October 20, 2005
Wisconsin Digital Archive Pilot Project
The Wisconsin Digital Archive Pilot Project is a collaborative effort involving the Wisconsin Reference and Loan Library, the Wisconsin Historical Society, and the Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau. Its primary objective is to develop strategies for providing permanent electronic access to web-based Wisconsin electronic government documents.
Documents selected for preservation follow the Guidelines for Selecting Electronic Wisconsin State Documents Policy. The primary focus is to preserve documents that are considered "at-risk," meaning they are born and live only electronically on the Internet and display one or more of the following characteristics:
* It is prepared for a state agency by a private individual or organization that is supported wholly or partly by any funds appropriated by the State of Wisconsin.
* It reports and/or describes the activity of an agency, or of a subset of an agency. (e.g., annual reports, statistical tables or analyses)
* It is legislatively, judicially or administratively mandated.
* It presents the results of a state task force, commission, or of committee work.
Wisconsin state agencies are encouraged to assist in identifying URLs of online publications located on state agency website that are at-risk and should be digitally archived as part of their statutory obligation to participate in the Wisconsin Document Depository Program. This includes new content, content that has been significantly updated or revised, or content scheduled to be removed from a state agency website.
Link: Wisconsin Digital Archive Pilot Project
Journal of Digital Information, Vol. 6, Issue 2 Available
Volume 6, Issue 2 of the Journal of Digital Information is now available
* Searching and Browsing in a Digital Library of Historical Maps and Newspapers
S. Jones, M. Jones, M. Barr, T. Keegan (December 2004)
* Separation of Concerns: a Web Application Architecture Framework
X. Kong, L. Liu, D. Lowe (April 2005)
* The Dublin Core Metadata Registry: Requirements, Implementation, and Experience
H. Wagner, S. Weibel (March 2005)
Links: http://jodi.tamu.edu/?vol=6
October 19, 2005
October 2005 D-Lib Magazine Now Available
The October 2005 issue of D-Lib Magazine is now available.
This issue contains six articles, the 'In Brief' column, excerpts from recent press releases, and news of upcoming conferences and other items of interest in 'Clips and Pointers'. The Featured Collection for the October issue is ARKive contributed by Hamish MacCall, Wildscreen.
The articles include:
* The CREE Project: Investigating User Requirements for Searching within Institutional Environments
Chris Awre and Ian Dolphin, University of Hull; Gabriel Hanganu and Tony Brett, Oxford University; and Caroline Ingram, CSI Consultancy
* Using Machine Learning to Support Quality Judgments
Myra Custard and Tamara Sumner, University of Colorado at Boulder
* Hierarchical Catalog Records: Implementing a FRBR Catalog
David Mimno, University of Massachusetts, Amherst; and Gregory Crane and Alison Jones, Tufts University
* Development and Assessment of a Public Discovery and Delivery Interface for a Fedora Repository
Leslie Johnston, University of Virginia
* Exploiting "Light-weight" Protocols and Open Source Tools to Implement Digital Library Collections and Services
Xiaorong Xiang and Eric Lease Morgan, University of Notre Dame
* Lund Virtual Medical Journal Makes Self-Archiving Attractive and Easy for Authors
Yvonne Hultman Özek, Lund University
Links: D-Lib
October 06, 2005
Open Content Alliance
This news is so big, it is probably old news by now. Several libraries and companies have joined together to create the Open Content Alliance.
The Open Content Alliance (OCA) represents the collaborative efforts of a group of cultural, technology, nonprofit, and governmental organizations from around the world that will help build a permanent archive of multilingual digitized text and multimedia content. Content in the OCA archive will be accessible soon through this website and through Yahoo!
The OCA will encourage the greatest possible degree of access to and reuse of collections in the archive, while respecting the content owners and contributors.
The list of participants includes: Adobe, European Archive, HP Labs,
Internet Archive, National Archives (UK), O'Reilly Media, Prelinger Archives, University of California, University of Toronto, and Yahoo!
There are several interesting directions this group is taking.
