• "paper examines large-scale initiatives to identify issues that will influence the availability and usability, over time, of the digital books that these projects create."
• 4 large scale projects and their strategies
issues:
•quality of image capture
•commitment and viability of archiving institutions
•institutions’ willingness to collaborate.
Different motivations of the major players
recommendations for rethinking a preservation strategy.
plea for collaboration
designed to be of interest to a wide range of stakeholders.
consider the potential links between large-scale digitization and long-term preservation of print and digital content,
emphasis on research library collections.
For example, a library may opt to archive its digitized content as a backup in case the print counterparts are damaged or lost. However, the institution may not be able to provide online discovery and retrieval of archived digital content through a Web portal, owing to lack of funds, copy- right restrictions, or other reasons.
remains accessible over time—a responsibility that is different from merely preserving it?
The recent announce- ment that the Arts and Humanities Research Council and Joint In- formation Systems Committee (JISC) will cease funding the Arts and Humanities Data Service (AHDS) gives cause for concern about the long-term viability of even government-funded archiving services.
In the context of LSDIs, digital preservation can represent two distinct but related opera- tions. It can refer to (1) preserving digital objects that result from the conversion of print materials or (2) digitizing print materials (digital reformatting) to produce digital surrogates.
“usability of a digital resource, retaining all quantities of authenticity, accuracy, and functionality deemed to be essential for the purposes the digital material was created and or ac- quired for.”
The main players in LSDIs are cultural institutions, commercial enti- ties such as Google and Microsoft, and nonprofit groups including OCA and the Million Book Project (MBP).
Access. According to the FAQs, the libraries’ primary motiva- tion for partnership
Preservation. LSDI libraries often note the desire
Research and development. Some libraries, such as Stanford, perceive their participation as an opportunity to gain experience in “handling truly large amounts of digital material.
Both Google and Microsoft cite the creation of a searchable database of full-text books
The Google Book Search program aims to digitize the full text of books—both public domain and in copyright. The outcome will be a comprehensive, searchable index of a large body of published books in several languages. Book Search participating libraries included: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek
Live Search has distinguished itself from Google Book Search by focusing on delivering results with a unique interface and on providing advanced tools to support search and retrieval. Allen County Public Library The American Museum of Veterinary Medicine
Its goal is to build open- access digital collections and make them available through the In- ternet Archive and The Open Library.23 OCA distinguishes itself as a librarian-driven project.
creation of a “permanent archive”
extensive digital library research agenda,
assess the community’s readiness to assume such a role.
Decisions about what to digitize were influenced by traditional preservation reformatting technologies and they favored public domain materials that had enduring value for scholarship.
1. Should we commit to preserve all the digital materials created through the LSDIs, implement a selection process to identify what needs to be preserved, or assign levels of archival efforts that match use level?
2. Will electronic access spur new demand for materials seldom used in print?
3. Will LSDIs’ use of high-speed, automated digitizing processes disenfranchise materials needing special handling?
4. Is there a means for recording gaps in collections and within publications?
5. How much duplication should there be
6. What legal rights
Image-Quality Procedures for Large-Scale Digitization Initiatives
Preservation Metadata
•“the information a repository uses to sup- port the digital preservation process.”
•long-term cost-ef- fectiveness and utility remain unknown.
•elements to facil- itate interoperability among systems, services, and software as well as to support continuing access to and long-term management of digital image collections
strength and weakness of Z39.87 is its comprehensive nature. Although in many ways an ideal framework, it is complex and expensive to implement, especially at the image level. While most of the technical metadata can be extracted from the image file itself, some data elements relat- ing to image production are not inherent in the file and need to be added to the preservation metadata record.
