David Mattison: Electronic Records and Digital Preservation

Preserving Our Digital Past and Future

Wed, 18 Jun 2003 14:57:47 GMT

"Digital media have a relatively short life expectancy. Preserving digital information for the long term presents many problems, the biggest of which arguably come from changes in coding, formats, software, operating systems and hardware that can render digital material unreadable....

Digital information may be surrounded by technology designed to protect it from unauthorised copying and redistribution, which may also hinder preservation.

For traditional media, libraries acquire and physically own a discrete information object. In the digital world, the model is paying for access to information held remotely. If libraries do not own digital material, they cannot preserve it. Publishers may or may not have a commitment to preserving their own information, depending to an extent on what type of publisher it is and what its mission is....

It is not clear whether copyright legislation and licensed access to digital content threaten the ability of libraries to provide long-term access to that content. The aim of the Copyright and Licensing for Digital Preservation Project, sponsored by the Arts and Humanities Research Board, is to investigate these issues and to suggest ways in which any problems can be overcome. The research is focusing on the UK, but the findings are likely to be of wider interest, and the project is collecting information on the situation in other countries." [Update, via beSpacific]

A traditional function of libraries that we'll lose if we don't start addressing these issues with publishers. Of course, cutting funding for libraries doesn't help. I mean, truly - who do you think is going to do all of these things like bridge the digital divide, teach information literacy, and preserve our culture?

[via The Shifted Librarian]

Creating, Maintaining, and Making Accessible Digital Archives

Sat, 31 May 2003 23:39:40 GMT

With the growing use of the World Wide Web has come a popular demand to make historical and other important records available on-line. How can librarians, archivists, universities, and government officials respond to this demand in an era of limited financial resources and bewildering technological change? What are standards for digitising, maintaining, and serving these records over the Internet? What are the costs? How do you identify vendors who can do the work? How do you ensure quality and maintain the integrity and security of the original documents?

In this executive education workshop, experts from The Centre for Data Digitisation and Analysis (Queen’s University), the Arts and Humanities Data Service, and the Polis Center (USA) will address the following topics and more:

Assessing the need and audiences for a digital archive
Developing a strategy for creating a digital archive
Preserving and maintaining digital materials
Serving digital information over the Web
Selecting a vendor
Determining costs
Assuring quality

This three-hour workshop will be held at Queen’s University in Belfast on July 31 from until 12.30 pm.

For further information, contact CDDA at 028 90272513, e-mail cdda@qub.ac.uk or www.qub.ac.uk/cdda/

Source: HISTORY-DIGITISATION Digest - 26 May 2003 to 30 May 02003 (#2003-14)

Metadata in Digital Preservation ERPANETTraining Workshop, Germany, September 2003

Sat, 31 May 2003 17:14:55 GMT

ERPANET is pleased to announce its training seminar on "Metadata in Digital Preservation ". It will discuss various perspectives on metadata to facilitate preservation, issues on interoperability, the role of standards and schemas, costs aspects, as well as other state-of-the-art developments. The expertise of the speakers, together with the experiences and topics to be discussed will offer seminar participants insight and a framework for implementation of metadata in relation to digital preservation.

This three day training seminar, co-hosted by the ‘Archivschule’, will be held in Marburg (Germany) on September 3-5, 2003.

Source: DIGLIB mailing list, 31 May 02003

Victorian Electronic Records Strategy Tender Specification for Digital Archive

Fri, 30 May 2003 15:37:06 GMT

Public Record Office Victoria (PROV) is pleased to announce the release of a draft Tender Specification for the development of a Digital Archive. The draft Tender Specification is available on the VERS website at: http://www.prov.vic.gov.au/vers/projects/digarchive.htm PROV will publish a Request for Tender for the Digital Archive in June/July 2003.

The Digital Archive is an initiative of the Victorian Electronic Records Strategy (VERS) Centre of Excellence at PROV.

The Digital Archive will manage and preserve digital records in a digital repository. These digital records will be permanent electronic records of the Victorian Government and digitised copies of paper records in the PROV collection. All digital records will be stored as VERS Encapsulated Ojects (VEOs). A web-enabled public interface will provide integrated access to all records in the PROV collection, both paper and digital. Access includes browsing and searching for records and metadata, ordering paper records and viewing VEOs.

The functional model for the PROV Digital Archive is based on the NASA Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System (OAIS) and the VERS Final Report.

