tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33540461808183755802024-03-14T06:57:18.184+01:00Duurzame toegang (long-term access)Inge Angevaare's blog over duurzame toegang tot digitale informatie in Nederland en daarbuiten<br>
Blog of the coordinator of the Dutch Digital Preservation Coalition NCDDInge Angevaarehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13015271073441769932noreply@blogger.comBlogger180125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3354046180818375580.post-26881877929424938622011-12-17T14:35:00.004+01:002011-12-17T14:44:32.770+01:00This blog has moved / Deze blog is verplaatstAs of 15 December 2011, this weblog and its archive have been incorporated into the <a href="http://www.ncdd.nl/en">NCDD website</a>, new url: http://www.ncdd.nl/en<br />
or directly to the <a href="http://www.ncdd.nl/blog/">weblog</a>, new url: http://www.ncdd.nl/blog/<br />
<br />
Per 15 december 2011 is deze blog met archief en al verplaatst naar de <a href="http://www.ncdd.nl/">NCDD website</a>, nieuwe url: http://www.ncdd.nl<br />
of direct near het <a href="http://www.ncdd.nl/blog/">weblog</a>, nieuwe url: http://www.ncdd.nl/blog/Inge Angevaarehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13015271073441769932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3354046180818375580.post-14920532060501247362011-12-08T18:48:00.133+01:002011-12-11T20:38:41.690+01:00DISH2011 wrap up: the digital shift and us (DISH 4)One can always trust Clifford Lynch of the Coalition for Networked Information to bring the issues home, and DISH2011 was no exception. ‘The digital shift is disrupting our organizations in fundamental ways,’ he said, finally addressing the question that the other four keynotes had left open: what does it all mean <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">for us</i>, for memory institutions.<br />
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing"></div><span style="color: black;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cVGDogaIlfs/TuKJnZSpj8I/AAAAAAAADEs/zcYAktOzvrY/s1600/_room.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="242" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cVGDogaIlfs/TuKJnZSpj8I/AAAAAAAADEs/zcYAktOzvrY/s400/_room.jpg" width="400" /></a></span><br />
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="color: black;">Here are some of Clifford's observations:</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="color: black;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: black;">‘In many ways, digital surrogates are more useful, more accessible and more robust than physical objects. That is deeply upsetting for people who have dedicated their entire lives to collecting and maintaining physical objects.’ <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="color: black;">‘Our new, online, audiences are very difficult to get hold of.’<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="color: black;">‘We used to know where our collections began and ended. Our new users have no patience for those, often historical, accidents. To remedy this situation, organizations band together, but this raises new questions of ownership … of the reassembling.’<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
<span style="color: black;">‘There are many more opportunities now for users to engage and to participate. Sometimes user impact is quite trivial, but it can also be very profound. For a lot of content, there is somebody out there who knows much more about it than we do <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and </i>he is able to get in touch with us. Just think of the vast volumes of audiovisual content from our <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">living</i> memory. But user generated content does raise issues of trust: to what extent will we, memory organizations, be able or willing to vouch for this content?’ And there is more, ‘These participants may want to contribute more than just tags, they may bring us their own archives, expecting that there should be a place for the memories of all of us.’<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7AW-9RR4wck/TuJ3Ur1nOLI/AAAAAAAADEU/vWdrlksJqiA/s1600/_CliffLynch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7AW-9RR4wck/TuJ3Ur1nOLI/AAAAAAAADEU/vWdrlksJqiA/s200/_CliffLynch.jpg" width="182" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cliff Lynch is an acute observer of what goes on in our information world</td></tr>
</tbody></table></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="color: black;">Such a development will have a fundamental impact on our acquisitions policies. Many new choices will have to be made. We must talk about those choices, document them, share them with our peers, and thus develop a sense of what is happening. ‘I find that exciting and promising,’ Lynch concluded.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><br />
</span><span style="color: black;">So the question becomes: are we adapting to this new environment? I attended a workshop session on 'national infrastructures' and heard Marco de Niet of the DEN Foundation say: 'We should have done this ten years ago.' He was commenting on Dutch plans to use the Europeana structure and tools to aggregate content from a variety of Dutch institutions on one discovery platform. They call it the 'Netherlands Cultural Heritage Collection' - but really, it is metadata only and, if we are lucky, we will get some thumb nails. A workshop attendee asked the critical question: "Will our users be satisfied with just metadata?" Joyce Ray of the US IMLS figured that no-one would be able to find the money to aggregate the content as well. </span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-E3FkvR00ez4/TuJ6jGPqwNI/AAAAAAAADEc/lzzoqMiKcv0/s1600/_marco.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="186" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-E3FkvR00ez4/TuJ6jGPqwNI/AAAAAAAADEc/lzzoqMiKcv0/s400/_marco.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Marco de Niet (left) and Hans de Haan addressing the workshop<br />
on national infrastructures. Time ran out before we were able to start<br />
discussing the usefulness of <i>national</i> discovery platforms in an international information space.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<span style="color: black;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: black;">But should such practicalities stop us from making bold moves?</span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><br />
</span>In order to give us a sense that all of this is doable, the conference organizers had contracted strategist Michael Edson of the US Smithsonian Institution to give us a final pep talk the American way. His advice: stop thinking and talking in terms of ‘the future’. The pace of innovation is so quick now that we simply cannot spend months or even years talking about strategy. Because if we do, we will fail to recognize the things about digital culture that we can bank on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">now</i>. In other words: ‘It is all a matter of going boldly into <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the present</i>.’ Strategy should do <i>work</i>. It is a <i>tool. </i>(The text of his entire speech is on <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/edsonm/michael-edson-let-us-go-boldly-into-the-present-text-version">slideshare</a> (edsonm).<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BS8iE3Poh2c/TuKEFLZ7-UI/AAAAAAAADEk/KjMP-u9UDtQ/s1600/Edson.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BS8iE3Poh2c/TuKEFLZ7-UI/AAAAAAAADEk/KjMP-u9UDtQ/s320/Edson.jpg" width="212" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Michael Edson</td></tr>
</tbody></table>This is a spirit that can work - just look at what the Internet Archive has done with a shoestring budget of $10-15 million. But can it work for us, for you and me?<br />
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This is what Edson offered to take with us into the office this Monday morning:<br />
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="color: black;">1.<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="color: black;">What world am I living in?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="color: black;">2.<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="color: black;">What impact does my organization want to have in that world?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="color: black;">3.<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="color: black;">What should I do today?</span></div><blockquote class="tr_bq">I would say: good luck to all of us!</blockquote></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wvbPEnCwEYA/TuKOiQDuJfI/AAAAAAAADE0/C5KfM6RKeQI/s1600/_fromhere.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wvbPEnCwEYA/TuKOiQDuJfI/AAAAAAAADE0/C5KfM6RKeQI/s320/_fromhere.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
</div>Inge Angevaarehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13015271073441769932noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3354046180818375580.post-85329621167645425512011-12-08T13:28:00.005+01:002011-12-08T18:41:49.482+01:00Grabbing digital preservation by the roots - #DISH2011, 3<div class="MsoNormal">Day 2 starts out with a plenary keynote by Samuel Jones about the importance of culture for our lives. Interesting and entertaining, no doubt about that, but like yesterday’s keynotes (see earlier post) the viewpoint is rather philosophical, and thus it is difficult to determine what heritage institutions can take home from it in terms of concrete advice as to how to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">deal</i> with all this on a day-to-day-level.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So, after coffee I am heading for something completely different: a workshop by Karin van der Heiden, a freelance Dutch adviser on matters of digital archiving, especially for graphic designers.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MYGuVQL87NY/TuCrt00_SjI/AAAAAAAADD0/qMiJXtyu0yw/s1600/karin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="261" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MYGuVQL87NY/TuCrt00_SjI/AAAAAAAADD0/qMiJXtyu0yw/s320/karin.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Karin van der Heiden (right) with Job Meihuizen of Premsela.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>In cooperation with Premsela, a Dutch archive for designers, she has recently published a brilliantly clear brochure entitled ‘Save as …’ giving graphic designers some really basic and helpful advice about how to organize their information and archives (see <a href="http://www.blogger.com/"><span id="goog_1842400608"></span>post<span id="goog_1842400609"></span></a> in Dutch). A really good initiative, because we all know that choices well made at the production stage can really help keeping the stuff usable over longer periods of time. Focussing on production gets to the problem of digital preservation at the root. There is a Dutch-language version and an English-language version. The website is still only in Dutch, but I have been told that a US edition with website is forthcoming from <a href="http://www.aiga.org/">AIGA</a>, the US professional association for design.<o:p></o:p><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-H62D8uAjt18/TuCsFAAe62I/AAAAAAAADD8/BzTIUjrV50U/s1600/save+as.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-H62D8uAjt18/TuCsFAAe62I/AAAAAAAADD8/BzTIUjrV50U/s320/save+as.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">On Twitter, Karin advertised her workshop as ‘digital archiving for dummies’. Perhaps there were a lot of archivists who thought 'that is not for me', because there were only a handful of attendees. But Karin's intention was not to train the archivists, but to train the archivists <i>to train the producers - </i>to train them to get away from complex terminology like OAIS and TRAC, and to enable them to explain to their producers what to do, at the level of explaining to your father what he should do if he wants to be able to look at his grandchild's pictures in 10 or 20 years.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-epxr8luh1hY/TuCsXdVIXSI/AAAAAAAADEE/T307frqdm6M/s1600/karin3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="143" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-epxr8luh1hY/TuCsXdVIXSI/AAAAAAAADEE/T307frqdm6M/s320/karin3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
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If you think that this is perhaps too basic a level, just remember this: more and more digital content is being produced <i>outside</i> the sphere of influence of heritage institutions. Can you see the boxes of junk coming your way in 10 or 20 years' time and the troubles and expense they will cause? Educating <i>everybody</i> is therefore important to all of us. Karin's mission is to make basic preservation measures <i>doable</i>, enable designers, artists, researchers and everybody else to easily integrate basic measures into their workflow:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5PyzpDqzL8g/TuCtKDRv3BI/AAAAAAAADEM/HrMOJYYsDLY/s1600/karinpp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5PyzpDqzL8g/TuCtKDRv3BI/AAAAAAAADEM/HrMOJYYsDLY/s320/karinpp.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
Great stuff. I'll let you know when the US edition becomes available.<br />
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</div>Inge Angevaarehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13015271073441769932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3354046180818375580.post-74586659676744479532011-12-08T09:08:00.000+01:002011-12-08T09:08:16.569+01:00Playing the 'digital lifecycle game' #DISH2011, 2With no set body of knowledge or best practices, training our staff to deal with digital objects remains quite a challenge. The European <a href="http://www.digcur-education.org/">DigCurV project</a> promotes the availability of vocational training for digital curation. At DISH 2011 DigCurV's Kate Fernie and Katie McCadden presented a really cool training tool: the digital curation lifecycle game. Loosely based on a Monopoly board, the game presents players with real-life questions:<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bhB4GhEqpmk/TuBTDNQVHmI/AAAAAAAADDE/gt2BjzXqGTU/s1600/Game2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="291" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bhB4GhEqpmk/TuBTDNQVHmI/AAAAAAAADDE/gt2BjzXqGTU/s320/Game2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rony Vissers (Packed, Belgium) searching for answers</td></tr>
</tbody></table>'Half-way through your digitization project, the chosen file format is replaced by a new standard. What do you do?' and: 'You get funding to hire a manager for your preservation department. What skills will you require?' ‘You want to digitize your collection of sound recordings, but you do not have the necessary equipment, what do you do?’<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><o:p></o:p></div><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_RVkltVoyFA/TuBT_t8YZoI/AAAAAAAADDM/SIxt-9K-rFU/s1600/Game1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_RVkltVoyFA/TuBT_t8YZoI/AAAAAAAADDM/SIxt-9K-rFU/s320/Game1.jpg" width="212" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shawn Day, Digital Humanities, seems to <i>feel</i> the threat</td></tr>
</tbody></table>These, of course, are no yes or no questions. They are intended to prompt discussion - and in our workshop session there were plenty of inspiring discussions.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-R8PHAFLn5ho/TuBtt2CHb5I/AAAAAAAADDk/x67fyLdgCCM/s1600/team2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-R8PHAFLn5ho/TuBtt2CHb5I/AAAAAAAADDk/x67fyLdgCCM/s400/team2.jpg" width="265" /></a></div><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">The (physical) trial version we played still has a few flaws and Kate and Katie welcomed feedback to improve the game, but even as it was, the game had us working hard <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and </i>having fun for over an hour. DigCurV intends to make the game available as a member’s bonus, so I would say: by all means, check out the website and join the DigCurV network! DEN Foundation and my own NCDD are members already, and Marco de Niet and I instantly decided that we must make a Dutch version.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-l4efZ7wkt6k/TuBtoKWUJRI/AAAAAAAADDc/1mebzObLdgs/s1600/game4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="280" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-l4efZ7wkt6k/TuBtoKWUJRI/AAAAAAAADDc/1mebzObLdgs/s320/game4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>How mature is your organization when it comes to digital preservation?<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><br />
</b></div><div class="MsoNormal">At the same DigCurV workshop Marco de Niet of DEN foundation drew attention to another tool that can be helpful in educating staff. It is a ‘maturity’ model developed by Charles M. Dollar, which was recently used as the basis for Dutch librarian Enno Meijers’ thesis <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.ncdd.nl/documents/thesisstapsgewijsnaarduurzametoegangversie1_1.pdf">Stapsgewijs naar duurzame toegang</a> </i>(on the NCDD website). The model is used to measure your own organization’s progress against a number of key criteria, and then decide where improvement is needed. Next month Charles Dollar will be speaking about his model at the PASIG Austin conference in Austin, TX, and I will write more about it then.<o:p></o:p><br />
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</div>Inge Angevaarehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13015271073441769932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3354046180818375580.post-89655830038029232502011-12-07T21:30:00.001+01:002011-12-07T22:29:21.941+01:00Are heritage institutions 'living the digital shift'? #DISH2011, 1Today and tomorrow I am attending the <a href="http://www.dish2011.nl/">DISH 2011</a> conference, or: Digital Strategies for Heritage, a biannual international conference organised by the <a href="http://www.den.nl/english">DEN Foundation</a> and <a href="http://www.erfgoednederland.nl/english/item2866">The Netherlands Institute for Heritage</a> (Erfgoed Nederland), two Dutch institutions with remits to promote (ICT) innovation in the cultural heritage sector. Paraphrasing first keynote speaker Katherine Watson of the European Cultural Foundation (ECF), the question apparently still must be asked: 'Are the arts, culture and heritage <i>living</i> the digital shift?'<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-S29oyG5h85o/Tt_Ex8lWZOI/AAAAAAAADCk/LcGheutHm7U/s1600/Last+Import+-+zaal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="291" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-S29oyG5h85o/Tt_Ex8lWZOI/AAAAAAAADCk/LcGheutHm7U/s640/Last+Import+-+zaal.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
