October 13, 2005
Library of Congress Selects Audio-Visual Digitization System
The Library of Congress has selected a audio-visual digitization and migration tool. The product, called the System for Automated Migration of Media Archives (SAMMA), is set to migrate LOC's large collection of audio-visual material in preperation for its move to the National Audovisual Conservation Center in Culpeper, VA.
From the Press Release:
SAMMA combines robotic tape handling systems with proprietary tape cleaning and signal analysis technologies. SAMMA's expert system automatically supervises quality control of each media item's migration. From a thorough examination of the physical tape for damage, to real-time monitoring of video and audio signal parameters during migration, SAMMA ensures that magnetic media is migrated with the highest degree of confidence and the least amount of human intervention. SAMMA uses specially-designed components to gather technical metadata throughout the entire migration process, ensuring that the process is documented in depth while gathering important metrics about the health of an entire collection. The modular, portable system will be installed on-site at the Library and run 24/7. The final product will be a lossless compressed Motion JPEG 2000 digital file copy of each master tape at preservation quality, and the technical metadata describing the condition of the media item and the migration process.
Links:
Media Matters Website (developer of SAMMA)
Library of Congress
September 30, 2005
Digital Extras, 9/30/05
Here are some items that appeared most often in web and blog search feeds for this week.
European Union's Digital Heritage Plans
The Commission adopted on 30/09/2005 the "i2010: Digital Libraries" communication outlining the vision of this initiative and addressing in particular the issues of digitisation, on line accessibility and digital preservation of our cultural heritage.
Representing Digital Assets for Long-Term Preservation using MPEG-21 DID.
This paper will explore the potential of the MPEG-21 DID in a Digital Preservation context, by looking at the core building blocks of the OAIS Information Model and the way in which they map to the MPEG-21 DID abstract model and the MPEG-21 DIDL XML syntax.
The National Archives tackles digital compliance
The National Archives have reached another milestone in digital preservation testing and compliance. In conjunction with the UK Data Archive, The National Archives have released a report comparing their preservation practices to the leading internationally recognised standard for digital archives. This provides a model for other organisations to test the compliance of their own systems.
Using the Open Archival Information System (OAIS) Reference Model the two organisations were able to compare their preservation practices within a common framework: an opportunity that was particularly timely because, in January 2005, the UKDA was appointed as a legal place of deposit for National Archive documents.
Google Print
You can't go anywhere without seeing some news article praising or blasting Google over their Print project. Here's a list of some of the articles.
* Authors Guild Sues Google: Authors Guild web site
* Google Sued: on Lessig blog
* Google Print and the Authors Guild: on Google blog
* U-M statement on Google library project
* Copyright scholars and publishers on crazy auctorial theories about books and tech: on Boing Boing
* Google Print beta site
September 20, 2005
Library of Congress Digital Formats Website
The Library of Congress maintains an excellent, comprehensive list of digital formats on their Digital Formats for Library of Congress Collections website.
The site has four main sections, Introduction, Sustainability Factors, Content Categories, and Format Descriptions. The overall goal of the site is to provide a resource for documenting digital formats and evaluating long-term preservation issues for each. Much of the site discusses the implications of digital formats for the American Memory Project at LOC, but it is equally valuable to other institutions.
The meat of the site is the Format Descriptions section. Formats are broken down into five categories:
* Still Image
* Textual
* Sound
* Moving Image
* Generic
Each category includes an alphabetical list of formats. Clicking on a format displays a full record with the following information:
* Identification and description
* Local use
* Sustainability factors
* Quality and functionality factors
* File type signifiers
* Notes
* Format specifications
* Useful references
These descriptions serve as a resource for selection and acquisition at the Library of Congress. They also support the preservation of digital content as a resource for implementations of the Representation Network that is an element of the Open Archival Information System (OAIS) [PDF] reference model. The Format Descriptions are intended to be consistent with and complementary to the proposed Global Digital Format Registry.
The site appears to be routinely maintained and updated.
Links: http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats
September 16, 2005
PDF/Archive Format now a Standard
It's official. AIIM and NPES announced that ISO has approved PDF/Archive. Once you get past the alphabet soup of organization and format names, there is a lot to be happy about here.
PDF/A will enable organizations to archive documents electronically in a way that will ensure preservation of content over an extended period of time and ensure that those documents can be retrieved and rendered with a consistent and predictable result in the future.
The standards is officially titled ISO 19005-1, Document management - Electronic document file format for long-term preservation - Part 1: Use of PDF 1.4 (PDF/A-1).
An article in Federal Computer Week has this info on the format.
PDF/A specifies a subset of the PDF file format that is more suitable for long-term preservation than the traditional PDF. For example, the standard will forbid links to outside documents and require fonts to be embedded in documents, making the documents completely independent of outside resources, said Diana Helander, Adobe's business development manager for worldwide standards. The documents must include metadata so that archived documents can be fully searchable, auditable and traceable.
The format also prohibits encryption from being used, something that will ensure document accessibility into the future.
Here are some websites with more information:
AIIM PDF/A Standards
Library of Congress Digital Formats
PDF entry in Wikipedia
August 24, 2005
Call to Action on 21st Century Literacy
From CNI-Announce:
The New Media Consortium (NMC) has released a call to action entitled A Global Imperative: The Report of the 21st Century Literacy Summit.
The report details the outcomes of an international "summit" of thought leaders in visual and digital literacy convened by the NMC, and cosponsored by Adobe Systems, the George Lucas Educational Foundation, and the MacArthur Foundation.
This world-renowned group of leaders, researchers, artists, and practitioners engaged in two days of substantive dialog around emerging trends and issues in visual and digital literacy and developed the action plan described in the report. A Global Imperative outlines five strategic priorities for visual and digital literacy, their implications, and what it will take to achieve them.
Richly illustrated with the visual record of the meeting, the monograph provides twenty-two focused recommendations for research, teacher credentialing, standards, curricula, and other initiatives o meet those priorities.
The 32-page report is free, and has been released with a Creative Commons license to facilitate its use, duplication, and broad distribution.
A full-color Adobe Acrobat version of the monograph is available at
http://www.nmc.org/pdf/Global_Imperative.pdf (1Mb, 32 pp).
May 19, 2005
RAW Digital Camera Format for Archives?
The RAW format for digital cameras is, as it name implies, unprocessed data that comes directly from the camera's image processor. Unfortunately, each manufacturer maintains their own proprietary RAW format.
What Archives need is a more stable and long term format.
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Continue reading "RAW Digital Camera Format for Archives?"
May 05, 2005
Open Document Format Approved
The 3rd revision of the Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument) 1.0 specification has been approved as an OASIS committee draft by the OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications Technical Committee.
Open Document format defines an XML schema for office applications and its semantics. The schema is suitable for office documents, including text documents, spreadsheets, charts and graphical documents like drawings or presentations, but is not restricted to these kinds of documents.
The schema provides for high-level information suitable for editing documents. It defines suitable XML structures for office documents and is friendly to transformations using XSLT or similar XML-based tools.
The specification document is available in PDF format
Link