* Strong participation by non-U.S. institutions (the European Archive, the National Archives in the United Kingdom, and the University of Toronto)
* An Open Content focus that encourages the use of the material in any way. You want to download the book, print it, bind it, sell it? No problem. You want to download 100 books and create your own online collection? No problem. You want to create a personalized website that enables researchers to search, collate, tag, comment, share materials in the OC Archive? NO PROBLEM! So cool...
I can't wait to see what happens next.
Links:
Brewster Kahle's Commentary on the OCA: Yahoo Blog
A New Digital Library Alliance Makes its Debut: Search Engine Watch
Yahoo Works With 2 Academic Libraries and Other Archives on Project to Digitize Collections: Chronicle of Higher Education
September 23, 2005
Requirements for Digital Preservation Systems: A Bottom-Up Approach
This article was posted to arXiv.org a couple weeks ago by researchers at Stanford. Here's the abstract:
The field of digital preservation is being defined by a set of standards developed top-down, starting with an abstract reference model (OAIS) and gradually adding more specific detail. Systems claiming conformance to these standards are entering production use. Work is underway to certify that systems conform to requirements derived from OAIS.
We complement these requirements derived top-down by presenting an alternate, bottom-up view of the field. The fundamental goal of these systems is to ensure that the information they contain remains accessible for the long term. We develop a parallel set of requirements based on observations of how existing systems handle this task, and on an analysis of the threats to achieving the goal. On this basis we suggest disclosures that systems should provide as to how they satisfy their goals.
Several things I like about this paper.
1. It is very readable and easy to understand. When dealing with OAIS, preservation systems, etc., this is not always true.
2. Makes a good argument for open standards, systems, and communication.
3. Authenticity and trust in the digital preservation system will require a full disclosure of strategies, threats and failures. Yes, if a system fails, everyone should know about it.
Unfortunately, the paper often presents Stanford's own LOCKSS digital preservation system in such glowing terms that some readers may consider the paper as self-congratulatory.
A must-read article with great references.
Link: http://arxiv.org/abs/cs.DL/0509018
September 14, 2005
Google Print and LC Classification Compared
Thomas Mann, a Reference Librarian in the Main Reading Room of the Library of Congress, has posted a paper titled "Will Google’s Keyword Searching Eliminate the Need for LC Cataloging and Classification?"
Mann's primary claim is that:
"Google Print does not "change everything" regarding the need for professional cataloging and classification of books; its limitations make cataloging and classification even more important to researchers."
The paper does a nice job of explaining what Google does well and where LC Classification still applies.
Link: http://www.guild2910.org/searching.htm
August 24, 2005
RLG's EAD Report Card
RLG has introduced a Web application for checking the quality of your EAD encoding. The tool supplements RLG's award-winning RLG Best Practice Guidelines for Encoded Archival Description.
The tool comes in desktop and server versions. The program will flag any discrepancies and cite the relevant guideline, so you can fix what you have wrong on the spot.
Who can benefit? Archivists and anyone who is creating EAD finding aids, by ensuring conformance with community-wide guidelines.
When does it come in handy? Whether or not you've already been working with the Best Practice Guidelines, this tool will help quality control and productivity. It accepts XML files encoded in EAD DTD version 2002. Use it with:
—finding aids you're currently encoding to the guidelines, to see how they stack up.
—finding aids encoded prior to the publication of the guidelines.
—documents converted for you by a vendor.
—finding aids produced using a database or other tools.
—work done by student assistants.
UPDATED: We're not using the new vesion of EAD just yet. So testing will need to wait.
August 09, 2005
Library of Congress BEAT Project
July 26, 2005
IMLS Digital Collections Registry
The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) has developed a Digital Collections Registry of projects funded through the IMLS National Leadership Grant Program. Users can browse by subject, Object, Place, Title of Collections, Grant Project Name and Hosting Institution. You can also search all metadata fields.
The results page not only provides information on the digital collection, but also information on the hosting institution and project background. A nice addition.
A search of Wisconsin institutions found two entries. First, the Africa Focus: Sights and Sounds of a Continent Collection developed by University of Wisconsin-Madison. Library (just a hop, skip and jump over the fountain to the east from WHS); and Second, American Journeys Collection developed by us, the Wisconsin Historical Society.
We need some more of this Wisconsin! Let's get going.