The conference covers many angles of the digital shift, but obviously I will be on the lookout for sessions and papers dealing with long-term access. Having that focus makes it easier to make choices at this conference, which boasts three blocks of no fewer than fifteen (!) simultaneous parallel sessions - which means you always miss 14/15th of what's on offer. That's a lot to miss, and somebody tweeted: I hope the three plenary keynote presentations make up for the 'sacrifice'.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qM5yl92AMic/Tt_MAaihnhI/AAAAAAAADC8/MxMqe1xFYAY/s1600/DISHp2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qM5yl92AMic/Tt_MAaihnhI/AAAAAAAADC8/MxMqe1xFYAY/s320/DISHp2.jpg" width="274" /></a></div><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal">Did they? I can only give you my own answer: yes and no. Yes in the sense that they gave us a powerful picture of what present-day digital culture is all about. But for me, personally, the three keynotes pretty much covered the same ground and thus I would have been happier with just one keynote and more opportunity to attend a workshop. My preferred keynote would not have come from Katherine Watson or from Charles Leadbeater (although they made good points), but from Amber Case, a ‘cyborg anthropologist’ studying the tools we make for ourselves. These are 'no longer extensions of our physical selves, but extensions of our mental selves'. Case described the collections of digital photographs that we all have as a ‘Mary Poppins bag’ that is weightless – and because it is weightless and sheer unlimited, we do not really feel an acute sense of loss when it goes to waste .... Ah, so that's why it is so difficult to find funding for digital preservation! Yet, the stuff we put on Facebook and Youtube is as much a historical record of our lives as the murals in the Egyptian pyramids were. Only much more fragile and ‘suspended in mental space’.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TuEFXS4TQg8/Tt_ArF_fLMI/AAAAAAAADCc/h32LyDYUBHU/s1600/DISH208.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TuEFXS4TQg8/Tt_ArF_fLMI/AAAAAAAADCc/h32LyDYUBHU/s320/DISH208.jpg" width="298" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Amber Case, 'living the digital age', despite her admittedly 'analogue' upbringing.<br />
'In my own back yard, I understood the limits of my mental and physical capabilities.'</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Other things we have to come to terms with are the digital age’s ‘simultaneous time’ – there is always somebody awake somewhere in the world and they may be filling your inbox to the brim. Physical proximity to people is losing relevance (‘everybody is always looking at their mobile phones and laptops’ - this conference is no exception) to ‘virtual proximity’ online. We have ‘second selves’ online which we must groom like our first selves. The games we play give us immediate rewards which are addictive. And we shed things and apparatuses like a tree sheds leaves – no more hand-me-downs from previous generations.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This world is fast, it is non-linear, it is mobile; users are actively engaging and have a million choices (Katherine Watson). And, what’s more, according to Amber Case they demand an information/cultural environment in which the interfaces and platforms and websites which we, heritage institutions, have so painstakingly built, disappear entirely into the background. Actions are reduced, queries are eliminated. 'The best technology is invisible; it gets out of the way and connects people.' Users want interfaces to make them feel 'superhuman', 'powerful'. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Charles Leadbeater: Users no longer want to be passive receivers, they want to 'search, enjoy, make, share, do'. The world is becoming 'asymmetric': small investments may have big impacts, and vice versa. Traditional roles and responsibilities no longer work. English football, with fixed roles for footballers (offense) and kicking pushing muscle (defense), has been transformed by (Dutch footballer) Johan Cruyff. At Barcelona FC, <i>everybody </i>must be able to play football.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wub5LsQwkHo/Tt_GBv6lpKI/AAAAAAAADCs/fzljmum2FHA/s1600/Last+Import+-+Batt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wub5LsQwkHo/Tt_GBv6lpKI/AAAAAAAADCs/fzljmum2FHA/s320/Last+Import+-+Batt.jpg" width="212" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chair Chris Batt with a breakdown of the audience of<br />
more than 300 attendees, 75% (my estimate) from the Netherlands</td></tr>
</tbody></table></div><div class="MsoNormal">Pfffffhhh ... I turn my head and look at the many familiar faces in the audience. Colleagues from museums, from archives, from academic libraries. I happen to know about the average age of their staff. I happen to know about their budgets. I happen to know about their closets full of floppy disks and cd-roms. I happen to know about their ageing IT systems. And I think, wow, we've got a long way to go ...<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yKb9XRsGjhA/Tt_Kv0HtjxI/AAAAAAAADC0/OsB9Eq_7XtQ/s1600/Last+Import+-+dish+room.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yKb9XRsGjhA/Tt_Kv0HtjxI/AAAAAAAADC0/OsB9Eq_7XtQ/s320/Last+Import+-+dish+room.jpg" width="212" /></a></div><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">BTW: my 1/15th of the afternoon programme, a DigCurV workshop about digital curation education, was well worth it. More about that tomorrow!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>Inge Angevaarehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13015271073441769932noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3354046180818375580.post-17649273722206598832011-12-05T10:52:00.003+01:002011-12-09T23:49:17.539+01:00Een "infrastructuur": wat is dat en hoe bouw je het?Velen van jullie hebben de afgelopen jaren de missie van de NCDD op een van mijn powerpointdia's zien staan:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NMFXWROMsqw/TtyVRH3PPlI/AAAAAAAADB8/HBmwSp88c9k/s320/infrastructuur.jpg" width="320" /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Dat is een hele mond vol, en dus zeg ik er altijd maar bij: wat wij daaronder verstaan is een landelijk dekkend netwerk van voorzieningen: mensen, kennis, opslagfaciliteiten, software, hardware, opleidingen, en, niet te vergeten, financiering.</div><div style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Over een mond vol gesproken ...</div><div style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
Hoe vlieg je zoiets groots aan? De ene methode is de deltaplanmethode: grootschalig, hoog-boven-over. In polderland Nederland zie je zoiets maar zelden. Dan moet het water ons écht aan de lippen staan, zoals in 1953 letterlijk gebeurde. Voor de duurzame bruikbaarheid van onze digitale bestanden is zo een beweging (nog) niet tot stand gekomen. <em>Wij</em> (zeg maar, informatieprofessionals) weten wel van de tijdbom die onder onze digitale informatie tikt, maar die urgentie wordt nog lang niet door alle bestuurders als dringend ervaren.</div><div style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Dus hebben we binnen de NCDD gekeken of we de uitdaging in min of meer behapbare brokken kunnen opdelen. Daar zijn vier werkpakketten uit gekomen:</div><ol><li><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Opslag (het betrouwbaar en vooral zo efficiënt mogelijk opslaan van de bits en de bytes, inclusief netwerkverbindingen)</div></li>
<li><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Preservering (wat moeten we nu precies doen om die duurzaamheid te waarborgen - monitoren van de ontwikkelingen (preservation watch), plannen van preserveringsacties, de softwaretools die je daarvoor nodig hebt, R&D, en vooral veel kennis)</div></li>
<li><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Afstemming collectiebeleid (digitale informatie laat zich lastig vangen in de traditionele taakverdeling tussen instellingen, daar moet je nieuwe afspraken over maken)</div></li>
<li><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Kwaliteitszorg en certificering (wanneer is een archief een 'trustworthy digital repository'? Hoe bewijs je dat?)</div></li>
</ol>Voor de eerste twee werkpakketten zijn sinds juni dit jaar NCDD-werkgroepen aan het werk. Zij hebben de opdracht gekregen om diverse scenario's te bedenken voor een landelijke infrastructuur. Die moet a) zo efficiënt (lees: goedkoop) mogelijk zijn, en b) de kwaliteit van duurzame toegankelijkheid in Nederland op een hoger plan brengen - met name ook voor de kleine instellingen die zelf geen digitaal depot kunnen betalen. Alle officiële informatie daarover staat op <a href="http://www.ncdd.nl/over-beleid.php">http://www.ncdd.nl/over-beleid.php</a>.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-v4d53RMedy8/TtyjNydekxI/AAAAAAAADCE/C1H2VZC1Sqs/s1600/_wgPreservering.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="134" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-v4d53RMedy8/TtyjNydekxI/AAAAAAAADCE/C1H2VZC1Sqs/s320/_wgPreservering.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-R_w8DTwPS6s/Ttyjbx-MnhI/AAAAAAAADCM/jbO1fRAtbeg/s1600/_awgPreservering2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="156" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-R_w8DTwPS6s/Ttyjbx-MnhI/AAAAAAAADCM/jbO1fRAtbeg/s320/_awgPreservering2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">De werkgroep Preservering aan het werk: rond de tafel Jata Haan (EYE), Giovanna Fossati (EYE, voorzitter), Frédérique Vijftigschild (NCDD support), Paul Doorenbosch (KB), Aad van der Valk (Beeld en Geluid), Mette van Essen (Nationaal Archief), Jeanine Tieleman (DEN) en Andrea Scharnhorst (DANS); ontbreken: Barbara Sierman (KB), Robert Gillesse (DEN) en Gaby Wijers (NIMk). Beelden van de werkgroep Opslag houden jullie van me tegoed.<br />
<br />
<div align="left"></div></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
Aan mij de eer om al dit werk te ondersteunen vanuit de NCDD, en ik kan je zeggen, de werkgroepen hebben het niet gemakkelijk. Duurzame toegankelijkheid is een jong vak met heel veel onzekerheden. Wie kan voorspellen wat voor computers we over 10 of 20 jaar zullen hebben? Wie durft te voorspellen hoe snel het web blijft groeien? Wie durft te selecteren wat we wel en niet moeten bewaren? Wie durft er <em>vandaag </em>definitief te zeggen wat de beste duurzaamheidsstrategie is? En hoe zit het met alle bestuurlijke en juridische complicaties?<br />
<br />
Ga er maar aan staan. Niettemin zijn we vol goede moed aan het werk gegaan. Er wordt hersenkrakend nagedacht en geschreven. Ideeën worden geopperd en soms weer van tafel geveegd. Om soms later opnieuw op te duiken als andere alternatieven niet haalbaar zijn gebleken.<br />
<br />
Maar we hebben hulp nodig. Van jullie. Daarom organiseren we:<br />
<br />
<strong>NCDD symposium "Bouw een huis voor ons digitaal geheugen",</strong><br />
<strong>24 januari 2012, KB, Den Haag, 10.30 u tot 16.30 u, toegang gratis, wél even aanmelden</strong><br />
<br />
Programma en aanmelden op http://ncddsymposium.eventbrite.com.<br />
<br />
</div>Inge Angevaarehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13015271073441769932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3354046180818375580.post-4300975336870213852011-11-30T18:11:00.001+01:002011-11-30T18:11:10.837+01:00Digital preservation basics in four online seminars<p>If you are new to digital preservation, you may want to check out four ‘webinars’ organized by the California State Library and the California Preservation Program. The one-hour webinars promise to give you a basic understanding of what digital preservation is all about, of interest especially to librarians and archivists who are involved in developing digital projects.</p> <p>The first webinar is scheduled for December 8, 12 PM Pacific time (which is 21.00 hrs in Holland). Topics include: ‘storing digital objects, choosing and understanding risks in file formats, planning for migration and emulation, and the roles of metadata in digital preservation.’ See <a title="http://infopeople.org/training/digital-preservation-fundamentals" href="http://infopeople.org/training/digital-preservation-fundamentals">http://infopeople.org/training/digital-preservation-fundamentals</a>.</p> Inge Angevaarehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13015271073441769932noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3354046180818375580.post-42031553851025426082011-11-23T19:46:00.000+01:002011-11-23T19:52:02.123+01:00‘Mind the Gap’ and Archive-it – on web archiving (iPRES2011, 9)<p>At a reception the other day, I heard a rumour. Because preserving web sites is so difficult, the Internet Archive was rumoured to consider <em>printing</em> all of its content. I will not disclose the informant’s name – he would not have a future in the digital library where he works (OK, it was a guy, a young guy, and he works for a Dutch library.) Needless to say, it could not even be done if the Internet Archive wanted to do it. Lori Donovan told the iPRES audience that a single snapshot of the www nowadays results in 3 billion pages [for the Dutch: 3 miljard pagina’s].</p> <p>Mind-boggling numbers, especially if you think of the Internet Archive’s shoestring budget.</p> <p>Anyway, iPRES2011 is over, but I still have some worthwhile stories waiting to be told. One of the issues tabled at iPRES was whether we can (and/or should) safely leave web archiving to the Internet Archive and national libraries.</p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-nNxAbVwuc50/TrwNyL9LprI/AAAAAAAAC94/3FWopInYFNg/s1600-h/_aInternetPanel%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="_aInternetPanel" border="0" alt="_aInternetPanel" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-GW9Ohr3L_kA/TrwNyuEeIxI/AAAAAAAAC98/XX3ajGSxIp8/_aInternetPanel_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="509" height="236" /></a></p> <p align="center"><em>Logistics put the Internet panel members much further apart than their viewpoints would warrant: they agreed that web archiving is important, not just for national libraries. From the left: Geoff Harder, University of Alberta, Tessa Fellon, University of Columbia, and Lori Donovan, the Internet Archive.</em></p> <p>No, said Geoff Harder of the University of Alberta and Tessa Fellon of the University of Columbia. There are compelling reasons for research libraries to get involved as well. Harder: “This is just another tool in collection building; we should not treat it any differently. You begin with a collection policy and an expanded view of what constitutes a research collection: build on existing collections; find collections where research is happening or will happen.” </p> <p>I would say that perhaps there are even <em>more </em>compelling reasons to collect web content than, e.g., printed books, because web content is extremely fleeting. Harder told his audience: “Too much online (western) Canadian is disappearing; this creates a research gap for future scholars and a hole in our collective memory.” He encouraged research libraries to: “Mind the Gap – Own the Problem”.</p> <p>The University of Alberta’s involvement in web archiving started with a rescue operation: a non-profit foundation which created some 80+ websites, including the Alberta Online Encyclopedia, went out of business. This was extremely valuable content, and it needed to be rescued fast.</p> <p><font size="4"><strong>When a time bomb is ticking …</strong></font></p> <p>The University of Alberta decided to use <em><a href="http://www.archive-it.org/">Archive-It</a></em>, a service developed by the Internet Archive. It is a light-weight tool that is easy to get up and running <em>immediately</em>. Plus, said Harder, there is a well-established tool-kit including dashboard and workflows, you become part of an instant community of users and your collection becomes part of a larger, global web archive. Because that is a precondition for working with Archive-It: by default, everything that is harvested becomes publicly available globally. Harder: ‘It is an economical tool for saving orphaned and at-risk web content … where we know a time bomb is ticking.” </p> <p>Have a look at the collections built with <em>Archive-It</em>, I would say to research libraries’ subject specialists. You can include anything that is interesting in your field, such as important blogs, for as long as they are relevant.</p> <p><strong><font size="4"><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-PxwCwwnID9c/Ts06SLaF5RI/AAAAAAAADBM/t23ayOYO2Zo/s1600-h/aaYunhyong%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="aaYunhyong" border="0" alt="aaYunhyong" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-tWojgy9ZNss/Ts06SpgeloI/AAAAAAAADBQ/skQTBh2Ct4E/aaYunhyong_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="135" height="195" /></a></font></strong></p> <p align="center"><em>Yunhyong Kim of HATII, Glasgow, takes blogging very serious and is doing research into the dynamics of the blogosphere. </em></p> <p><strong><font size="4">Q&A</font></strong></p> <p>Is Archive-It durable enough? asked Yunhyong Kim of Glasgow (HATII). Donovan appeared confident that Internet Archive would be able to continue developing the tool. And I would repeat Harder: when a time bomb is ticking, you have got to go with what is available.</p> <p>What about preventing redundancy, was another question. Should we not keep a register somewhere of what is being archived? Fellon thought that was a good idea, but perhaps it was too early for that. 'There are many different reasons for web archiving, different frequencies.” Sorting out what overlaps exactly and what does not is perhaps more work than just accepting some “collateral damage”.