the preservation process and the appraisal of electronic records. The authors conclude by identifying several key areas of concern.
The report consists of background papers for and summaries of meetings conducted by the Library of Congress's National Digital Library Program. The goal of the meetings was to gather information for use in developing a national strategy for the preservation of digital information.
The author looks at the challenges of establishing an infrastructure for digital archiving. In the paper, the difficulties inherent with a diverse group of stakeholders and the components of an archiving infrastructure are reviewed. In addition, the author gives an overview of the Open Archiving Information System Reference Model (OAIS), discusses the role of publishers, and offers a vision for the future.
A follow-on to the group's earlier "Preservation Metatdata for Digital Objects: A Review of the State of the Art," this report is a guide to preservation metadata for digital presentation activities. It includes an overview of the relationship of preservation metadata to the Open Archival Information System (OAIS) reference model.
This publication looks at digitial archiving as long-term preservation both of a bytestream and content access over time and considering changing technology. The authors consider the rights and responsibilities of "trusted digital repositories", including OAIS-compliant digital repositories, where deposit, storage, and/or access is provided across federated organizations. The article also defines a framework for developing a certification program.
Minutes from a presentation by Pamela Q.J. Andre, National Agricultural Library (NAL) at the CENDI meeting on October 28, 1999. Ms. Andre discussed NAL' strategic objective of digital preservation and the process of its development. The USDA's framework for strategic planning was developed in 1997 and a steering committee with representation from all the USDA mission areas was created. Since there was no budget to support these efforts, a pilot inventory of digital publications was undertaken. During some of the discussions there emerged a difference in opinions between records management and libraries. The libraries approach was to save as much as possible, whereas the records managers' approach was to keep as little as possible.
This White Paper is a collaborative effort between OCLC and RLG to identify and support best practices for the long-term retention and preservation of digital ojbects. This effort was limited to identifying attributes of a digital archive for research repositories and the use of metadata to support the digital preservation process. The Working Group was formed to initiate a consensus-building process in preservation metadata. From this foundation a framework will be developed. The scope of this white paper includes the following topics: definition and illustration of preservation metadata for digital objects; high-level requirements for a broadly applicable, comprehensive preservation metadata framework; the Open Archival Information System (OAIS) reference model, a potential strating point for developing the preservation metadata framework; review and synthesis of existing preservation metadata approaches; and the identification of points of agreement/disagreement among existing approaches.
This is a comprehensive article on digital archiving. In the introduction, Ms. Hodge points out that unlike traditional materials, digital information is fragile and easily corrupted or altered without recognition and requires access technologies which may quickly become obsolete. She also notes that digital storage media have shorter life spans than traditional materials. Because of the shrinking timeframe between manufacture and preservation, there is less time to consider archiving this information. Ms. Hodge provides an indepth look at the results of a study sponsored by the International Council for Scientific and Technical Information (ICSTI). The focus of the study was to identify new best practices of digital archiving. The best practices are presented in the framework of information life cycle which includes: creation, acquisition, cataloging/identification, storage, preservation and access. For each of the life cycle stages, Ms. Hodge discusses the key issues of concern and provides examples from the ICSTI study.
This Web site is a comprehensive subject gateway to digital preservation resources. The site is organized by resource types and digital preservation topics. The resource types include a listserv, events, policies, strategies and guidelines, bibliographies, journals and newsletters, glossaries,etc. The topics include general resources, issues, strategies, rights management, data documentation and standards, formats and media, national approaches, digitization, digital records, and digital libraries.
This paper consists of three parts, the first of which is an overview of the background and related issues for preserving digital materials. This part also considers the technological, economic and organizational issues for research libraries involved in digital preservation. The second part discusses the various strategies and methodologies which are currently advocated, and part three focuses on the need for libraries to develop strategies and plans for the preservation of digital resources. The author concludes by saying that "preservation and long-term access to digital materials will be an area of concern for libraries" well into the future. There are many different stakeholders (libraries, publishers, suppliers, users) with different agendas involved in the issue of digital preservation and access. It is critical that this issue be addressed now.