Descriptive and Structural Metadata
•Descriptive metadata ensures that users can easily locate, retrieve, and authenticate collections
Quality Control
•procedures and techniques to verify the quality, accuracy, and consistency of digital products encompassing images, OCR output, and other metadata files
•Google initiative is not correcting images, producing scans with missing pages or poor image quality
Technical Infrastructure
• storage media: at risk for mishandling, improper storage, data corruption, physical damage, or obsolescence
•File formats and compression schemes: at risk for obsolescence
• various application, Internet protocol, and standard dependencies: at risk for impact of updates and revisions on dependent processes and operations
Organizational Infrastructure
Institutional policies, strategies, and funding models are also important
Implications of LSDIs for Book Collections
•Pressure for Relieving Space
•4.2 Impact on Traditional Preservation and Conservation Programs
•Print-on-Demand Books
Recommendations
•Reassess Digitization Requirements for Archival Images
•Develop a Feasible Quality Control Program
•Balance Preservation and Access Requirements
•Enhance Access to Digitized Content
•Understand the Impact of Contractual Restriction on Preservation Responsibilities
•Lend Support for Shared Print-Storage Initiatives
•Promote the Use of Registry of Digital Masters
•Outline a Large-Scale Digitization Initiative Archiving Action Agenda
•Devise Policies for Designating Digital Preservation Levels
•Capture and Share Cost Information
•Revisit Library Priorities and Strategies
•Shift to an Agile and Open Planning Model
•Re-envision Collection Development for Research Libraries
Many of the recommendations set forth in this paper will require col- laboration among cultural institutions.
One of the key requisites for collaboration is identifying a leader to coordinate agenda setting and implementation in addition to over- seeing the assessment of outcomes.
Stewardship Responsibilities.
Enduring Access. The 800-pound gorilla in the LSDI preserva- tion agenda is the future of Web access to digitized books.
Cost-Effectiveness.
Future of Research Libraries.
Lavoie
The Open Archival Information System Reference Model: Introductory Guide
The capacity both to create and consume digital information has advanced steadily; unfortunately, the capacity to manage the long-term stewardship of this information has been comparatively slow to develop.
CCSDS initiated work aimed at developing forstandards for the long-term storage of digital data generated from space missions.
no perceived consensus on the needs and requirements for maintaining digital information over the long-term. A unifying framework that could fill this gap would be invaluable
Open Archival Information System
open=developed and released in an open public forum
archival information system:“an organization of people and systems that has accepted the responsibility to preserve information and make it available for a Designated Community.”
preserve information
• provide access
mandatory responsibilitie:
• Negotiate for and accept appropriate information from information producers
• Obtain su
fficient control of the information in order to meet long-term preservation objectives • Determine the scope of the archive’s user community
• Ensure that the preserved information is independently understandable to the user community, in the sense that the information can be understood by users without the assistance of the information producer
• Follow documented policies and procedures to ensure the information is preserved against all reasonable contingencies, and to enable dissemination of authenticated copies of the preserved information in its original form, or in a form traceable to the original
• Make the preserved information available to the user community
establish criteria for determining which materials are appropriate for inclusion
first responsibility:
• subject, origin, or format
second responsibility:
obtain sufficient intellectual property rights,
• determine the scope of its primary user community.
understandable, and useable
final two
establish and document clear policies and procedures
preservation of the information
committed to making the contents of its archival store available
OAIS reference model
three separate but related parts
first part
environment
cooperation with stakeholders
Management, Producer, and Consumer
second part
functional components, or internal mechanisms
six high-level services
Ingest, archival storage, data management, preservation planning, access,
administration (day to day managing).
third part
describes the information objects
the reference model is NOT an implementation.
Littman
Actualized Preservation Threats
Chronicling America
a number of preservation threats, such as those described in Rosenthal et al.,
have been actualized
media failure, (portable harddrives) hardware failure,(hard drive crash/loss) software failures, (code, and file system software)
"Transformation of the METS record has proven to be complex and error prone"
and operator errors (human deleting stuff, screwed up batch processing)
Hedstrom
Research Challenges in Digital Archiving and Long-term Preservation
What are the major research challenges?
1. Digital collections are vast, heterogeneous, and growing at a rate that outpaces our ability to manage and preserve them.
2. Digital archiving requirements reflect concerns for the long term.
3. The challenges of maintaining digital archives over long periods of time are as much economic, social, and institutional as technological.
4. Affordable and reliable digital preservation requires new tools and technologies.
"Digital preservation strategies are “metadata-intensive.” Therefore there is a
critical need to develop tools that automatically supply core metadata, extract metadata from resources at ingest, and restructure and manage metadata over time."
5. Affordable, sustainable, and effective digital archiving requires infrastructure.
Preservation Management of Digital Materials: The Handbook
provides an internationally authoritative and practical
guide to the subject of managing digital resources over time and the issues in sustaining access to them.
Digital Preservation Coalition
basically a why and how-to for digital preservation