</p> <p>If you want to know more about Archive-It, you can sign up for one of their live online demos. There’s one scheduled for November 29 and one for December 6. See the <a href="http://www.archive-it.org/">website</a></p> <p align="center"><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-gRzr2qNJjos/Ts0_QlJRSQI/AAAAAAAADBc/nB34MyUpcMI/s1600-h/_aaarchiveit%25255B7%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px auto 5px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="_aaarchiveit" border="0" alt="_aaarchiveit" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-KyC05Haqa-I/Ts0_RMh48II/AAAAAAAADBg/5vMfCfzQrL0/_aaarchiveit_thumb%25255B4%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="497" height="330" /></a><em>Archive-It Singapore-style</em></p> Inge Angevaarehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13015271073441769932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3354046180818375580.post-20355673936945317172011-11-21T19:10:00.000+01:002011-11-22T19:57:35.320+01:00PDF/A-2: what it is, what it can do, what it cannot do, and what to expect in the future<p>There is a new PDF ISO standard, 19005-2, or PDF/A-2, and therefore the Benelux PDF/A Competence Center decided to organize a <a href="http://www.doconsultancy.net/seminars.html">seminar</a>. When one of the organizers, Dominique Hermans of <a href="http://www.doconsultancy.net/">DO Consultancy</a>, asked me to do the warming-up presentation, I readily agreed, because I had been hearing some bad things about PDF these last few months, and was eager to find out more. While preparing my own talk (slides at the end of this post) I decided to quote those very criticisms (see LIBER2011 <a href="http://digitaalduurzaam.blogspot.com/2011/06/global-web-of-data-depends-on-machine.html">blog post</a>), just to get the ball rolling and challenge the experts to comment:</p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-jAC7e_7E0UA/Tsk-ikmol7I/AAAAAAAAC_g/Fky_wpv8SCc/s1600-h/20111117PDFA_Angevaare%25255B1%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; margin: 5px auto 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="20111117PDFA_Angevaare" border="0" alt="20111117PDFA_Angevaare" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-mg5sNiPuo3Q/TsVGT1XUf2I/AAAAAAAAC_k/ZkqsYPpViMI/20111117PDFA_Angevaare_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="313" height="236" /></a></p> <p align="center"><em>This slide of mine is a mash-up of three slides by Alma Swan at the <a href="http://bibliotecnica.upc.edu/LIBER2011/content/programme">LIBER 2011 conference</a>, <a href="http://bibliotecnica.upc.edu/LIBER2011/sites/bibliotecnica.upc.edu.LIBER2011/files/authors/PDF/SWAN.pdf">Open Access, repositories and H.G. Wells</a></em></p> <p>These criticisms come from people who want <em>machines</em> to analyse large quantities of data in a semantic-web/Linked Data-type environment. Are the criticisms justified? For those of you who, like me, are sometimes confused about what is and what is not possible, I will summarize what the experts told the seminar.</p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-Snsac-51K0A/Tsk-kM2q4gI/AAAAAAAAC_s/5zdUmXuwHYA/s1600-h/_aaworkshop1%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="_aaworkshop1" border="0" alt="_aaworkshop1" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-BgLbbk8nJIM/Tsk-kjAh2MI/AAAAAAAAC_w/k4YWkTW9oZw/_aaworkshop1_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="294" height="164" /></a></p> <p>The key one-liner came from Carsten Heinemann of LuraTech: </p> <p><font size="4"></font></p> <p><font size="4"></font></p> <p><font size="4">“PDF was designed as electronic paper”</font></p> <p>‘It was designed to reproduce a <em>visual image</em> across different platforms (PC, Mac, operating systems), and for a limited period of time.’ As such, PDF was a really good  product, because it was compact and complete and it allowed for random access. But there were also many issues, and Adobe has been working on fixing those ever since. This has resulted in an entire <em>family</em> of PDF formats with different functionalities.</p> <p>PDF/A is the file format most suited for archiving purposes. The new standard, PDF/A-2 is <em>not</em> a new version of PDF/A-1 in the sense that one would need to migrate from 1 to 2, but rather a new member of the PDF family tree that has improved functionality over PDF/A-1. In order words: migrating from PDF/A-1 to PDF/A-2 is senseless, but if you are creating new PDF documents you may want to consider PDF/A-2 because of the new functionality to incorporate more features from the original document (e.g., JPEG2000 compression, possibility to embed one file into another, larger page sizes, support for transparency effects and layers).</p> <p>To make matters more complicated, PDF-A/2 comes in two varieties. Compliance level 2a and compliance level 2b. Level a allows for more access by search engines such as used in semantic web techniques, because it requires that files do not only provide a visual image, but that they are structured and tagged and include Unicode character maps.</p> <p>Heiermann concluded: XML is for transporting data; PDF is for transporting visual representations. To which I may add: XML is for use by machines, PDF is for use by humans.</p> <p><strong><font size="4">Misuse of PDF is easy</font></strong></p> <p>Raph de Rooij of Logius (Ministry of the Interior) told his audience that one should not be too quick to say that something is “impossible” with PDF. A lot <em>is</em> possible, but you have to use the tools the right way – and that is where things often go wrong.</p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-Vg9nbvmpfdY/Tsk-lCyq3_I/AAAAAAAAC_8/PTcuAArFc0k/s1600-h/_aaRaph%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="_aaRaph" border="0" alt="_aaRaph" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-bDzP5Hle-qg/Tsk-mDntkYI/AAAAAAAADAA/rv02jzqjhA8/_aaRaph_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="179" height="153" /></a></p> <p>Raph demonstrated that most PDFs put online by government agencies do not meet the government’s own requirements for web usability – including access by those who are, e.g., visually impaired. “The many nuances of the PDF discussion often get lost in translation,” he said. The trick is to pay a lot of attention to organizing the work flow that ends in PDFs.</p> <p><font size="4"><strong>PDF is no silver bullet</strong></font></p> <p>Ingmar Koch, a well-known (blogging) Dutch public records inspector, has seen many examples of PDF misuse. “Public officials tend to think of PDF as a silver bullet that solves all of their archiving problems”. But PDF was never designed to include anything that is not static (excel sheets with formulas, movies, interactive communications, etc.).</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-UArhP_sfTF0/Tsk-mkazSDI/AAAAAAAADAI/1X2UBGnRPqA/s1600-h/_aaingmarcs%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; margin: 0px auto 5px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="_aaingmarcs" border="0" alt="_aaingmarcs" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-JguSyiaDQI4/Tsk-nMtYryI/AAAAAAAADAQ/hoCr7-oQ1wY/_aaingmarcs_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="313" height="203" /></a></p> <p align="center"><em>From the left: Caroline vd Meulen, Ingmar Koch, Bas from Krimpen a/d IJssel and Robert Gillesse of the DEN Foundation.</em></p> <p align="left">From a preservation point of view, I heard some shocking case studies from public offices. An official will type the minutes of a council meeting in Word, make a print-out, have the print-out signed physically, then OCR the document and convert it to PDF for archiving. I dare not imagine how much information gets lost in the process. But then again, we all know that data producers’ interests are often different from archives’ interests. Public offices just want to make a “quick PDF” and not be bothered by all the nuances.</p> <p align="left"><font size="4"><strong>How about validation?</strong></font></p> <p align="left">There is a lot of talk about “validating” PDF documents. First of all, PDFs are created by all sorts of software, and what they produce often does not conform to the ISO standards and is thus rejected by validators. Things get more confusing when validators turn out different verdicts. Heinemann explained: “That’s because some validators only check 30%, whereas some will check 80%. The latter may find something the first did not see.”</p> <p align="left"><strong><font size="4">At the end of the day …</font></strong></p> <p align="left">It seems that, indeed, there are millions and millions of PDFs out there that can only provide a visual representation and are no good when it comes to Linked Data and the Semantic Web. But PDF is catching up, including new features all of the time. I understand that we may even expect a PDF/A-3, which supports including the original file format in the digital object. Ingmar Koch did not seem to be too happy about such functionality. It would make his life as a public records inspector even harder. But from a preservation point of view, that just <em>might</em> be as close to a silver bullet for archiving as we will ever get.</p> <p align="left">Meanwhile, if you want to use PDF in your workflow, getting some advice from an expert about what type of PDF is appropriate in your case is called for!</p> <p align="left"><font size="4"><strong>Comments by Adobe</strong></font></p> <p align="left">Adobe itself was very quick to respond to this blog post in an e-mail I found this morning. Leonard Rosenthol, PDF Architect, was not very pleased with the picture painted by the above workshop – as a matter of fact, he used the word “appalled”. He asserted that PDF and XML/Linked Data go very well together and that various countries and government agencies have already adopted a scenario that ‘presents a best of two worlds’. Here is his link to a recent blog post by James C. King that describes how it is done: <<a href="http://blogs.adobe.com/insidepdf/2011/10/my-pdf-hammer-revision.html">http://blogs.adobe.com/insidepdf/2011/10/my-pdf-hammer-revision.html</a>.</p> <p align="left">That blog post is an interesting addition to the workshop results (confirming Raph de Rooy’s assertion that “nothing is impossible”), but it does not take away the fact that PDF is often misused. I would guess that is because it is complicated stuff. “Making a quick PDF” just does not do it. The recommendation to seek expert advice, therefore, stands!</p> <p align="left">Lastly, here is my own presentation: a broad overview of developments in the digital information arena to start off the day – in Dutch:</p> <div style="width: 425px" id="__ss_10218390"><strong style="margin: 12px 0px 4px; display: block"><a title="20111117 pdfa angevaare" href="http://www.slideshare.net/ingeangevaare/20111117-pdfa-angevaare">20111117 pdfa angevaare</a></strong><object id="__sse10218390" width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=20111117pdfaangevaare-111118075419-phpapp02&stripped_title=20111117-pdfa-angevaare&userName=ingeangevaare" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><param name="wmode" value="transparent" /><embed name="__sse10218390" src="http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=20111117pdfaangevaare-111118075419-phpapp02&stripped_title=20111117-pdfa-angevaare&userName=ingeangevaare" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object> <div style="padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px">View more <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/">presentations</a> from <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/ingeangevaare">ingeangevaare</a>.</div> </div> <p>For the Dutch fans: Ingmar Koch has blogged about this event <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/IngmarBladertEnSchrijft/~3/EUyoxbUhBn0/pdfa-wat-heb-je-daar-aan.html">here</a>, and the slides will become available <a href="http://www.doconsultancy.net/seminarsa.html">here</a>. Thanks also to KB colleague Wouter Kool for helping me understand PDF.</p> <p align="center"></p> Inge Angevaarehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13015271073441769932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3354046180818375580.post-54920212844647380572011-11-20T14:33:00.001+01:002011-11-21T17:28:45.241+01:00‘Bewaar als …’: glashelder advies over digitaal archiveren<p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-lAN-lMMmVKA/TskBvdW00UI/AAAAAAAAC_E/vCn5XjQrcHI/s1600-h/bewaarals%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="bewaarals" border="0" alt="bewaarals" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-vC4z6rJolX0/TskBv9CeTQI/AAAAAAAAC_I/gJ_5MfkNfTs/bewaarals_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="163" height="242" /></a></p> <p>Karin van der Heiden heeft met Premsela (Nederlands Instituut voor Design en Mode) een glasheldere leporello (uitvouwbrochure) ontwikkeld om vormgevers praktische handvatten te bieden om hun informatie goed te ordenen en goed op te slaan – en dat is het begin van alle langetermijntoegang. Niet alleen belangrijk voor vormgevers, maar voor iedereen die digitale documenten maakt en die goed wil bewaren!</p> <p>Gefeliciteerd, Karin, met deze productie!</p> <p>Kijk op de bijbehorende website, <a title="http://bewaarals.nl/" href="http://bewaarals.nl/">http://bewaarals.nl/</a>, en zegt het voort!</p> <p>PS: Hieronder de hele vellen, in .jpeg.</p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-zjvX03pUww8/Tsp7q3B78zI/AAAAAAAADAs/ZAhGDt047fQ/s1600-h/Bewaar_als_NL_digitaal1_def%25255B6%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="Bewaar_als_NL_digitaal1_def" border="0" alt="Bewaar_als_NL_digitaal1_def" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-jZz9eqgksRI/Tsp7rXCz3MI/AAAAAAAADA0/ODT6GA0M668/Bewaar_als_NL_digitaal1_def_thumb%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="547" height="100" /></a></p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-WqxAwFLdNFY/Tsp7soNZe9I/AAAAAAAADA4/zLALbJPG82c/s1600-h/Bewaar_als_NL_digitaal2_def%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="Bewaar_als_NL_digitaal2_def" border="0" alt="Bewaar_als_NL_digitaal2_def" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-lsRt2sZT8Ak/Tsp7tQ-LFpI/AAAAAAAADBE/ahTKHre56o4/Bewaar_als_NL_digitaal2_def_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="547" height="102" /></a></p> <p>An English edition will be made available in the US in a few months. I will keep you posted.</p> Inge Angevaarehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13015271073441769932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3354046180818375580.post-89554736875534206272011-11-08T16:53:00.001+01:002011-11-10T18:53:16.036+01:00Aligning with most of the world (iPRES2011, 8)<p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-Qv4x5mSRdyw/Trlqtga5tbI/AAAAAAAAC7I/HnTAzYzCwRs/s1600-h/_aUSBhub3%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 10px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: right; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="_aUSBhub3" border="0" alt="_aUSBhub3" align="right" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-OaWMaAMY6Ps/Trlqua_2jXI/AAAAAAAAC7M/gSE-GxK8g-w/_aUSBhub3_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="166" height="210" /></a>iPRES is organized alternately in Europe, in North-America and in Asia in order to include people and discussions from all continents – Africa and South-America are still on the Steering Committee’s wish list. However, when you looked at the list of presenters at iPRES2011, it was the usual suspects that dominated: Europe, North America, Australia/New Zealand. I asked a Programme Committee member about that, and he told me that some papers had been submitted from Asia, but they were deemed not good enough to make it to the programme.</p> <p>To my mind, there is a bit of a contradiction in this. Of course we want high-quality papers at iPRES, but it is a bit risky to take our (western) stage of development as a yard stick for what constitutes “quality”. As Cal Lee phrased it: “Digital preservation tends to be quite regionally myopic.” I would suggest that the next iPRES organize a special track or workshop day for those that are just beginning to think about digital preservation, or that work from a very different context than a “western” one and focus on their specific circumstances and challenges. </p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-SPzDL_T50a4/TrlqvGELj0I/AAAAAAAAC7Y/id7msFlot1c/s1600-h/20111104iPresWGpicture%25255B7%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="20111104iPresWGpicture" border="0" alt="20111104iPresWGpicture" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-TICgXIWqN50/TrlqvqelXpI/AAAAAAAAC7g/cEau6GparHk/20111104iPresWGpicture_thumb%25255B5%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="415" height="311" /></a></p> <p>Fortunately, there was one workshop that expressly invited members from “other” countries. It was the workshop “Aligning national approaches to digital preservation”, a follow-up from last May’s Tallinn conference (see <a href="http://digitaalduurzaam.blogspot.com/2011/06/on-alignment-when-we-do-and-dont-need.html">my blog posts</a>), put together by Cal Lee from the University of North Carolina. Yes, there were usual suspects presenting as well (including yours truly), but in this post I shall mostly  ignore them in favour of new input:</p> <p><strong><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-uV6qwOHyhug/TrlqwbzZhNI/AAAAAAAAC7o/lUqQh5OPiZM/s1600-h/_aOzgur%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: right; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="_aOzgur" border="0" alt="_aOzgur" align="right" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-v9vlSN0aPKc/TrlqxGVFIsI/AAAAAAAAC7w/gmS-xtRIovY/_aOzgur_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="98" height="128" /></a>Özgür Külcü</strong>, from Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey, described Turkish participation in the <a href="http://www.access-it.org/">AccessIT project</a>, whereby an online education module with practical information about digitisation issues and protection of cultural heritage was developed. And in the context of the <a href="http://www.interpares.org/ip3/ip3_index.cfm?team=15">InterPares 3 project</a> the Turkish team is helping translate digital preservation theory into concrete action plans for organizations with limited resources. But many issues remain:</p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-jB92F_UPT6E/TrlQecebGhI/AAAAAAAAC6Y/8X30bhX8CzI/s1600-h/Turkey%25255B6%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="Turkey" border="0" alt="Turkey" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-9h8I_EjsLDU/TrlQfKdzXQI/AAAAAAAAC6g/N-oF6oYsrU4/Turkey_thumb%25255B4%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="486" height="365" /></a></p> <p><strong>Masaki Shibata<em> </em></strong>from Japan, revealed the results of a DRAMBORA 2.0 test audit carried out at the National Diet Library in Japan:</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-Imf_UE-HPec/TrlQf6wqzXI/AAAAAAAAC74/Wi0fGCiOjfg/s1600-h/Dia3%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="Dia3" border="0" alt="Dia3" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-qbTNioMictk/TrlQgVVuyZI/AAAAAAAAC78/QNrQAFVAD8Y/Dia3_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="264" height="198" /></a></p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-Bvbd6aldCaQ/TrlQh2VJfRI/AAAAAAAAC8A/7C-EY_VrFIw/s1600-h/Dia4%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="Dia4" border="0" alt="Dia4" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-I62-nR4vtNI/TrlQil7FpXI/AAAAAAAAC8E/xGEeeJBfNlw/Dia4_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="260" height="196" /></a></p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-GVlvdV2w4aU/Trlq1j_iD2I/AAAAAAAAC8I/t7DrWp-fZeI/s1600-h/_aShibata%25255B6%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; margin: 7px 0px 10px 10px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: right; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="_aShibata" border="0" alt="_aShibata" align="right" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-MPxDuMIUOsA/Trlq2NHP1OI/AAAAAAAAC8M/BbVrLt8ZXJI/_aShibata_thumb%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="117" height="136" /></a>Shibata admitted that, unfortunately, the risks mentioned in the final report largely remain unsolved. ‘We were caught up in an illusion that there was an ideal solution to ensure long-term digital preservation,’ he said. ‘We tried to address the risks only by means of systems development.’ Also, specific Japanese and NDL circumstances played a role, such as the rigidness of the fiscal, budget, employment and personnel system; language difficulties and geographical constraints; lack of digital conservators; and a cultural context of preservation. Shibata concluded that an international alliance for digital preservation ‘would become a boost/tailwind for national policymaking in Japan.’</p> <p><strong><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-VHXNt_Xr9yo/Trlq2kFbQoI/AAAAAAAAC-I/EPf8K_ItY80/s1600-h/_aDaisy.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 9px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: right; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="_aDaisy" border="0" alt="_aDaisy" align="right" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-zI8BlD4xU30/Trlq3SG2y1I/AAAAAAAAC-M/mnSScj52bno/_aDaisy_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="117" height="168" /></a>Daisy Selematsela</strong> from the National Research Foundation of the Republic of South Africa, described the outcomes of <a href="http://www.digi.nrf.ac.za/download/AuditReport.pdf">An audit of South African digitisation initiatives</a> before focussing on <a href="http://digi.nrf.ac.za/publ/Managing%20Digital%20Collections.pdf">“Managing Digital Collections: a collaborative initiative on the South African Framework”</a>, a report published earlier this year, which is meant to provide data producers with high-level principles for managing data throughout the digital collection life cycle; and the Train-the-trainer programme:</p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-JT3hiomOVgA/Trlq4AN7kII/AAAAAAAAC8o/qzyRmHLQh-o/s1600-h/Singapore_IPRES%2525202011%252520SINGAPORE%252520PRESENTATION%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="Singapore_IPRES 2011 SINGAPORE PRESENTATION" border="0" alt="Singapore_IPRES 2011 SINGAPORE PRESENTATION" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-IlFUyo4eC_o/Trlq40M_XRI/AAAAAAAAC8w/7Ujpayh_E0E/Singapore_IPRES%2525202011%252520SINGAPORE%252520PRESENTATION_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="242" height="182" /></a></p> <p>As for international alignment, Selematsela concluded:</p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-jmWjihChB34/Trlq56Tj3aI/AAAAAAAAC84/KXGxXQPWR7Q/s1600-h/Singapore_IPRES%2525202011%252520SINGAPORE%252520PRESENTATION2%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="Singapore_IPRES 2011 SINGAPORE PRESENTATION2" border="0" alt="Singapore_IPRES 2011 SINGAPORE PRESENTATION2" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-RIoPL_lBscQ/Trlq6QLJXiI/AAAAAAAAC88/5r7_WDlr61A/Singapore_IPRES%2525202011%252520SINGAPORE%252520PRESENTATION2_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="242" height="182" /></a></p> <p><strong><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-_MLfUUE7JsA/Trlq7LsDM6I/AAAAAAAAC9I/1eYW9V4dhuM/s1600-h/_araju%25255B6%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: right; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="_araju" border="0" alt="_araju" align="right" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-AbtT55ykKd4/Trlq7xQdQ7I/AAAAAAAAC9M/dwM46QCFprU/_araju_thumb%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="125" height="154" /></a>Raju Buddharaju</strong> of the National Library of Singapore (photo right) suggested that we first need a better understanding of what we mean  “alignment” <em>and</em> what we mean by digital preservation (what do we include, what do we exclude)  before we can try and come to workable initiatives.</p> <p>The workshop was originally designed as a one-day event, but in the end the conference organizers only gave us 3 hours on Friday afternoon. The good news was that despite the time of day and conference fatigue, more than fourty participants showed up and they conducted animated discussions on such topics as: costs; public policy and society; and preservation & access.</p> <p align="left"><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-bm7xoIneEHw/Trlq8k9csQI/AAAAAAAAC9Y/yZCo5F-9qp4/s1600-h/_aKnight%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: right; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="_aKnight" border="0" alt="_aKnight" align="right" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-NXiBpGIfgLA/Trlq9U7GgvI/AAAAAAAAC9c/Kmzc80H5zJY/_aKnight_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="213" height="142" /></a>But it was difficult to reach any concrete conclusions. There are many good intentions, but it continues to be difficult to find the common ground that leads to practical results. Steve Knight of the National Library of New Zealand (photo left) questioned whether there is any <em>real</em> will to collaborate, e.g., on putting together a much-needed international format (technical) registry. Talking about education, finally, Andi Rauber suggested that because there is no well-defined body of knowledge, we might prefer a range of “friendly competing curricula” rather than an aligned body – for the time being. </p> <p>Which only goes to show that, like Singapore itself, alignment comes in many shapes and sizes.</p> <p><em><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-3JvVIxO0u_M/Trlq-Srlo0I/AAAAAAAAC9o/vxkzm5i1m6A/s1600-h/_DSC0889%252520kopi%2525C3%2525ABren%25255B6%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="_DSC0889 kopiëren" border="0" alt="_DSC0889 kopiëren" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-f4fk3BGBfNQ/Trlq_Lvwo6I/AAAAAAAAC9s/Vkl2WMcNPq4/_DSC0889%252520kopi%2525C3%2525ABren_thumb%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="488" height="366" /></a></em></p> Inge Angevaarehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13015271073441769932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3354046180818375580.post-53794098663965501392011-11-08T08:20:00.001+01:002011-11-08T09:07:37.954+01:00Disaster planning and enabling smaller institutions (iPRES2011, 7)<p><font size="4"><strong><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-fBkK2L0HfQo/TrjhpBFdV0I/AAAAAAAAC5I/kUxQtPC_tls/s1600-h/_aDanger%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: right; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="_aDanger" border="0" alt="_aDanger" align="right" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-0c4F-mtTzJc/TrjhpprVQkI/AAAAAAAAC5M/NHa6kuErtdk/_aDanger_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="99" height="174" /></a></strong></font></p> <p>As this iPRES was moved from Tsukuba, Japan, to Singapore because of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan in March this year, it was only fitting that iPRES2011 should include a panel session on disaster planning. Neil Grindley (JISC) asked if digital preservation does not implicitly include disaster planning, but Angela Dappart (DPC) argued that with an entire infrastructure going down, the problems will be massively larger. Plus, as Arif Shaon (STFC) observed, ‘Grade A preservation should include it, but we have not reached that stage yet.’</p> <p>Shigeo Sugimoto of Tsukuba, who would have been iPRES’s host in Japan, took a forward-looking view at disaster planning. Many physical artefacts were lost during the earthquake, and having lots of digital copies at different locations can certainly help rescue cultural heritage, provided the metadata are kept at different locations as well.</p> <p align="center"><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-lLMV9PU6cxI/TrjhqhpWjOI/AAAAAAAAC5Y/-9XiVFRtZeE/s1600-h/_aSugimoto%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px auto 5px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="_aSugimoto" border="0" alt="_aSugimoto" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-Y4zij30l5qk/TrjhrPIYq9I/AAAAAAAAC5c/zPVmujD-jGw/_aSugimoto_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="242" height="174" /></a><em>Shigeo Sugimoto (right) with José Barateiro of Portugal during the disaster planning session. </em></p> <p align="left">There is one catch, though: many smaller institutions do not have the means (money, staff) to build digital archives. Therefore, in Japan the idea has been put forward to design a robust and easy-to-use cloud-based service for small institutions:</p> <p align="left"><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-PT7vkqKuCEY/TrjhsIwuPhI/AAAAAAAAC5o/8b0nfY9Es04/s1600-h/CloudForPreservation%252520-%252520SS1%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="CloudForPreservation - SS1" border="0" alt="CloudForPreservation - SS1" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-EwkOENXnG0M/TrjhtEf2ZnI/AAAAAAAAC5w/vkNTOOfAktw/CloudForPreservation%252520-%252520SS1_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="242" height="182" /></a></p> <p align="left"><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-aNbhJX0lPpY/Trjhuew_KhI/AAAAAAAAC54/nwzVJaKQYjc/s1600-h/CloudForPreservation%252520-%252520SS%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="CloudForPreservation - SS" border="0" alt="CloudForPreservation - SS" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-fIRR8u30Ifk/Trjhu3K6orI/AAAAAAAAC58/4Ga9BBWP7ro/CloudForPreservation%252520-%252520SS_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="242" height="182" /></a></p> <p align="left"><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-Qe7-WuObkeA/Trjhv2yAsGI/AAAAAAAAC6E/DWlWtjYfI4s/s1600-h/CloudForPreservation%252520-%252520SS3%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="CloudForPreservation - SS3" border="0" alt="CloudForPreservation - SS3" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-2rJkOf0pPaE/TrjhwE8k-EI/AAAAAAAAC6M/2pz-YCZcVfA/CloudForPreservation%252520-%252520SS3_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="242" height="182" /></a></p> <p>In the Netherlands, I am involved in two Dutch Digital Preservation Coalition (NCDD) working groups who are looking at the same problems: how to enable smaller institutions to preserve their digital objects. Professor Sugimoto and I have agreed to stay in touch and exchange information and experiences.</p> Inge Angevaarehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13015271073441769932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3354046180818375580.post-14259016228991097212011-11-06T15:13:00.001+01:002011-11-13T15:32:53.519+01:00‘At scale, storage is the dominant hardware cost’ (iPRES2011, 6)<p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-3f8rH5y7kUs/TraWFbUK0VI/AAAAAAAAC4o/mHhZhL6Y8SQ/s1600-h/aaSharpe%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: right; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="aaSharpe" border="0" alt="aaSharpe" align="right" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-NCZybZjwofQ/TraWF82NIbI/AAAAAAAAC4s/-VVc1aMeh0s/aaSharpe_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="171" height="214" /></a>It is not uncommon for conferences to be ‘interrupted’ by sponsor presentations. When I say ‘interrupted’, I do not necessarily mean that such talks are unwelcome. Conference days tend to be packed from early morning to late at night, and such sponsor interventions can be quite pleasant – a moment to doze off or to check your e-mail. Robert Sharpe (photo) of Tessella (vendors of the Safety Deposit Box or SDB system) gave us no such respite. In an entertaining presentation he shared some scalability experiences with us.</p> <p>The case study was Family Search, which ingests no less than 20 Terabyte of images <em>a day. </em>That was quite a scalability test for the Tessella Safety Deposit Box system, and it tested some of Sharpe’s own assumptions:</p> <ul> <li>Tessella <em>expected</em> that they would need faster, more efficient tools, but it turned out that existing tools (DROID, Jhove, etc.) were easily fast enough. </li> <li>Tessella <em>expected</em> reading and writing of content to be fast compared to processing, but it turned out that reading and writing were not fast enough; the process required parallel reads and parallel writes. Thus the hardware cost is dominated by non-processing costs. </li> <li>Tessella (and most of us) expected storage to be cheap, but <em>at scale</em> it turned out to be the dominant hardware cost. Reading and writing hardware came to about GBP 80,000. The storage costs came to GBP 100 per Terabyte content (3 copies), which amounted to GBP 730,000 a year, <em>each </em>year, and without refreshment costs. </li> </ul> <p>Sharpe concluded that we do not need faster tools – but we do need better & more comprehensive tools. We need systems engineering, not just software engineering. And we need enterprise solutions: automation, multi-threading, efficient workflow management and automated issue handling.</p> <p>All of which, of course, Rob will be happy to talk to you about.</p> <p>PS: In response to this blog post, Rob wrote to me: ‘A further point I was trying to make in the rest of my talk is you don't need especially powerful application servers to do this: you can do it fairly cheaply (certainly when compared to other costs at such scale).’</p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-XMW-mB0HAoU/TraaDix8dOI/AAAAAAAAC44/pHONbslVTw8/s1600-h/aaMarineBaySands%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="aaMarineBaySands" border="0" alt="aaMarineBaySands" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-FD-s_lEt5Ks/TraaEC62bwI/AAAAAAAAC48/BXHNmm1zM6E/aaMarineBaySands_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="496" height="329" /></a></p> <p align="center"><em>Scale Singapore-style: the Marine Bay Sands Hotel. The ship-like contraption on top of the three towers holds lush tropical gardens, a 150 meter swimming pool, restaurants, and a bar.</em></p> Inge Angevaarehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13015271073441769932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3354046180818375580.post-43971857440216150672011-11-04T05:48:00.001+01:002011-11-04T05:48:31.117+01:00Taking emulation another couple of steps further (iPRES11, 5)<p>It is Friday morning, 9 pm. In the other room they are talking about cost modelling. I have opted for the emulation session, continuing the thread from the <a href="http://digitaalduurzaam.blogspot.com/2011/10/emulation-is-becoming-viable-option.html">KEEP workshop</a> I blogged about last week. Judging by the number of participants, emulation is not yet a “hot” topic in the DP community. But perhaps it is only because it is Friday morning, the third conference day – people keep sneeking in with cups of black coffee in their hands.<a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-8Xc7pDfRKoA/TrNua-xNg_I/AAAAAAAAC2g/igxNlDOq4Ts/s1600-h/_DSC04518.jpg"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; margin: 10px auto; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px" title="_DSC0451" border="0" alt="_DSC0451" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-nm5sXykD6Cw/TrNubxXOgOI/AAAAAAAAC2o/iYZ0QtMwu-E/_DSC0451_thumb6.jpg?imgmax=800" width="406" height="271" /></a></p> <p>The first paper conveys a really bright idea, which has also come up in the Netherlands (Maurice van den Dobbelsteen at the National Archives). If your job is archiving large amounts of data from a controlled environment (e.g., a government ministry), would it not be a great idea to simply make a virtual copy of the entire hardware/software environment in which the objects are produced? Then, when the data come into the archive, all you have to know is when they were produced and at which ministry, and your emulation environment is ready to go. That would save loads of work at the preservation stage.</p> <p>A similar procedure could work if you want to harvest the archive of significant persons. For example, there was a project to emulate Salman Rushdie’s computer environment, to be able to access his files later.</p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-7fjD-Fb9scg/TrNudNvdNZI/AAAAAAAAC2w/LIk9j2xX2PU/s1600-h/_DSC04545.jpg"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" title="_DSC0454" border="0" alt="_DSC0454" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-Jyyy2N6Gq8I/TrNud4VzVBI/AAAAAAAAC24/gEia6sjRp4A/_DSC0454_thumb3.jpg?imgmax=800" width="293" height="195" /></a></p> <p align="center"><em>Euan Cochrane (left) and Dirk von Suchodoletz</em></p> <p>Euan Cochrane of the Archives of New Zealand and Dirk von Suchodoletz of the University of Freiburg present this approach at iPRES2011. They ran some tests and inevitably found some technical problems, but nothing that cannot be overcome. And I can imagine that, if it works, it can really be a time and money saver, especially in the long run. However, as always, there are challenges. Some are inherent to all emulation strategies: you need workable emulators and emulators themselves become obsolete – for which, of course, there is the <a href="http://digitaalduurzaam.blogspot.com/2011/10/emulation-is-becoming-viable-option.html">KEEP approach</a> which I blogged about earlier. Bram Lohman is presenting KEEP here in a minute.</p> <p>One obstacle is unique to this particular approach: the data producers should include ‘emulatability’ in their calls for bids for computer systems. Technically this should not be too difficult, but in terms of licenses, there may be catches. I will blog about the copyright problems later. The KEEP project did a lot of work on that.</p> <p>The next presentation raises the level of complexity a bit – at least for non-techies like me. It is entitled: “Using emulation as a tool for migration”, by Klaus Reichert et al.</p> <p><img style="border-right-width: 0px; margin: 0px auto; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px" title="_DSC0487" border="0" alt="_DSC0487" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/--RAjV81XK9g/TrNue8k8xnI/AAAAAAAAC3A/dy8Ie93TvlE/_DSC0487_thumb15.jpg?imgmax=800" width="242" height="176" /></p> <p align="center"><em>Emulation developers: from the left Dirk von Suchodoletz, Klaus Reichert and Euan Cochrane</em></p> <p>Because I did not understand it very well, I asked Klaus during coffee break. This is my layman’s version of how it works: almost every software programme comes with “little” migration tools, e.g., between Word 2003 and Word 2010. If you want a file that does not run on your present software/hardware combination and there is no direct migration tool, you can re-create the original environment (emulation), perform the “little” migration there, and then use the resulting file on your present system. The advantages are that you do not need to write new migration routines and you can use the file within your present context – without the old “handicaps”, if you will. See the slide below.</p> <p> <a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-D3amPfajSy4/TrNufhhUBMI/AAAAAAAAC3I/kbrC3sZtEKE/s1600-h/_DSC046611.jpg"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px" title="_DSC0466" border="0" alt="_DSC0466" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-KWMN3PW4B3g/TrNugkFEziI/AAAAAAAAC3Q/Y3VdGokGVws/_DSC0466_thumb9.jpg?imgmax=800" width="171" height="260" /></a>The case studies in this session include Mark Guttenbrunner, on home computer software emulation, Roman Graf & Reinhold Huber-Mork on braille conversion, and Geoffrey Brown (Indiana University), on emulating some interactive Voyager (1989-1997) publications on cd-rom, classic Mac applications such as Robert Winter’s Interactive Beethoven’s 9th (you could play themes, play notes, play synthesizer versions without certain rhythms, etc.). Let me give you the screenshot as a reminder of what we do all our hard work for (you have to imagine the music). You can find the technical details in the proceedings.