Source: RECMGMT-L, 26 May 02003

Digital Preservation Management Workshop, Cornell University Library

Fri, 30 May 2003 15:31:05 GMT

Digital Preservation Management: Short-Term Solutions to Long-Term ProblemsAugust 4-8, 2003
Cornell University Library, Ithaca, NY, USA

There are a few more places available for the August 3-8, 2003 workshop on digital preservation to be held at Cornell University Library. The workshop will include managerial and technical concentrations so institutions are welcome to send more than one participant. This intensive week-long limited enrollment workshop is partially supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and has a registration fee of $750 per participant.

A second workshop is scheduled for October 20-24 (registration will open this summer). There will be three workshops in 2004.

See the web site for more information on content and registration:
http://www.library.cornell.edu/iris/dpworkshop/

Source: DIGLIB mailing list, 29 May 02003

Building an Electronic Records Archive at the National Archives and Records Administration

Wed, 28 May 2003 14:37:24 GMT

Title: Building an Electronic Records Archive at the National Archives and Records Administration: Recommendations for Initial Development

Author: Sproull, Robert F. and Eisenberg, Jon, editors

Publisher: Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press, 2003

Other Credits: Committee on Digital Archiving and the National Archives and Records Administration, Computer Science and Telecommunications Board

A sobering look at what NARA has achieved through its Electronic Records Archive (ERA) program and the many challenges that lie ahead if it's to successfully manage the projected volume of electronic records scheduled and yet to be acquired and preserved.

IMS Global Learning Consortium, Inc.

Fri, 23 May 2003 04:46:34 GMT

IMS Global Learning Consortium, Inc. sets standards for e-learning; its Digital Repositories Interoperability version 1.0 specification (released 30 January 02003), although specifically designed for learning objects repositories, sounds promising for digital libraries and electronic records keeping purposes. The specification is publicly available as a Web or Adobe Acrobat PDF document.

Final Report for The Pilot Project

Fri, 14 Mar 2003 17:01:02 GMT

The final report of the Netarchive.dk project to study the acquisition and archiving of Danish Internet is available.

The project ran from August 1, 2001 to July 31, 2002, and was carried out by the Royal Library, Copenhagen, State and University Library, Aarhus, and the University of Aarhus' Centre for Internet Research.

[Source: DIGLIB, 14 Mar 02003 and Netarchive.dk]

United States Election 2002 Web Archive Opens

Wed, 05 Mar 2003 14:16:52 GMT

Election 2002 Web Archive
From the site, "The Election 2002 Web Archive is a selective collection of nearly 4,000 sites archived between July 1, 2002 and November 30, 2002. The initial March 4th, 2003 release of the Election 2002 Web Archive includes web sites produced by congressional and gubernatorial candidates. Future releases will include party, interest group, press, government, civic, and other selective web sites related to the 2002 national and statewide elections. Additional materials will be made available as the collection is processed for long-term preservation....The user interface for the Election 2002 Web Archive, created by WebArchivist.org in consultation with the Library of Congress, enhances the accessibility of archival records by allowing visitors to search campaign sites on multiple fields and access a Web archive record for each site.

[Resource Shelf, 4 Mar 02003]

Where's the Electronic Muscle in E-Records Archives?

Wed, 05 Mar 2003 14:14:25 GMT

"Electronic archiving enforcement lacking"
From the article, "Although the National Archives and Records Administration and the Library of Congress are striving to develop guidance about electronic archiving, no common practices and policies are being enforced within government, experts said last week. One of the most pervasive concerns in the archiving world is that a lack of tools and standards has already caused millions of electronic records and historical documents to be lost through technical obsolescence."
[Federal Computer Week via The Resource Shelf, 5 Mar 02003]

Electronic Resources in Libraries (ERIL) Group

Mon, 03 Mar 2003 03:42:49 GMT

Electronic Resources in Libraries (ERIL)

is a community of librarians concerned with the practical aspects of managing electronic resources in libraries. We are from acquisitions, administration, archives, collection development, cataloging, reference, serials, systems, and beyond. We frequently fulfill many of these roles simultaneously, and at times we even blur these designations to better serve our library users.

This community gathers at whatever forum presents itself to combine our experiences providing electronic information services to library customers. We do this not only to learn from others, but to also tap collective power through which we can contribute to and create solutions across the electronic information universe.
At present the listserv is open to library professionals who work in libraries or library services and ask that library professionals who work for vendors not join. We debate this issue periodically and welcome feedback.

A wiki and a Weblog might be communication enhancements to be considered by ERIL members. [Internet Resources Newsletter, Issue 102, Mar 02003]

LiveVault and Iron Mountain Partnership

Wed, 26 Feb 2003 05:00:54 GMT

LiveVault offers Web-based management of long-term data storage in partnership with Iron Mountain.