As part of the National Library of Medicine's (NLM) mandate to collect and preserve the record of biomedicine, NLM formed a Working Group on Permanence (WPG) of electronic information. The WPG has developed a model based on NLM's electronic publications to address a user's need to know whether a resource he/she creates, uses, or cites will remain available, unchanged, and in the same location for future access. In this process the WPG developed recommendations for: levels of permanence suitable for different categories of NLM information; "methods of recording and communicating permanence levels; and procedures for ensuring that permancence levels are implemented." According to the author, three main concepts behind this system are: identifier validity (IV) - the extent to which a resource's identifier will remain the same over time and retrieve the same resource; resource availability (RA) - the degree to which users can be assured that a given resource will be there the next time it is needed; and content invariance (CI) - the degree to which the content of an electronic resource could change. Under the rating of identifier validity there are two possibilities: transient and guaranteed. Under the resource availability rating the possibilities are: no guarantee or permanently available. Under the rating for content invariance the possibilities are: dynamic (content can change anytime through revisions or be completely replaced); stable (minor additions or corrections to be expected); or unchanging (content will remain the same over time). In addition to these categories, the terms growing or closed are used for newsletters or databases to indicate that material is still being added or that the resource is no longer growing. A simplified rating system was developed to assist NLM staff to replace the initial system. The ratings for permanent resources are permanent - unchanging content; permanent - stable content; permanent - dynamic content; and permanent - not guaranteed. All of NLM's major resources on the Web were examined and were categorized by resource category and given a default rating when possible. For the creators of information, a drop-down menu based on the resource category was developed. Guidelines were also developed to assist staff in using the rating system. MARC records will be created for resources that are rated permanent and will be placed in the online catalog. The WGP recommended that permanence coordinators be assigned for each major program area to ensure that the rating system is implemented consistently. The systems development phse of the project is scheduled to begin in January, 2001.
This paper describes Cornell University Library's project to develop and implement a digital preservation strategy for their collection of over two and a half million mission images. Over a two year time period, the project inventoried thirty different digital image collections, investigated emerging file formats for long-term utility, explored functional requirements for storage, and drafted recommendations for the preservation of metadata. A working group was established to present the recommendations to the Library Management Team. The Project's final report will cover conversion and metadata requirements, strategies for storage, maintenance and long-term care, and an assessment of resource needs.
This was a conference paper presented at the June 2000 Pacific History Association Conference in Canberra. Mr. Webb discusses digitization from three different perpectives: access, preservation and management. In the area of access, he discusses legibility of images, the difficulty of capturing fine detail without building large digital files, and the time it takes to download and print large image files. He explains that one pitfall in this area is to assume that text whether handwritten or printed can automatically be converted into highly accurate searchable text without a large investment in time and labor to organize and describe the material and in designing user interfaces. He also mentions that the issues of ownership, rights of access, and cultural sensitivities must also be addressed. From the preservation perspective, he explains that we need to ask whether digitization will help achieve the following: (1)is the image quality sufficient enough for users to want to use the copy rather than the origianl; (2) can the level of risk to the originals be controlled and minimized in the imaging process; and (3) can we provide and maintain access to the digital copy. The last area discussed is from the management perspective where he proposes three principles to be applied: (1) Digitization projects are complex; (2) Almost anything can be achieved at a cost; and (3) The cost is always more than you expect. Good project management is essential if the project is to achieve the desired objectives within the designated time frame and costs. His last comment from the management perspective is that digitization projects, because of the complexity and cost, can take up so much management time, they can easily skew our other priorities.
This article discusses a recent project at the Library of Congress on archiving the Web. The Library of Congress has been working on a prototype system called Minerva, to collect and preserve materials from the Web. The authors discuss their insights into the practical issues involved in collecting and organizing selected Web sites, and offer suggestions as to how the Library of Congress could implement a full-scale system. The Minerva project uses only the open access materials on the Web. The processing used to archive sites and the lessons learned are explained. The implications for cooperation with other organizations based on the volume and complexity of digital materials is discussed. The Library of Congress needs to have a legal framework to download materials for preservation, to designate other organizations at separate locations to act as its agent in these responsibilities and to make small editorial changes to the materials that it downloads for access and preservation purposes. The authors offer three objectives against which preservation strategies can be judged:(1) preservation of bits; (2)preservation of content; and (3)preservation of experience. The preservation of files downloaded from the Web is difficult because they are characterized by a very large volume of data, no feedback from the archive to the producer, high error rates, and an unbounded variety of formats. Currently there are two methods that are practical for preserving these materials: refreshing and migration. The authors explain that there are limitations to preservation strategies and that even with conscientious migration, the preservation of experience can not be guaranteed. This effort will be labor-intensive and inexact, requiring analysis of individual Web sites.