</p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-2pGXY_LDwgs/TrNuiJrx3II/AAAAAAAAC3Y/RXOqN8WVf8w/s1600-h/_DSC04944.jpg"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; margin: 0px auto 15px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px" title="_DSC0494" border="0" alt="_DSC0494" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-2dpTkk9qpeA/TrNuixaoU1I/AAAAAAAAC3g/Vg_Q8cZM3kM/_DSC0494_thumb2.jpg?imgmax=800" width="242" height="161" /></a>With vintage American pragmatism, Brown said: ‘Our goal is to demonstrate that emulation is practical’ – and that is what we all want. But he also said: ‘At the moment, a lot of this is hobby stuff.’ And there seems to be lot of that in the emulation environment. To really make it work we need more sustainable initiatives such as, perhaps, the Open Planets Foundation (OPF Director Bram van der Werf is in the room  …).</p> <p align="center"><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-10hpEAPQBVM/TrNukHT94eI/AAAAAAAAC3o/jMGJwgHns14/s1600-h/_DSC05047.jpg"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px" title="_DSC0504" border="0" alt="_DSC0504" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-woA9IKntekY/TrNuk_XZvEI/AAAAAAAAC3w/DGq2VqHDZMo/_DSC0504_thumb10.jpg?imgmax=800" width="409" height="212" /></a> <em>Geoffrey Brown answering questions.</em></p> <p>After this semi-live blogging session, we are off to lunch. This afternoon there is the workshop on International Alignment in Digital Preservation, in which I am involved myself. As it is Friday afternoon, the last conference day, and as we have competition from a session on web analytics <em>and</em> of organized visits to the National Library and National Archives, we are not expecting the greatest turnout. But quality can do a lot to make up for quantity ;-)</p> <p>Expect a few more posts, though. Because of time constraints I had to forego some good stuff. I will report on that in the course of the next few days.</p> <p align="center"><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-OaIDRI5Cnuc/TrNumc0XdDI/AAAAAAAAC34/NSwfZNFyvx4/s1600-h/_DSC0260%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px auto 5px; display: block; float: none; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="_DSC0260" border="0" alt="_DSC0260" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-6w32r_cYX_M/TrNunEOMnkI/AAAAAAAAC4A/HaFWvKmwjDI/_DSC0260_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="242" height="161" /></a><em>What to Wear is not only a ladies’ question here – air conditioning sometimes works too well for some of us. </em></p> <p align="center"> </p> <p align="center"></p> Inge Angevaarehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13015271073441769932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3354046180818375580.post-72855957375436447142011-11-03T09:46:00.001+01:002011-11-08T09:22:53.665+01:00‘Metadata is a love note to the future’ (iPRES2011, 4)<p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-70bgn6XkC10/TrKtB6PfQVI/AAAAAAAAC2Q/YVOSNoa8tto/s1600-h/_DSC0430%25255B9%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; margin: 5px 0px 5px 5px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px" title="_DSC0430" border="0" alt="_DSC0430" align="right" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-L41AwkPWTjc/TrKtCmQ8_zI/AAAAAAAAC2Y/QCUqBi4Nlpo/_DSC0430_thumb%25255B16%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="87" height="126" /></a> The quote in the title comes from a tiny sticker I found here in the conference room. I almost missed it, it is that small. I do not know who put the stickers out there. Perhaps the barcode could tell me, but I haven’t downloaded the app yet. In any case, the quote is one to pass on to you, and in a (bit of a creative) way, it brings together the two keynote speeches on day 2 of iPRES2011. [Post script: Henk Koning of DANS tells me that this is the url: <a href="http://mialnttf.tumblr.com/">http://mialnttf.tumblr.com/</a>].</p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-pnmKB5GYGP0/TrJUsLK_65I/AAAAAAAAC0Q/UnofvvDs9r8/s1600-h/_DSC0114%25255B10%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; margin: 0px 15px 5px 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px" title="_DSC0114" border="0" alt="_DSC0114" align="left" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-a3aiqsg6xFs/TrJUtM5b-dI/AAAAAAAAC0Y/V_P7UpSTkfU/_DSC0114_thumb%25255B22%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="216" /></a> Mick Newman of the Australian National Film and Sound Archive (photo left) spoke about  ‘Preserving motion film, so much to do and so little time …’ Mick made no secret of his ‘lovely chauvinism’ for <em>analogue </em>film – the film experience for him includes a buzzing reel of acetate film (nitrate being a bit too flammable, after all). Like Richard Wright (BBC) last week in Hamburg, Newman reported that the transition to digital is slow. And not as easy as, e.g., for documents, because films are complex objects containing high-quality images and high-quality sounds, and an ISO file format such as motion-JPEG2000 works for the image, but does a mediocre job with sound. And the files are huge: a 35-mm film with 350,000 frames will turn into a 10 TB digital object. A complex object at that, with formidable metadata challenges (here’s the link to the title), with complicated intellectual property regimes for script, sound, music, set design, etc. etc., causing Newman to quote Karen Van Malssen saying ‘It doesn’t matter what the question is, the answer is metadata.’</p> <p>At the end of his talk, Newman showed a slide with the pros and cons of analogue preservation vs. digital preservation, and the very fact that he showed the slide at all was notable. In the library and archives community nobody thinks in terms of those ‘or-or’ terms anymore. But, then again, they tend to keep the physical originals whereas Newman made clear that preserving analogue films is very demanding and thus expensive.</p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-MI9homPx3X4/TrJUuxwcIRI/AAAAAAAAC0g/fpg4P8dXzDk/s1600-h/_DSC0128%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" title="_DSC0128" border="0" alt="_DSC0128" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-eYTlos0C4Jg/TrJUvoW2hBI/AAAAAAAAC0o/7ZPn3HzXBEo/_DSC0128_thumb%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="368" height="244" /></a> </p> <p>In the next keynote the focus was shifted to research data, with Ross Wilkinson of the Australian National Data Service ANDS. Like Seamus Ross yesterday morning (see earlier <a href="http://digitaalduurzaam.blogspot.com/2011/11/ipres2011-justifying-cost-2.html">post</a>) Wilkinson made the case for preservation in terms of added value rather than controlling risks (see last week’s <a href="http://digitaalduurzaam.blogspot.com/2011/10/are-we-battling-risks-or-adding-value.html">post</a>). With research driving innovation, however, I think his argument is a lot more compelling (towards funders, that is) than just referring to our ‘memory’ and ‘identity’ – which are hard to express in terms of dollars and euros.</p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-2Yct1-DB2oI/TrJUxB_5FUI/AAAAAAAAC0w/VS2v7pgY7F0/s1600-h/_DSC0134%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px" title="_DSC0134" border="0" alt="_DSC0134" align="left" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-CiCsYCWVtls/TrJUxteCYcI/AAAAAAAAC04/DAeBfwqZCXU/_DSC0134_thumb%25255B8%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="242" height="191" /></a>Wilkinson (photo left) focussed on increasing the value of research data, a.o. by connecting different databases to generate new information to enable new types of research (and some of that value must come from metadata, hence another creative link to my title). Wilkinson’s added value list is as follows:</p> <p>‘Data is more valuable, if …</p> <ul> <li>it can be used later </li> <li>it is able to be used by more researchers </li> <li>it is able to be used to answer new questions </li> <li>it is able to be integrated to explore new data spaces …’ </li> </ul> <p>‘To do so, it must be managed, connected, discovered, and then re-used – it has to move out of the lab.’</p> <p>Who is going to do all that work? Wilkinson believes in <em>partnerships</em> – many have a role to play in the process. The researcher, the institution, ‘data carers’ in all shapes and sizes (data librarians, data scientists, etc.), discipline-specific repositories and more general archiving institutions such as ANDS (and <a href="http://www.dans.knaw.nl/nl/" target="_blank">DANS</a> in the Netherlands).  </p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-hhos6KJchZw/TrJUyzn3voI/AAAAAAAAC1A/wrfxEev71KU/s1600-h/_DSC0145%25255B9%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" title="_DSC0145" border="0" alt="_DSC0145" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-WigVgYwWKx8/TrJU0JDAm6I/AAAAAAAAC1I/awoH57-PewM/_DSC0145_thumb%25255B12%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="444" height="206" /></a></p> <p align="center"><em>Moving research data from the private to the public sphere: each partner has a role to play in adding value to the data</em></p> <p>Plus, of course, a number of stakeholders that have a role to play in motiving researchers to share, such as funders and key players in scholarly communications such as publishers. If data become citable, more researchers will be willing to share.</p> <p>To conclude, this is Wilkinson’s favourate case study of research data reuse:</p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-uLNrHNBthlY/TrJU1MeuIkI/AAAAAAAAC1Q/0hbvymLUj0s/s1600-h/_DSC0152%25255B8%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" title="_DSC0152" border="0" alt="_DSC0152" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-y3P02mc24Nc/TrJU2Gm8tsI/AAAAAAAAC1U/nyJ7YeA9Tb8/_DSC0152_thumb%25255B10%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="336" height="211" /></a> </p> <p align="center"><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-BQv5Q3QlWhk/TrJU4EpccmI/AAAAAAAAC1g/3a5KVQ4ik1U/s1600-h/_DSC0153%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" title="_DSC0153" border="0" alt="_DSC0153" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-K-cqyey-3pI/TrJU47PFH9I/AAAAAAAAC1o/EHR-EEBsP3w/_DSC0153_thumb%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="335" height="223" /></a> <em>Q&A: Arif Shaon of STFC in the UK</em></p> <p align="center"><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-PO8U5PLzaQg/TrJU6jPMxXI/AAAAAAAAC1w/q_PqPci7rE8/s1600-h/_DSC0085%25255B6%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" title="_DSC0085" border="0" alt="_DSC0085" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-DCzQtiRBaL0/TrJU7zwIIKI/AAAAAAAAC14/uhSnnlOyQAU/_DSC0085_thumb%25255B4%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="511" height="337" /></a><em>Conference dinner in the library’s plaza. Yes, the food was again wonderful. And the lemonade kept us sharp for the next day (the barley flavour was especially tasty)</em></p> <p align="center"><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-HCjwrwyccRk/TrJU88pTyaI/AAAAAAAAC2A/P6yzPoVY600/s1600-h/_DSC9415%25255B7%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px" title="_DSC9415" border="0" alt="_DSC9415" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-9DtCGmuLPNc/TrJU9eggqRI/AAAAAAAAC2I/la_zSjj9Rg0/_DSC9415_thumb%25255B5%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="272" height="410" /></a> </p> <p align="center"><em>Our kind hosts put an umbrella in the conference pack …</em></p> Inge Angevaarehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13015271073441769932noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3354046180818375580.post-11072471306139741712011-11-02T14:59:00.000+01:002011-11-02T14:59:47.734+01:00On governance, trust and certification (iPRES 3)<p>I am going to blog about this parallel session in reverse order, because that way it makes more sense to me.</p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-R5s6JfFqL7E/TrFLn6aBWwI/AAAAAAAACzA/k-Or3M1vvmw/s1600-h/_DSC9921%25255B7%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 10px 5px 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="_DSC9921" border="0" alt="_DSC9921" align="left" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-ZkmP9_mEXHQ/TrFLopl2kQI/AAAAAAAACzI/EEL5MM3G5OU/_DSC9921_thumb%25255B11%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="284" height="211" /></a> At the end of the session (but at the beginning of this post!) Devan Ray Donaldson of the University of Michigan reminded us what ‘trust’ (as in Trustworthy Digital Repositories, or TDR’s) is all about: end users (those that have had no involvement in either production or archiving of a document) need some assurance that the document they are getting from an archive is, in fact, authentic, that it is what it is supposed to be, and has not been tampered with or altered in any way. [BTW: that does <em>not</em> mean that the archive guarantees that the information in the document is <em>reliable</em>. The archive does not know that. The only thing an archive can do is assure that what the end user gets is the same thing that originally came into the archive.]</p> <p>Archives know that end users care about trust, about authenticity. So Donaldson wants to study how we communicate with the end user about that authenticity. If we put some seal of approval on a document, will the end user trust it more than if we do not put any seal on it? That is an interesting question. Donaldson intends to use HathiTrust documents to test this, and, to me, that is the only ‘flaw’ in his plan – if such is the word, that is. HathiTrust contains digitized book pages, and that type of document is a lot easier to trust and be regarded as “authentic” than, e.g., e-mail. Donaldson agreed, but, as he said: you’ve got to start somewhere. </p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/--eZUH5pA-ZI/TrFLp7F_UyI/AAAAAAAACzQ/ShNUQ3M7WOw/s1600-h/_DSC9937%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="_DSC9937" border="0" alt="_DSC9937" align="right" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-gDCgYlaMybk/TrFLq8G1W5I/AAAAAAAACzY/3tIvzQjRxYY/_DSC9937_thumb%25255B9%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="242" height="232" /></a> Next (in whichever order) came Olivier Rouchon of CINES, a large data centre in France (photo right, “Cannot I even have  lunch without being photographed?” J). CINES finds itself in a strange political situation: as an organization  CINES has a remit for only four years, but  it also has the express mandate to do long-term preservation and its clients ask for 30-year guarantees. This is a strange dichotomy and CINES has decided to seek certification as a trusted repository to a) lock the mission, and b) attract larger volumes of data to be preserved.</p> <p>CINES went through various (self-) audits to attain ever higher levels of certification. That took a lot of work. Rouchon estimates that 1 fte of his 11 fte’s is constantly busy with audits. But, says Rouchon, ‘that should not stop you from doing it.’ First of all, it is mostly a lot of work <em>the first time around</em>. Once you have a good system in place, the next audits become business as usual. Secondly, CINES is using the audit system as an internal quality assessment instrument to keep improving the quality of the service. By comparing the outcome of audits over time the organization can measure its progress.</p> <p>The EU is now building a <a href="http://trusteddigitalrepositories.eu">three-tiered certification system</a>: the first level is the relatively lightweight <em>Data Seal of Approval</em>, then comes a self-audit, and the highest level of certification is awarded by an external audit. The APARSEN project recently did a number of test audits, a.o. at CINES, and will publish the results shortly.</p> <p align="center"><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-Sbej-z81y3o/TrFLr6LYS6I/AAAAAAAACzg/rZwo38geFXM/s1600-h/_DSC9900%25255B6%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px auto 5px; display: block; float: none; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="_DSC9900" border="0" alt="_DSC9900" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-ZSNxu2Jgabo/TrFLs4N1yXI/AAAAAAAACzo/dWRh0ufWxb8/_DSC9900_thumb%25255B4%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="314" height="209" /></a><em> Steve Knight from the National Library of New Zealand enquired how we know that we can trust the auditors doing the auditing. Rouchon trusts his own (internal) auditors and part of the aim of the APARSEN test audits was to train auditors.</em></p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-Im9UrOgEFKo/TrFLuOMt-sI/AAAAAAAACzw/mlBgmvdMl7E/s1600-h/_DSC9964%25255B8%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="_DSC9964" border="0" alt="_DSC9964" align="right" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-qeARLUs0qhg/TrFLu2p3onI/AAAAAAAACz0/dWx0N3EoYdo/_DSC9964_thumb%25255B6%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="197" height="297" /></a> Having talked about trust, and about auditing trust, I now come to the last (first) presentation. Basically, it was about building all the capabilities you need to assure trust and prove trustworthiness into your system. It was also about not dealing with digital preservation as an issue (and a system!) that stands apart from the rest of your organization, but to build an information system for your organization that <em>integrates</em> digital preservation requirements, make them ‘ubiquitous’. Christoph Becker of TU Wien(photo right) told his audience that we have lots of models and concepts and frameworks (OAIS, TRAC, RAC, Drambora, Platter, etc. etc.), but ‘we still lack a holistic view.’ His team takes its cue from frameworks from the IT industry, such as ‘enterprise architecture’, and COBIT (goal-oriented, process-oriented, control-based) to build a Maturity Model based on CMM – you measure your maturity by a set of criteria to identify places for improvement … and then I lost the story. My mind tends to switch off when the discussion becomes abstract and high-level. It is a flaw, I know, but one I have to learn to live with. The basic idea, however, integrating digital preservation, is a good one, and so is using existing industry frameworks, so for those of you who are better at high-level discussions, do check out Becker’s paper in the proceedings which come online soon. The paper is called “A Capability Model for Digital Preservation: Analysing Concerns, Drivers, Constraints, Capabilities and Maturities”.