National Archives 18th Annual Preservation Conference Focuses on Digital and Analog Formats

Wed, 26 Feb 2003 04:59:10 GMT

COLLEGE PARK, Md., Feb. 20 (U.S. Newswire) -- The National Archives and Records Administration will host its 18th annual preservation conference on Thursday, March 27, 2003. This year's theme will focus on the advantages and disadvantages of digital and analog formats in the context of reformatting archival information
from one medium to another - such as paper to microfilm or to digital images - for the purpose of preserving permanently valuable information. The conference is open to interested members of the public and the media.

Scholarly Publishing and Archiving on the Web: New Opportunities, April 7, 2003, Albany, NY

Wed, 26 Feb 2003 04:55:56 GMT

ALBANY, NY (February 20, 2003)- "Scholarly Publishing and Archiving on the Web: New Opportunities" will be held on April 7, 8:45 am-4 pm, at UAlbany's Campus Center. Reservations for the symposium are due Tuesday, April 1, 2003.
The day-long symposium will focus on the changing nature of academic publishing and scholarly communication. Digital full-text and image files are becoming the norm for academic communication. Scholars now use world-wide networks to distribute articles, data, and images to colleagues. Commercial publishing is no longer the only option for disciplinary peers and the scholarly community.
This symposium, the fifth in the last several years to be offered by Albany's University Libraries, will explore emerging models for Web publishing and archiving electronic scholarship using institutional venues. The symposium will present several options to facilitate self-publishing and institutional archiving by scholars. Aditionally, speakers will discuss various implications and issues surrounding scholarly electronic publishing and the creation of repositories.
Speakers will include Professor Steven Harnad , Director of the Cognitive Sciences Centre of the University of Southampton, who will present the keynote talk regarding scholarly publishing and archiving. Other speakers include: Simeon Warner, from Cornell University; Nancy Harm, from Luna Imaging Inc.; Professor Rob Kling, from Indiana University; Maria Bonn, Director of the Scholarly Publishing Office of the University of Michigan ; Susan Gibbons from the University of Rochester Institutional Repository System; Catherine Candee, from the California Digital Library; and Professor Timothy Stephen, from the University at Albany Communications Department.

Source: Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List, 24 Feb 02003

Liquid Machines information security application for protecting corporate secrets

Mon, 24 Feb 2003 21:40:12 GMT

San Jose Mercury, Feb 20, 02003: From Demo: 10 technologies to watch. Of the 60 companies invited, I picked 10 I think are poised to change the way we interact with technology in the next three years or so -- either because their product itself was so impressive, or because their idea is sure to inspire others in the industry to pursue similar goals. [via Tomalak's Realm]

One of these products is Liquid Machines' information security application that protects corporate documents (http://www.liquidmachines.com/DEMO_release_02_16_03.html). This software has implications for the management of electronic records.

Microsoft Trustworthy Computing Think Tank

Sun, 23 Feb 2003 19:00:22 GMT

Press Release (may contain unnecessary superlatives, corporate bias) - Forming a "Think Tank" on Trustworthy Computing.

REDMOND, Wash., Feb. 20, 2003 -- The academic experts assembled at the Microsoft campus today have their work cut out for them. As members of the new Microsoft Trustworthy Computing Academic Advisory Board, they've been asked to give scrutiny and advice on an ambitious company-wide initiative that aims to provide safe, private and reliable computing experiences for everyone.

To learn the why and what-for behind the group and its first two-day meeting, PressPass convened a group of its own. Joining the roundtable discussion are David Ladd, manager of external research programs for Trustworthy Computing at Microsoft Research, and two advisory board members, Dr. Fred B. Schneider, a professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., and Dr. Neeraj Suri, a professor at TU Darmstadt University in Darmstadt, Germany, near Frankfurt.

[Privacy Digest]

Windows Server 2003 Windows Rights Management Service

Sun, 23 Feb 2003 18:56:25 GMT

Computerworld - Microsoft details new rights management technology.

Microsoft Corp. said today that it is developing add-on security technology for its forthcoming Windows Server 2003 operating system software that will allow organizations to implement rights-management protections on corporate documents such as e-mail messages and data files.

The Windows Rights Management Services (RMS) will be able to enforce protection policies by controlling which users can access specific content and what access rights they are granted. Companies will, for example, be able to restrict content copying, forwarding and printing in applications such as portal, e-mail and word-processing software.

"What this really is about is having customers trust their platform more when they're using it to manage sensitive internal business information such as financial reports and business plans inside the organization," said Mike Nash, vice president of Microsoft's Security Business Unit.