This article describes the development and testing of a harvester to archive Web resources, a key research component of the NEDLIB project. The NEDLIB project was a collaborative effort of eight European national libraries to construct the basic infrastructure for a networked European deposit library system for digital publications. The operation of a Web harvester is described very succinctly. The first version of the NEDLIB harvester was released in January 2000 and a second version was published in September 2000. During this time beta testing was completed. In January 2001 another version was released that resolved all of the known bugs and the National and University Library of Iceland proceeded to harvest the Icelandic Web. The sweep was completed in approximately a week and captured about 5,750 domains. Snapshots are planned for a few times a year. Most of the problems encountered by the NEDLIB harvester related either to bad data or poorly developed HTTP server applications. There were also problems with CGI scripts. A major consideration for any Web archiving system is disk space for the database controlling the harvesting activity; workspace for processing the harvested documents; and the archived documents. Other issues involve defining the national web space. The author makes a point of saying that "just retrieving everything from the country domain is not enough. The national library or other organization responsible for this job must also obtain valid server names from other top-level domains….". Other issues encountered by the NEDLIB project were scheduling a fixed time to harvest sites, developing an archive module for the metadata, using a file system for storage of the archived documents, and indexing the Web archive. Currently, end users can not access a Web archive built by the NEDLIB harvester, however, work for building an access module is in process. It is projected that by the project's end in 2002, the Nordic national libraries will have a complete tool set for harvesting, archiving, and indexing the Web. The author concludes by listing some of the remaining challenges. These include the inability of the harvester to reach the deep Web, the inability to use some archived resources over time, and the issue of copyright.
The author discusses some of the more technical aspects of the file specifications and future plans for PDF and then focuses on how libraries can preserve digital resources in PDF format. The page images and the text (for most PDF files) can be easily migrated and may be sufficient for the preservation needs of most libraries. In cases where it is not possible to migrate both the text and the look of PDF into a single document, it may be possible to migrate PDF documents into a presentation that will allow the user to switch between the text-oriented and image-oriented views of the same document. The author explains that institutions need to use three precedures to reliably preserve PDF-format documents: (1) Clearly specify what is being preserved (static images of the PDF document pages; static images with exact replication of original fonts; text encoded in the PDF document; the table-of-contents structure; dynamic, script-dependent, or the auxiliary attributes of a PDF document); (2) Ensure that there is quality control over the PDF documents acquired; and (3) Develop tools and procedures for migrating PDF into other formats. In conclusion, the author states that institutions should be able to collect documents in PDF format and be able to archive and preserve them indefinitely.
This executive report summarizes and discusses the recommendations from a workshop on digital archiving and long-term preservation sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the Library of Congress held in April 2002. Several key recommendations are reported, with the most pressing need being for government agencies to undertake research opportunitites to improve the state of knowledge and practice for long-term perservation of digital information.
This paper discusses three areas of digital preservation research: current needs and opportunities; frameworks for research and practical applications; and methodologies for research and knowledge transfer. Each of these areas is discussed at length.
The author summarizes the Library of Congress's (LC) efforts to create a national strategy to collect, archive, and preserve digital content. The Library's plan has three phases: a preliminary phase that will result in a master plan to request Congress to approve the release of funds; the development of partnerships with the archival community and the content distributor/creator community; and a testing and evaluating phase that will enable LC to go back to Congress in five to seven years to discuss the most viable options for long-term preservation.
The Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) and Cornell University Library have together launched a Web-based preservation tutorial that is targeted towards libraries and archives in Southeast Asia. The tutorial provides basic preservation information that includes a self-assessment tool, an instructional narrative, a resource guide, and a technical glossary of terms. Plans are to adapt the tutorial for use in other countries.
The Gateway for Resources and Information on Preservation (GRIP) is a website created as a collaborative effort between the National Archives of the Netherlands and the European Commission on Preservation and Access. GRIP is a searchable database of resources on preservation containing selected annotated references to literature, links to websites, projects, organizations and other resources on preservation.
The NDIIPP was begun as a collaborative effort by the U.S. Congress and the Library of Congress in 2000 provides news about the development of digital preservation policies, standards and technologies. Reports, presentations, meeting reports, commissioned studies, digital television, e-journals and other resources on digital preservation are available on the website.
The Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC), established in 2001, promotes joint action to address the challenges of securing the preservation of digital resources in the United Kingdom. DPC also works internationally to secure our global digital memory and knowledge base. The DPC web site provides access to events, activities, reports, advocacy, and links of interest. The DPC and PADI produce a quarterly summary of recent activity in the field of digital preservation that is accessible from the web site.
This web site, developed by OCLC, provides access to numerous resources on copyright, digitization, grants assistance, preservation and current news on digitization and preservation activities. A free electronic subscription to the Digitization & Preservation Dispatch is also availabe from the site.
This report provides a summary of the points raised at the "Scholarship and Libraries in Transition: A Dialogue about the Impacts of Mass Digitization Projects." In particular it addresses concerns generated by Google's mass digitization project.
This report covers NARA's guidelines for preserving a wide range of formats digitally.
This paper describes why digitzation is necessary in order to provide more easily stored formats of a variety of records. The paper also list and compares a wide variety of storage formats.
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