</p> <p align="center"><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-2mn9B4XYPTo/TrFLwHuqUhI/AAAAAAAAC0A/wXf1DJdTzeY/s1600-h/_DSC9876%25255B8%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px auto 5px; display: block; float: none; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="_DSC9876" border="0" alt="_DSC9876" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-JFvlpySFf-c/TrFLxOjds6I/AAAAAAAAC0I/kDsXXQtx-2s/_DSC9876_thumb%25255B6%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="371" height="246" /></a> <em>Parallel session ‘Governance’</em></p> Inge Angevaarehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13015271073441769932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3354046180818375580.post-52790512126166900742011-11-02T10:58:00.001+01:002011-11-02T11:07:26.635+01:00iPRES2011: Justifying the cost (2)<p>The first day of iPRES2011 is coming to a close. As always after a conference day, the mind is full and most of the information is not yet digested. But here is a first impression. Seamus Ross of the University of Toronto opened the conference with a keynote entitled: ‘Why should today’s society pay for the benefit of society in the future?’</p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-fVTjIweY97I/TrEUK2WwSHI/AAAAAAAACyI/LK0bTlXquF8/s1600-h/_DSC9788%25255B7%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 5px auto 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="_DSC9788" border="0" alt="_DSC9788" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-dRZVlpZ1tVc/TrEUL3Vj-EI/AAAAAAAACyQ/ZfNKsStT1pc/_DSC9788_thumb%25255B5%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="375" height="249" /></a></p> <p>Ross agreed that justfying the costs of digital preservation is difficult. The cost-benefit ratio is unclear, we really have no tangible ground to stand on. We have but a ‘hazy notion of benefits that will accrue to future generations.’</p> <p><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="_DSC9795" border="0" alt="_DSC9795" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/--2_DIst2JIY/TrEUMjyHerI/AAAAAAAACyY/tMU-XPo5p-4/_DSC9795_thumb%25255B9%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="298" height="164" /></p> <p>Although, of course, cost modelling work must continue, if only to find the most efficient way to do digital preservation, Ross argued that the most compelling argument for digital preservation is a very human emotion: our innate need to remember, to tell stories, be they of a personal, a historical or a scientific nature. Ross gave some great examples of these types of storytelling, and of course it is true that our identity is very much dependent on traces from and knowledge about our past, be it a personal past or a regional or national past.</p> <p>In other words: future generations <em>expect us</em> to preserve our history. ‘They will value the information ecosystem just like the environmental one.’ And like environmental curation, digital curation benefits from little, medium and grand actions and initiatives.’</p> <p>While Ross’s talk was a powerful reminder for us in the preservation industry of why we do this work, and while his appeal to ‘find a place in the public imagination’ helps remind us to build the case not only on technicalities, I must admit that I personally do not think this is enough to convince funders and society at large. We still have a LOT of education to do, about why digital preservation is as expensive as it is now, why it is so complicated, and why a deadly serious suggestion by a Dutch government official only a year ago, to simply ‘print the content and preserve it that way’ is absolutely not an option … Even worse, the suggestion was made in Singapore as well, I was told.</p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-S32ESThLbt4/TrEUN7WN9wI/AAAAAAAACyg/4Ev3hOX8e9w/s1600-h/_DSC0067%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="_DSC0067" border="0" alt="_DSC0067" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-F1MwbEfPhG4/TrEUPGATfVI/AAAAAAAACyk/a4i3XZqWWfk/_DSC0067_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="242" height="161" /></a></p> <p align="center"><em>Demonstration: Re-awakening the Philips Videopac</em></p> <p>My dislike for parallel sessions was ignited again, forcing me to miss half of what followed. I did attend sessions on governance, risk assessment, trust & certification, and will write about those soon. First things first, dinner is served in the National Library’s plaza. Outdoors, mind you, is where Singapore eats. And eats well! As Mr Beh of the Singapore National Library Board explained to me: ‘Food is our national indulgence.’ The catering at this conference is beyond anything I have ever seen at any conference. Expect most of us to come home with extra pounds put on!</p> <p align="center"><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-h06I-Qo7krs/TrEUPzvhM5I/AAAAAAAACys/VRBQ06_jc3s/s1600-h/_DSC9827%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="_DSC9827" border="0" alt="_DSC9827" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-hqMxdXx79c4/TrEUQ_JSboI/AAAAAAAACy4/g0DjQ_UHI9w/_DSC9827_thumb%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="404" height="268" /></a> <em>And this was just for mid-morning tea break!</em></p> Inge Angevaarehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13015271073441769932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3354046180818375580.post-62735964113139671362011-11-01T14:27:00.001+01:002011-11-01T14:35:38.059+01:00iPRES2011 off to a tropical rain forest start (1)<p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-9nWK37cwqgw/Tq_zt10TuZI/AAAAAAAACxI/MWuSm3uU97w/s1600-h/_DSC9675%25255B8%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="_DSC9675" border="0" alt="_DSC9675" align="right" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/--2Q7wIH-hcE/Tq_zu6S5NmI/AAAAAAAACxQ/rDu0PY6Dgwk/_DSC9675_thumb%25255B6%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="260" height="392" /></a>This year’s international conference on preservation of digital objects, aka iPRES2011, kicked off today with two tutorials and a welcoming reception in a tropical rain forest on the fifth floor of the National Library of Singapore’s imposing building. Some 170 delegates are expected – some new faces, some familiar faces (in the photo at right those in the know may recognise Andreas Raupert (back), Angela Dappert, two Czech colleagues, Paul Wheatley, and behind him Cal Lee and Adrian Brown.</p> <p>Considering the size of Singapore (small), the building of the national library is huge (picture below). And I am not kidding about the rain (city) forest – the library organizes special garden walks through the tropical gardens scattered throughout the building.</p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-WHDyccOtyzM/Tq_zwLbhNZI/AAAAAAAACxY/O6Brr8wIZQY/s1600-h/_DSC9747%25255B8%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="_DSC9747" border="0" alt="_DSC9747" align="left" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-WH4KBimxhTc/Tq_zw8imifI/AAAAAAAACxc/iHm5kZXThw4/_DSC9747_thumb%25255B6%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="230" height="346" /></a> </p> <p>As for the rain: thunderstorms flood the city like clockwork every afternoon between 2 pm and 5 pm. But the city is prepared: almost every street has an arcade over the sidewalk, so it is only for street crossing that you need your umbrella. And when you enter a store, a plastic umbrella bag is on offer to keep the floors from getting wet.</p> <p>We are in the modern part of town, with American-style malls, Starbucks and McDonalds, but a mere 15 minute subway ride away there is little India, and in another direction Chinatown, and in another direction again there is the Arab quarter. The government buildings, street names, school uniforms and orderly queues are colonial British. The Chinese (Taoist) temple stands shoulder to shoulder with the Hindu temple, which leans against .. a concrete modern Ibis hotel.</p> <p>Forgive me the touristy chitchat; this was most amazing jetlag (have-to-stay-awake-at-all-costs-after-flying-in-at-5.40AM) day possible. From tomorrow on you’ll get all the serious stuff from me again.</p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-XJKh0uJ3eFo/Tq_zxxCHjcI/AAAAAAAACxo/kwQQcAk66WU/s1600-h/_DSC9400%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="_DSC9400" border="0" alt="_DSC9400" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-I-uhaO6uExI/Tq_zzMVDXzI/AAAAAAAACxw/p7PqpFNj1ik/_DSC9400_thumb%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="376" height="250" /></a> </p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-GZMrH64FOFI/Tq_z0Z00SuI/AAAAAAAACx4/RZpjery-ivg/s1600-h/_DSC9634%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="_DSC9634" border="0" alt="_DSC9634" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-P-GTsIxaRgg/Tq_z1bYfj0I/AAAAAAAACyA/ArMGqOh-3pY/_DSC9634_thumb%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="375" height="249" /></a></p> Inge Angevaarehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13015271073441769932noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3354046180818375580.post-47242105802260076542011-10-27T19:41:00.001+02:002011-11-06T11:10:04.401+01:00Emulation is becoming a viable option (#KEEP) (1)<p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-dRCMGqThFj0/TqmXr-UluWI/AAAAAAAACsA/CC0PJNBx3IA/s1600-h/aa_DSC8958%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; margin: 5px 0px 5px 5px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: right; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="aa_DSC8958" border="0" alt="aa_DSC8958" align="right" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-DnTBzeJO750/TqmXsTJG0uI/AAAAAAAACsE/sS52gxRXUT0/aa_DSC8958_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="321" height="223" /></a>Just about everybody in our community has heard of <i>emulation</i> as an alternative preservation strategy to <i>migration</i>. But emulation is mostly <em>talked about</em> -- and in terms that are not very encouraging: emulation is rumoured to be very difficult to do, to require lots of expert knowledge and to be really expensive. On 26-27 October the road show of the European <a href="http://www.keep-project.eu/ezpub2/index.php">KEEP project</a> came to the KB in The Hague and some 45 attendees were given the opportunity to learn more about emulation and test the tools developed by KEEP.</p> <p>The resulting workshop (led by Jeffrey van der Hoeven, KB, at right) was very much worthwhile <em>and </em>enjoyable, with almost the entire KEEP project team sharing its knowledge. For all those interested in the deep technical details, I refer you to the <a href="http://www.keep-project.eu/ezpub2/index.php">KEEP website</a> where all the slides will appear soon. For those of you who would like a broader overview, here are my experiences from the last few days (with a selection of slides from the presenters; thanks, KEEP team, for allowing me to use those).</p> <p><b><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-DmFKCQQID6I/TqpgjgLAXfI/AAAAAAAACsw/q5OMku0eCuA/s1600-h/aa_DSC9040%25255B7%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="aa_DSC9040" border="0" alt="aa_DSC9040" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-uNIxo3t_0u0/TqpgkbHb_DI/AAAAAAAACs0/pqqO0397wNk/aa_DSC9040_thumb%25255B4%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="583" height="303" /></a></b></p> <p align="center"><em>The audience included representatives from libraries, archives, a technical university, two The Hague-based criminal courts, a criminal information service, a film museum and a museum for media art.</em></p> <p><b><font size="4">What emulation is</font></b></p> <p>In my general introduction to the workshop (what is the problem, etc.), I gave a definition for dummies that was not contested by the experts in the room, so I dare repeat it here. Our problem is that digital objects really only work on the hardware/software combination on which they were made. But these platforms change quickly. <em>Migration</em> is a strategy whereby you change the digital object to make it run on a newer platform. In the long term this is risky, because migrations are never 100%. There are always little changes. Until one day the object no longer is what it is supposed to be. Plus: it only works for a limited number of relatively simple file formats (text, images).</p> <p>An alternative is <em>emulation</em>. You leave the digital object as it is, but you build software to make the new hardware/software combination pretend it is the old combination.</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-pNSYOoi1VbM/TqpglMM837I/AAAAAAAACsg/6HFdsCHLStE/s1600-h/keep1%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="keep1" border="0" alt="keep1" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-M1NLTZxhrmE/TqpgmFaibZI/AAAAAAAACsk/411xJ1r86jc/keep1_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="356" height="268" /></a></p> <p>One can imagine this requires a lot of technical expertise about the old platform and the new platform and this for every possible file format around, of which there are thousands, plus all the dependencies within more complex objects such as websites.</p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-kvzjzGzphgY/TqqPGuikY6I/AAAAAAAACs4/G83zikt7LrU/s1600-h/keep2%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="keep2" border="0" alt="keep2" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-rRpiSVB-kdI/TqqPHN7K7vI/AAAAAAAACs8/PNsvujAzJK0/keep2_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="349" height="262" /></a></p> <p>Hence, it does not seem very practical. But when it works, you get a more authentic look and feel than with migration. Two participants in the project come from the computer game industry (Computer Spielemuseum and the European Games Developer Federation, EGDF), where look and feel is everything. Quite a few single emulator programmes have been developed already and new ones are developed all the time. But these are just pieces of the puzzle.</p> <p><font size="4"><strong>Emulation according to KEEP in four basic steps</strong></font></p> <p>Bram Lohman of Tessella summed up emulation according to KEEP in four basic steps, and I will let his slides speak for themselves:</p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-VutLsfJRA4Q/TqqPH9Q6-NI/AAAAAAAACtI/ynujJb8dHpQ/s1600-h/keep6%25255B7%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="keep6" border="0" alt="keep6" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-lLANpceQ1jE/TqqPIssOGjI/AAAAAAAACtM/4kB2D5MBFXI/keep6_thumb%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="363" height="273" /></a></p> <p><font size="4"><strong><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-UP34p_w0oCg/TqqPJcT6aPI/AAAAAAAACtY/-ggopOHJpp4/s1600-h/keep7%25255B8%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="keep7" border="0" alt="keep7" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-JSJv2PHzWeI/TqqPKFZXqBI/AAAAAAAACtg/rtDiguSCZ6g/keep7_thumb%25255B4%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="366" height="275" /></a></strong></font></p> <p><font size="4"><strong><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-kcVPAD5UV6M/TrZc7-ckelI/AAAAAAAAC4I/RbtnYpcmi0Q/s1600-h/EF_slide3%25255B5%25255D.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="EF_slide3" border="0" alt="EF_slide3" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-ve0RLzhTjF0/TrZc83u1adI/AAAAAAAAC4Q/g7Q7x9zBDGw/EF_slide3_thumb%25255B3%25255D.png?imgmax=800" width="443" height="278" /></a></strong></font></p> <p><font size="4"><strong><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-I7A88OOBM1o/TrZc-EK2SkI/AAAAAAAAC4Y/Xdpn3fHw7to/s1600-h/EF_slide4%25255B5%25255D.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="EF_slide4" border="0" alt="EF_slide4" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-kvY7CftKqkk/TrZc-o53QTI/AAAAAAAAC4g/ejeCpNUvvkg/EF_slide4_thumb%25255B3%25255D.png?imgmax=800" width="433" height="272" /></a></strong></font></p> <p> </p> <p><strong><font size="4">The KEEP approach</font></strong></p> <p>The KEEP project wants to make emulation more practical by building a number of black boxes that take care of the most technical aspects of emulation; in this slide they are the <em>green</em> boxes.</p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-YUqws-brhGQ/TqqPOCZxf_I/AAAAAAAACuI/Orn6kCidbww/s1600-h/keep3%25255B10%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="keep3" border="0" alt="keep3" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-pGE2pSxLeJ4/TqqPO5tNR6I/AAAAAAAACuM/le2OcND95iI/keep3_thumb%25255B6%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="365" height="274" /></a> </p> <ul> <li>The Transfer Tools Framework is your assistant during the ingest phase. It helps you get content from different media (floppy disk, cd-rom, cassette, etc.) and store it into your digital archive. </li> <li>At the access stage, there is the Emulation Framework, that analyses the digital object, finds the proper emulator software and delivers everything you need to run the object in a new computer environment. </li> <li>The last building block is the KEEP Virtual Machine. This is the most daring goal of the project, and you can see in the slide that it is only pencilled in for now. Emulators themselves are pieces of software which become obsolete as hardware platforms change. The KEEP Virtual Machine is a piece of software that  is so basic and universal that it will ‘port’ into many hardware platforms and thus make emulator software much less prone to technology changes. This is the ‘portability’ part of the KEEP acronym. </li> </ul> <p>A special component of the Emulation Framework is TOTEM, which helps users find technical information about the digital object to be emulated in various available databases such as PRONOM (see earlier <a href="http://digitaalduurzaam.blogspot.com/2011/10/encyclopedia-of-file-format-information.html">post</a>):</p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-dxxqwLaogP0/TqqPPol55XI/AAAAAAAACuY/ewb2ALRQnxU/s1600-h/keep4%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="keep4" border="0" alt="keep4" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-LqIhAbMvBJc/TqqPQTirWNI/AAAAAAAACuc/ww6FoRtU1IA/keep4_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="354" height="266" /></a></p> <p><font size="4"><strong>What emerged from the workshop</strong></font></p> <p>The attendees at the workshop were impressed by the work of the KEEP project. Jacob Taekema of the Amsterdam Municipal Archives (previously Rotterdam) concluded at the end of the two-day event that he could now see emulation developing into a really viable option. Aminata Kpewa and her colleagues of the Special Court of Sierra Leone were really happy to discover a network of people and a tool framework that could finally help them sort out the mess of obsolete databases in their archives.</p> <p>The important accomplishment of the KEEP approach is that it takes care of a lot of the most technical, expert work (finding the best emulator, configuring the original environment), thus making emulation more accessible for less technically expert staff. The good news is also that the framework can be included into any existing preservation solution – Safety Deposit Box producer Tessella is one of the partners in the project. In addition, all of the work of KEEP is available in open source.