The rights management features will be built into the Office 2003 versions of the Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook applications, according to Amy Carroll, group manager of Microsoft's Windows Trusted Platform Technologies group.

However, only users of Microsoft's most recent products will be able to fully take advantage of the technology. RMS relies on the proposed Extensible Rights Markup Language (XrML) standard, an XML-based language that is heavily backed by Microsoft but has yet to attract broad industry support. While Office 2003, Microsoft's Office update scheduled for mid-2003, supports XrML and will work with RMS, older versions of Microsoft Office, including the currently available Office XP, won't work with the technology.

[Privacy Digest]

Yet another technology that gets in the way of preserving electronic records.

Still wondering too how Microsoft will fix the Year 2030 Bug that affects its Microsoft Office products and Windows 2000. This is a screenshot of the problem that's buried in Control Panel > Regional and Language Options for Windows XP Home Edition. Some of you may recognize this as Microsoft's solution to the Y2K Bug which is no solution at all in this archivist's opinion. The fix merely advances the bug another 30 years and allows it to continue advancing a year at a time. Microsoft disavowed any future liability with Y2K by transferring the issue to its customer base. A search for "Year 2000" in the Title field of records in the Microsoft Product Support Services Web shows 102 articles (out of a possible maximum limit of 150 articles). because the company considered the problem solved from its perspective, Microsoft decommissioned its own Y2K Bug Web site:

Library of Congress Launches Digital Format Acquisition and Preservation Program

Mon, 17 Feb 2003 14:41:00 GMT

Bernie Sloan reported to the WEB4LIB list on 17 Feb 02003 that "The Library of Congress will begin a program to preserve intellectual materials that exist in digital formats, library officials announced on Friday. Such materials include music and pictures on CD's, literature and journalism in the form of e-books, and online scholarly publications." (http://chronicle.com/free/2003/02/2003021702t.htm).

QuickiWiki, Swiki, TWiki, ZWiki, and the Plone Wars: Wiki as PIM and Collaborative Content Tool

Mon, 03 Feb 2003 00:37:14 GMT

Finished and submitted on February 2, 2003 my latest article for Searcher magazine, "QuickiWiki, Swiki, TWiki, ZWiki, and the Plone Wars: Wiki as PIM and Collaborative Content Tool."

QuickiWiki, Swiki, TWiki, ZWiki, and the Plone Wars: Wiki as PIM and Collaborative Content Tools

Mon, 03 Feb 2003 00:32:09 GMT

Completed and submitted to Searcher magazine "QuickiWiki, Swiki, TWiki, ZWiki, and the Plone Wars: Wiki as PIM and Collaborative Content Tool" on February 2. Thanks go to Bo Leuf, co-author of The Wiki Way (2001), Mark Guzdial, professor and developer extraordinaire, and Stephen Pair, for offering up their thoughts about wiki technology and its future.

ERPANET Workshop on long-term preservation of databases

Sat, 25 Jan 2003 21:53:05 GMT

ERPANET is pleased to announce its workshop on the "Long-term Preservation of Databases". It will be held on the April 9 to 11, 02003 in Bern, Switzerland, and is co-hosted by the Swiss Federal Archives.

Focus: Databases have been, and continue to be, a key technology for the storage, organisation, and interrogation of information. While the value of other types of digital information has been highlighted in recent years, databases and the information they contain have been sidelined. Their preservation is of high concern as they are often either irreplaceable or of such value that replacement would be prohibitively expensive.

The workshop will cover the entire process of database preservation: selection, appraisal, preservation, description, and access. Technical solutions will occupy an important place in the workshop and archival requirements will also be addressed.

Different institutional approaches will be presented and key areas of difficulty and success offered. Breakout sessions will focus on some of these identified areas, and attempt to posit solutions and strategies for this difficult challenge.

Source: http://infoserv.inist.fr/wwsympa.fcgi/info/diglib, January 24, 02003

Digital Document Quarterly (vol. 1, no. 4, 2002)

Mon, 23 Dec 2002 14:35:37 GMT

Consultant H.M. Gladney's Digital Document Quarterly (vol. 1, no. 4, 2002) continues his examination of technical solutions to the issue of digital preservation.

European Conference for Digital Libraries (ECDL) 2003, Trondheim Norway

Thu, 19 Dec 2002 04:52:56 GMT

ECDL 2003 is the 7th European Conference on Research and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries. The conference will be held August 17-22 2003 in Trondheim, Norway. The conference call for papers includes the suggested topic of digital preservation. The deadline for contributions is March 10, 2003.