</p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-4T1GdLqLTtg/TqqPRKshpbI/AAAAAAAACuo/P3jVmoBgMEk/s1600-h/aa_DSC9252%25255B6%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="aa_DSC9252" border="0" alt="aa_DSC9252" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-qDEKR5sDd_w/TqqPR7KP6JI/AAAAAAAACus/z1-k9iF3UkE/aa_DSC9252_thumb%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="470" height="257" /></a></p> <p align="center"><em>Representatives of the KEEP team discussing archival problems with representatives of the Special Court for Sierra Leone – and making plans for on-site help.</em></p> <p>But the KEEP team itself readily admits that much, much work still needs to be done:</p> <ul> <li><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-et35WP7n7x4/TqqPSb6eK_I/AAAAAAAACu4/cSzFCTU9JWs/s1600-h/keep5%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: right; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="keep5" border="0" alt="keep5" align="right" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-lY8qdu2ZU8s/TqqPTQHuJCI/AAAAAAAACvA/u968cqiu6oo/keep5_thumb%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="328" height="246" /></a>The framework now works for a limited number of platforms and file formats (slide at right), and, obviously, many more should be added to really make the framework practicable. As yet the framework cannot yet handle complex objects, although the emulation strategy is considered the most promising for those. It is a matter of finding the resources to put in lots of more R&D work. </li> <li>At the ingest point (the tool transfer framework), the approach still depends on the availability of all sorts of old hardware to read obsolescent media carriers (floppy disks, tapes, etc.). Such devices are being collected by private individuals and sometimes by computer museums, but it was suggested that perhaps we need a more structured approach to safeguarding these essential machines and the knowledge about how to use them (nationally, perhaps, such as within the Dutch Digital Preservation Coalition?) </li> <li>Whoever wants to work with an emulated object will have to know how that programme worked, what the commands were, etc. Thus we need to collect and keep as many manuals and specifications as possible. KEEP is building a knowledge base. </li> <li>The KEEP project itself will end in February 2012. But much work still needs to be done. The KEEP team are doing everything they can to transfer the project to an organization such as the <a href="http://www.openplanetsfoundation.org/">Open Planets Foundation</a> (OPF), which can continue to develop the approach. Let us hope that this transfer is successful and more resources will become available to develop emulation as a strategy, e.g. from the European Community. </li> </ul> <p><font size="4"><strong>Digital preservation stumbling block: copyright law</strong></font></p> <p align="left">A major stumbling block for KEEP project, for emulation, and, indeed, for all of digital preservation, is copyright legislation. David Anderson of the University of Portsmouth took upon himself the ungrateful task of finding out about possible legal constraints, and, unfortunately, he found (too) many. In fact, the deliverables of the KEEP project itself will be handed over to the European Commission in loose components because of copyright restrictions. Which is, when you come to think of it, pretty ridiculous. I will write a separate blog post about this important subject and David’s work soon.</p> <p><font size="4"><strong>More KEEP workshops planned</strong></font></p> <p>If this post has wetted your appetite for emulation, you are most welcome to attend one of the forthcoming KEEP national workshops: 10 November Zagreb, 29 November Rome, 24 January Cardiff. Details on the <a href="http://www.keep-project.eu/ezpub2/index.php?/eng/Events/KEEP-Workshops-2011-2012">website</a>.</p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-CDhIv7c0DYU/TqqPUdQOSFI/AAAAAAAACvI/uT8_KaXdapo/s1600-h/aa_DSC9026%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="aa_DSC9026" border="0" alt="aa_DSC9026" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-zHatnfl2qQU/TqqPVGQmXrI/AAAAAAAACvM/xpRc0p6zd3A/aa_DSC9026_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="305" height="237" /></a></p> <p align="center"><em>Alexander Fernandez on behalf of the European Games Developer Federation <a href="http://www.egdf.eu/">EGDF</a>: ‘Involve game developers in preserving their work and building the emulation knowledge base.’</em></p> <p align="left">(For those who question the need to preserve games: they are part of our cultural heritage and they play a growing role in education. Plus: there is a keen and creative community out there developing those games, and they may well help projects such as KEEP to develop means to preserve other complex objects.) </p> <p>PS: Not to complicate matters too much, and also because it was not mentioned during the workshop, I did not speak, in this blog post, of a third preservation strategy emerging from the CASPAR project, the ‘representation information network’; everything about that in an earlier <a href="http://digitaalduurzaam.blogspot.com/2011/09/really-foolproof-solution-for-digital.html">post</a><strong>.</strong></p> Inge Angevaarehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13015271073441769932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3354046180818375580.post-24518815312574385032011-10-24T16:44:00.000+02:002011-10-24T16:50:09.379+02:00Are we battling risks or adding value? (#DPS2011) (4)<p>Despite all our efforts, the digital preservation community is still having a hard time “selling” its activities to funders and to society at large. As Bohdana Stoklasova of the Czech National Library said at the <a href="http://www.digitalpreservationsummit.de/">Goportis Digital Preservation Summit</a>: our work is unglamorous and undervalued.</p> <p align="center"><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-84TiZVvHQpg/TqFJNAnGigI/AAAAAAAACos/hIG_H6wqrCA/s1600-h/_DSC8397%25255B16%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" title="_DSC8397" border="0" alt="_DSC8397" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-EMX6lA9NwtQ/TqFJNlvWtaI/AAAAAAAACo0/fbrf5aI1EwM/_DSC8397_thumb%25255B24%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="175" height="221" /></a> <em>Bohdana Stoklasova making sure that the funders of the Czech National Library’s digital projects get their credit’s worth – as specifically required by funding deals.</em></p> <p>Recently, the argument has been raised that we should stop describing our work in terms of ‘risk’ and ‘loss’ and ‘threats’, but rather speak in terms of ‘adding value’. During the panel discussion and coffee breaks at the Goportis Digital Preservation Summit, however, the consensus was that bad news sells better than good news. By suggesting that we organize a little data disaster I may have gone a little too far, but to my mind risk management is still the best approach to thinking about digital preservation.</p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-Y8uIVNR7yaE/TqFJOSlrEZI/AAAAAAAACo8/L6pGvbNnhXg/s1600-h/_DSC8295%25255B6%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px" title="_DSC8295" border="0" alt="_DSC8295" align="right" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-opRDczVsekA/TqFJO92almI/AAAAAAAACpE/3AHWsurUXXk/_DSC8295_thumb%25255B11%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="139" height="130" /></a> At the conference, Angela Dappert (previously British Library, now at the UK Digital Preservation Coalition) made the case for the risk management approach. In her view, risk management is central to all digital preservation activities. ‘Risk’, Angela began, ‘is uncertainty of outcome.’ It is something that might happen, and if it happens, it will become an <em>issue’</em> (a problem). Risk management is about preventing <em>risks</em> from becoming <em>issues.</em> In that sense preservation is <em>proactive</em> whereas conservation is usually <em>reactive</em> (something has happened).</p> <p>Below are some slides from Angela’s presentation (thanks for these, Angela); if you are interested in the subject be sure to check out the full presentation at <a title="http://www.digitalpreservationsummit.de/presentations.html" href="http://www.digitalpreservationsummit.de/presentations.html">http://www.digitalpreservationsummit.de/presentations.html</a>.</p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-LFcUWjE3Ji0/TqV5cKAsPZI/AAAAAAAACqQ/wGBZK3RpJ7Y/s1600-h/20111019DappertGoportis_final%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="20111019DappertGoportis_final" border="0" alt="20111019DappertGoportis_final" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/--JCnInUCX3M/TqV5crz57oI/AAAAAAAACqY/bsgXs9wPzWc/20111019DappertGoportis_final_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="335" height="252" /></a></p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-2_T7V9bfWJM/TqV5dhthLVI/AAAAAAAACqg/mXTbgGygZ28/s1600-h/20111019DappertGoportis_final2%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="20111019DappertGoportis_final2" border="0" alt="20111019DappertGoportis_final2" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-E7b-4uk8Nzg/TqV5eEYCc_I/AAAAAAAACqo/4ve4IbmB8Bg/20111019DappertGoportis_final2_thumb%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="337" height="253" /></a></p> <p>It is important to note that not all risks need to be addressed immediately. It is a matter of balancing the risks against the available means to combat them. In some cases one may wish to accept a risk (e.g., when the collection is not essential for the organization, or when it concerns masters of digitized collections for which the analogue original is still available):</p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-PV81DV_1QiU/TqV5feWj4HI/AAAAAAAACqw/eSLkcvRcDTg/s1600-h/20111019DappertGoportis_final8%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="20111019DappertGoportis_final8" border="0" alt="20111019DappertGoportis_final8" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-CZGjPx35fXc/TqV5gf_cAxI/AAAAAAAACq0/cfH6NIqYg5U/20111019DappertGoportis_final8_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="331" height="249" /></a></p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-5ZA0gmqN_dg/TqV5hLE8WtI/AAAAAAAACrA/46LCK7io8aU/s1600-h/20111019DappertGoportis_final5%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="20111019DappertGoportis_final5" border="0" alt="20111019DappertGoportis_final5" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-ricBjZVLuuw/TqV5hsIAwwI/AAAAAAAACrI/cZLmWOVoOhE/20111019DappertGoportis_final5_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="335" height="252" /></a></p> <p>Angela gave an overview of available tools for risk management, including the most well-known framework, Drambora, and a new kid on the block in which Angela is involved, the Timbus project.</p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-n9cJdkwrFuQ/TqV5i3yrY1I/AAAAAAAACrQ/Ue3ZTmM3VRE/s1600-h/20111019DappertGoportis_final6%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="20111019DappertGoportis_final6" border="0" alt="20111019DappertGoportis_final6" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-q-Paz65i3NA/TqV5jqctRkI/AAAAAAAACrY/ENM4B85UBrM/20111019DappertGoportis_final6_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="323" height="243" /></a></p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-SRq-X5xATxk/TqV5km7DycI/AAAAAAAACrg/HwB3ec72CHI/s1600-h/20111019DappertGoportis_final9%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="20111019DappertGoportis_final9" border="0" alt="20111019DappertGoportis_final9" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-jYUH92oRiDA/TqV5lIjT9EI/AAAAAAAACro/-2aqUGw9yA8/20111019DappertGoportis_final9_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="315" height="237" /></a></p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-Itk75zNnytQ/TqV5mMlXMjI/AAAAAAAACrw/G6im4hrvKVw/s1600-h/_DSC880b1%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="_DSC880b1" border="0" alt="_DSC880b1" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-ubxHdkmhTIo/TqV5nGNIAKI/AAAAAAAACr4/A2m-pIARAN0/_DSC880b1_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="228" height="343" /></a></p> <p align="center"><em>Just try and manage the risk of losing cultural heritage in a city like Hamburg …</em></p> Inge Angevaarehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13015271073441769932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3354046180818375580.post-35530920062273115902011-10-22T11:05:00.001+02:002011-10-28T14:58:27.030+02:00An encyclopedia of file format information? (#DPS2011) (3)<p>Ingest being as complicated as it is (see <a href="http://digitaalduurzaam.blogspot.com/2011/10/ingest-receiving-is-complex-word.html">previous post</a>), let alone what comes after …, would it not be a terrific help if there was an encyclopedia where the best knowledge of the community was continually being assembled, structured and made accessible for all of us to work with? An encyclopedia telling us, e.g., what .pdf is, what hardware/software combination we need to render it, how the computer can recognize it, what versions and variations are known, what complications are known and how to deal with those, and, last but not least, what our colleagues’ experiences are with migrating or emulating this file format? Answers to the question: what is the best preservation strategy for this file format?</p> <p>Would not that be heaven on digital preservation earth?</p> <p align="center"><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-2llcNUv6pXg/TqKHMADEGgI/AAAAAAAACpM/mzRRGlt4bhQ/s1600-h/_DSC8458%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; margin: 0px auto 5px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px" title="_DSC8458" border="0" alt="_DSC8458" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-to1Q1qEaG9s/TqKHM4sJtXI/AAAAAAAACpY/vxgAd9EnXmE/_DSC8458_thumb%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="392" height="260" /></a> <em>Format registry ‘ecosystem’ workshop at Goportis DPS2011.</em></p> <p>Well, in fact, the community has been working on such an encyclopedia (more commonly known as a ‘file format registry’) for quite a while now. <a href="http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/PRONOM/Default.aspx">PRONOM</a> of the UK National Archives was considered a great start, but the upkeep of the system was just too much work for one institution. Then came initiatives such as the Global Digital Format Registry (<a href="http://www.gdfr.info">GDFR</a>) and the Unified Digital Format Registry (<a href="http://www.udfr.org/">UDFR</a>) – which is, as yet, in the planning stage.</p> <p>The Goportis Digital Preservation Summit organized a workshop on this issue, led by Bill Roberts of the Dutch National Archives. In his introduction he listed the issues involved in setting up and maintaining such a registry: if the work is too much for one or a couple of organizations and we go for a decentralized approach (Wikipedia-style): Whom Do We Trust? How do we know that the information in the registry is reliable?</p> <p align="center"><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-xc72Nm6hEbE/TqKHNYgO01I/AAAAAAAACpg/yJbRsBCCxD0/s1600-h/_DSC8447%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; margin: 0px auto 5px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px" title="_DSC8447" border="0" alt="_DSC8447" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-kusijjHl0S0/TqKHN5DPJcI/AAAAAAAACpo/VKltGf36VgY/_DSC8447_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="242" height="161" /></a> <em>Workshop leader Bill Roberts: ‘The most common preservation strategy I know of is “stick it in the archive for now”.’</em></p> <p align="left">The workshop discussions clearly demonstrated that there is a lot that is difficult to agree upon across the (broad) community. The question: ‘Do we even have an standard for a file format?’ prompted laughter from the workshop attendees.</p> <p align="left">But some undaunted souls can always be found to give a good idea a new chance. Bill Roberts reported on such an idea, arisen within the Open Planets Foundation. The idea is to set up a ‘Registry Ecosystem’. The objectives are:</p> <p align="left"><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-8gJS9VxaKOY/TqKHOau5kZI/AAAAAAAACpw/xKL5pqAOSPo/s1600-h/_DSC8468%25255B7%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" title="_DSC8468" border="0" alt="_DSC8468" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-u7A9uwVuq6w/TqKHOz1GFYI/AAAAAAAACp4/0HunUYh2JBQ/_DSC8468_thumb%25255B9%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="309" height="152" /></a> </p> <p align="left">And the approach is:</p> <p align="left"><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-frhceOJFlrI/TqKHPRRuKmI/AAAAAAAACqA/ZmjlYJUBIzI/s1600-h/_DSC8469%25255B7%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" title="_DSC8469" border="0" alt="_DSC8469" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-N7Aj21G2gIY/TqKHP_FE52I/AAAAAAAACqI/MswAtJIz2Eo/_DSC8469_thumb%25255B8%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="315" height="185" /></a> </p> <p align="left">The workshop attendees supported the idea and agreed on a number of issues:</p> <ul> <li> <div align="left">if possible find and mobilize the talent of ‘lonely geeks’</div> </li> <li> <div align="left">include as much prior knowledge as possible (although vendors such as Microsoft will be extremely frustrating partners to work with)</div> </li> <li> <div align="left">there should be common core data models</div> </li> <li> <div align="left">a test corpus is very much needed</div> </li> <li> <div align="left">the scope of the ecosystem should be broad and include such things as preservation policy procedures and software tools.</div> </li> </ul> <p align="left">On the spot a highly qualified working group was set up to work on the registry ecosystem (including Bill Roberts, Leo Konstantelos of Glasgow, David Anderson and Janet Delve from Portsmouth, Adrian Brown of the Parliamentary Archives and Michelle Lindlar of Goportis; some other names were mentioned, but have yet to be approached). The working group is to meet virtually and deliver results within three months.</p> <p align="left">And, to quote Bill’s last slide: ‘The most important thing: Lots of people out there have pieces of the puzzle; we must encourage and enable them to share.’</p> <p align="left">PS: Leo Konstantelos suggested dropping the term ‘file format registry’, because the scope of what is described here is much larger. He suggested ‘technical registry’.</p> <p align="left">See also <a href="http://www.openplanetsfoundation.org/blogs/2011-10-26-digital-preservation-summit-workshop-format-registries">Bill Roberts´own blog post</a> at the Open Planets Foundation website.</p> <p align="left"></p> <p align="left"></p> Inge Angevaarehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13015271073441769932noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3354046180818375580.post-21845878874519565282011-10-21T11:15:00.001+02:002011-10-29T17:54:52.701+02:00On ingest, or: “receiving” is a complex word (#DPS2011) (2)<p>The second day of the <a href="http://www.digitalpreservationsummit.de/">Goportis Digital Preservation Summit</a> was all about <em>ingest</em>, or 'receiving' content in your repository or archive. In his keynote, Seamus Ross, formerly of the digital preservation taskforce at Glasgow and now at the University of Toronto, was quick to dispell any illusions that 'receiving' is an easy thing to do.</p> <img style="border-right-width: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" title="_DSC8488" border="0" alt="_DSC8488" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-wlHUWqVd-V4/TqE4FB2OzhI/AAAAAAAACl0/eWC0vca4Gq0/_DSC8488%25255B9%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="161" height="242" /> <p align="center"><em>Interoperability troubles – from Open Office to Powerpoint – causing stress before Ross’s presentation (Nina Stoffers, left, Ross right).</em></p> <p align="left">Ross’s presentation was a complete Ingest 101 course, and so, I will let his slides tell most of the story. </p> <p align="left">Ingest is about “receiving” content from producers:</p> <p align="left"><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-5bUa0eN0aCk/TqwhnHn1CaI/AAAAAAAACvY/b8I9OBl5SK0/s1600-h/image%25255B19%25255D.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="image" border="0" alt="image" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-L5J0orWb56w/TqwhnrlEyBI/AAAAAAAACvc/bQuBqJaJFzI/image_thumb%25255B11%25255D.png?imgmax=800" width="308" height="191" /></a></p> <p align="left">Ideally, we would want to create a work flow that is consistent, error-free, well-documented, in accordance with our organization’s policies:</p> <p align="left"><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-iiiDF8pSIew/Tqwhosriq9I/AAAAAAAACvo/2DQ7BDWVV4M/s1600-h/image%25255B18%25255D.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="image" border="0" alt="image" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-KPmkXHau5Bs/TqwhpDt7zXI/AAAAAAAACvw/oizATGSx8yI/image_thumb%25255B10%25255D.png?imgmax=800" width="322" height="206" /></a></p> <p align="left">Preferably, you know who the producers of your content are and you start negotiating with them so that they deliver the best possible quality. However, keep in mind that whatever makes <em>our</em> lives easier, is most likely to make the producer’s lives more difficult. That is where the bargaining begins. Ideally, you get this:</p> <p align="left"><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-6kgOL6f-Wak/TqwhqcmbhMI/AAAAAAAACv4/gFDWV6x5QJY/s1600-h/image%25255B17%25255D.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="image" border="0" alt="image" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-WequYBenwTE/TqwhrDj37TI/AAAAAAAACv8/4mXfThUVmc4/image_thumb%25255B9%25255D.png?imgmax=800" width="325" height="213" /></a></p> <p align="left">But in practice, this is most likely what you get most of the time:</p> <p align="left"><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-KraKJWEreIg/Tqwhr7I6dkI/AAAAAAAACwI/qbbixCd6qI8/s1600-h/image%25255B16%25255D.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="image" border="0" alt="image" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-GnzVa-F3IfQ/TqwhskcoRZI/AAAAAAAACwM/teTSSpcfKdQ/image_thumb%25255B8%25255D.png?imgmax=800" width="337" height="221" /></a></p> <p align="left">Seamus Ross: ‘Most of the work we do during ingest is about fixing all these errors, is about compensating for the communication failures between producers and archives.’ So, what do we do?</p> <p align="left"><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-DiiCyE1ZXnA/TqwhtSBjiDI/AAAAAAAACwY/GJtVFobjcl4/s1600-h/image%25255B24%25255D.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="image" border="0" alt="image" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-Wcocsd4vyDM/TqwhueKfN1I/AAAAAAAACwg/y_jP3KNzB5I/image_thumb%25255B14%25255D.png?imgmax=800" width="350" height="247" /></a></p> <p align="left">How do we do all this? Ross: “You are a craftsman. You must accept that your tools are blunt.” Present tools for identification and validation are far from perfect. They still require a lot of manual work and the people who work with them must be very knowledgeable. Also, “You may be sure that producers will deliver error-laden stuff, no matter how well you train them.”</p> <p align="left">Ross stressed that policies are an essential part of the equation:</p> <p align="left"><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-0rhwYZ6WsEI/Tqwhv4XZUzI/AAAAAAAACwo/hMLohPbL0d0/s1600-h/image%25255B29%25255D.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="image" border="0" alt="image" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-mc4rT2hnH3M/TqwhwzJy9TI/AAAAAAAACww/hW8jjyv9ioI/image_thumb%25255B17%25255D.png?imgmax=800" width="351" height="283" /></a></p> <p align="left">But even policies cannot guarantee smooth sailing:</p> <p align="left"><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-5Z_h3OkCgok/TqwhyIR3DYI/AAAAAAAACw4/o_KxA_p0uqY/s1600-h/image%25255B34%25255D.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="image" border="0" alt="image" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-p0-ejJrTetA/Tqwhy2IDcsI/AAAAAAAACw8/5A1Of4WyTCw/image_thumb%25255B20%25255D.png?imgmax=800" width="346" height="254" /></a></p> <p align="left">Having said that, Ross did have a list of useful reference material for the audience, including an instructive case study at <a href="http://artefactual.com/wiki/index.php">http://artefactual.com/wiki/index.php</a>. Check out his slides when the complete set comes available via the <a href="http://www.digitalpreservationsummit.de/">event website</a>. He also mentioned the useful NDIIPP tools and services directory at <a title="http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/partners/resources/tools/index.html" href="http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/partners/resources/tools/index.html">http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/partners/resources/tools/index.html</a> and the <a href="http://cairo.paradigm.ac.uk/projectdocs/">Cairo Tools Survey</a>. But remember Ross’s warning that working with these tools requires quite a bit of prior knowledge.</p> <p align="center"><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-_-WArvKauSI/TqE4M9mqW1I/AAAAAAAACns/W6E78l2e0KQ/s1600-h/_DSC8500%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" title="_DSC8500" border="0" alt="_DSC8500" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-HkuzgQwBPh0/TqE4NhQt1rI/AAAAAAAACn0/R1JtNUGsh1I/_DSC8500_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="242" height="161" /></a><em>Seamus Ross: “But do not worry too much – digital archaeology will play a role in the future.”  </em></p> <p align="left">During the Q&A Adam Farquhar of the British Library offered his more optimistic view of the state of digital preservation (<a href="http://digitaalduurzaam.blogspot.com/2011/10/digital-preservation-summit-1-how-far.html">see yesterday’s post</a>). Ross’s reply: ‘But that concerns only a narrow range of object types.’ Databases, for instance, are still a very real problem to deal with.</p> <p align="center"><em></em><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-0MTWDZ7BEeY/TqE4OBnwDUI/AAAAAAAACn8/DqUBJhycAJ8/s1600-h/_DSC8394%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" title="_DSC8394" border="0" alt="_DSC8394" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-N5j-2M3kXAY/TqE4OSBzI_I/AAAAAAAACoE/vs6ChBHrof8/_DSC8394_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="242" height="161" /></a><em>Goportis co-organizer Yvonne Friese checking #DPS2011 tweets.</em></p> <p align="left">More good stuff from this densely packed conference in the next few days. About whether OAIS is still helpful, about tools, about file format registries. And about thinking before you act, the New Zealand version.</p> <p align="left"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" title="_DSC8482" border="0" alt="_DSC8482" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-hW2xXZtzSco/TqE4PR_MhKI/AAAAAAAACoU/pyaDdw2pbbg/_DSC8482_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="242" height="161" /></p> <p align="left"><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-ycp6NTfQaec/TqE7kTd4UnI/AAAAAAAACoc/ZWorfPh2HlE/s1600-h/_DSC8378%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" title="_DSC8378" border="0" alt="_DSC8378" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-ModWy3ULsWY/TqE7k4SsmhI/AAAAAAAACok/jRWazVS7HSQ/_DSC8378_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="242" height="161" /></a></p> Inge Angevaarehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13015271073441769932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3354046180818375580.post-68690833149955977472011-10-19T19:19:00.003+02:002011-10-24T16:58:30.068+02:00Digital Preservation Summit (1): how far have we come?<div> <br /></div> <div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; border-right: medium none"><a style="margin-bottom: 1em; float: left; clear: left; margin-right: 1em; cssfloat: left" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-X148tOpBum4/Tp76b_R_w4I/AAAAAAAACk8/8o3mkaDrl60/s1600/_DSC8328.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-X148tOpBum4/Tp76b_R_w4I/AAAAAAAACk8/8o3mkaDrl60/s200/_DSC8328.JPG" width="200" height="132" rda="true" /></a>We have gathered in cold, rainy, windy Hamburg today and tomorrow for the <a href="http://www.digitalpreservationsummit.de/">Goportis Digital Preservation Summit</a> (#DPS2011). So the sunny note on which Adam Farquhar of the British Library started off the conference was quite welcome - except that some of us (including the undersigned) saw a few more clouds in the sky than Adam. A matter of the cup being half full or half empty? </div> <br /> <table style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; clear: left; margin-right: auto; cssfloat: left" class="tr-caption-container" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tbody> <tr> <td style="text-align: center"> <div align="center"><a style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; clear: right; margin-right: auto; cssfloat: right" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mlkL3svG7FU/Tp7508VE80I/AAAAAAAACk0/PnwPbWFXf-k/s1600/_DSC8295.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mlkL3svG7FU/Tp7508VE80I/AAAAAAAACk0/PnwPbWFXf-k/s320/_DSC8295.JPG" width="320" height="212" rda="true" /></a></div> </td> </tr> <tr> <td style="text-align: center" class="tr-caption">Adam Farquhar (left) with Angela Dappert (DPC)</td> </tr> </tbody></table> Farquhar said our progress to date is 'pretty encouraging'. 'Digital preservation has become business as usual,' he said, 'for large memory institutions.' Now that I reread my notes, the addition about large memory institutions is probably crucial to Adam's argument, but what stuck in my mind, and also in the mind of Steve Knight from the National Library of New Zealand (both of us presented during the day), is that in our opinion, digital preservation is still quite a long way off from being business as usual for most of the stakeholders - including data producers, funders, and all but the very largest memory institutions. <br /> <div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; border-right: medium none"> </div> <div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; border-right: medium none">Adam also said that we are doing digital preservation 'at a substantial scale', citing recent BL projects involving the migration of millions of objects - whereas in my community (the Netherlands Coalition for Digital Preservation) I hear much grumbling about the (lack of) scalability of the tools we have at our disposal at present. </div> <div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; border-right: medium none"> </div> <div style="text-align: center; clear: both" class="separator"><a style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-i7DK8JYXND0/Tp7_sMRIh4I/AAAAAAAAClE/wy6jriqsg9U/s1600/_DSC8332.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-i7DK8JYXND0/Tp7_sMRIh4I/AAAAAAAAClE/wy6jriqsg9U/s320/_DSC8332.JPG" width="320" height="212" rda="true" /></a></div> <br />Fortunately (I mean in terms of agreeing on issues), Adam also saw a number of challenges: <br /> <ul> <li>changes in digital materials (flash, social media with short urls)</li> <li>content in context - when a publication is commented upon over the years, it changes</li> <li>dynamic content - complex objects such as 3D interactive views of crystals; html5 (which incorporates javascript elements)</li> <li>a lack of skills in memory institutions - which is getting worse because of the budget cuts.</li> </ul> And I agree with all those (and surmise that Steve Knight will too). <br /> <br />At the end of his keynote, Adam Farquhar said two things: <br /> <ul> <li>Do not wait until we know everything to get it right, but do whatever you can now</li> <li>Within our community, we need to become more honest about what works and what does not. That is the only  path to true learning.</li> </ul> To which I can only say: hear! hear! <br /> <br />There is much more good stuff to report from this conference (including instructive disagreements between presenters), but this time live or even semi-live blogging is difficult because I am presenting and moderating myself - plus: this conference is very well organised and the audience does not get any (boring) time off for blogging. Also, it is a 9 to 6 programme, and your blogger needs time to eat and sleep. So, dear readers, I must ask for a little patience. But I assure you: ALL shall be revealed  ... and in a matter of days even, because then we have the KEEP workshop coming up, and iPRES ... <br /> <br /> <div style="text-align: center; clear: both" class="separator"></div> <table style="text-align: center; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto" class="tr-caption-container" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center"><tbody> <tr> <td style="text-align: center"><a style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-f1cz57V3MQA/Tp8E5ZksKLI/AAAAAAAAClU/Cg1u0CXI1xA/s1600/_DSC8338.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-f1cz57V3MQA/Tp8E5ZksKLI/AAAAAAAAClU/Cg1u0CXI1xA/s320/_DSC8338.JPG" width="320" height="212" rda="true" /></a></td> </tr> <tr> <td style="text-align: center" class="tr-caption">On a more practical note: powerpoint and laptops are wonderful inventions, but can somebody PLEASE come up with a solution whereby <em>every</em> presenter is visible to the audience? <br />(Thanks to Natalie Walters for allowing me to use this image)</td> </tr> </tbody></table> Inge Angevaarehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13015271073441769932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3354046180818375580.post-7436078449282730922011-10-15T13:19:00.000+02:002011-10-15T13:19:01.751+02:00Is emulation something for you (2)If you tried to register for the <a href="http://keep-denhaag.eventbrite.com/">The Hague Keep workshop</a> (26-27 October, see last post) but were told the workshop was sold out, you may want to try again. Twenty more seats have been made available.Inge Angevaarehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13015271073441769932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3354046180818375580.post-61062168875120664612011-10-08T16:18:00.001+02:002011-10-09T15:03:11.848+02:00Is emulation something for you?<p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-3BpdZiGxTzc/TpBguov3WaI/AAAAAAAACkk/s3jUGiWkyv8/s1600-h/KEEP-Keeping-Emulation-Environments-Portable%25255B4%25255D.gif"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 2px 7px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: right; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="KEEP-Keeping-Emulation-Environments-Portable" border="0" alt="KEEP-Keeping-Emulation-Environments-Portable" align="right" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-RgyaL8DJfA4/TpBgu6vKAdI/AAAAAAAACko/w9HFvU5kFQY/KEEP-Keeping-Emulation-Environments-Portable_thumb%25255B2%25255D.gif?imgmax=800" width="198" height="56" /></a>In their efforts to come up with catchy acronyms, project managers sometimes think of  wonderfully sounding names that, however, tell you too little about what is really going on. The European <a href="http://www.keep-project.eu/ezpub2/index.php">KEEP</a> project is a case in point to me: KEEP stands for ‘Keeping Emulation Environments Portable’. Perhaps it is just my slow brain and/or the often fuzzy official project language, but for some reason I kept getting visions of shopping bags and briefcases …</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-2MSTWufLsOc/TpBgvvpU4QI/AAAAAAAACks/1_BIVsoga0I/s1600-h/jeffrey2%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; margin: 0px 15px 0px 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: left; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="jeffrey2" border="0" alt="jeffrey2" align="left" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-1eZDI1Vx2oU/TpBgwHUPE-I/AAAAAAAACkw/wqC5GOdvVXA/jeffrey2_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="170" height="242" /></a>On the occasion of the KEEP road show, which is coming to <a href="http://keep-denhaag.eventbrite.com">The Hague on 26-27 October</a> (and to Zagreb, 9-11 November, Rome: 29-30 November), I asked KB colleague and KEEP participant Jeffrey van der Hoeven (at left, emulating KEEP user satisfaction) to explain it to me. Here is my version of what he told me: </p> <p>The most well-known method to deal with software and hardware obsolescence is <em>migration</em>: you change the bits and the bytes of a digital object to make them work on a new platform. However, migration turns out to be not at all as risk-free as we would hope. Plus: it does not work for complex objects such as video games, websites, etc.. An alternative is <em>emulation</em>: you do not change the bits, but write software to make a new computer function as if it were an (old) computer. This means writing emulators for every possible combination (which is a lot of expensive R&D work), but if it works, there are fewer risks involved than with migration.</p> <p>However, working with emulators is not for dummies. It is technically challenging work for specialists. The KEEP project developed an ‘emulation framework’ that takes care of that. It automatically selects the right emulator and configures the software required to render the object. That sounds quite handy.</p> <p>Now, what about the ‘portability’? Emulators themselves are pieces of software that become obsolete over time. Therefore, KEEP is developing a KEEP ‘virtual machine’ – that will allow for execution of <em>any</em> software on <em>any</em> platform at <em>any</em> time. </p> <p>Does this sound too good to be true? Come to <a href="http://www.keep-project.eu/ezpub2/index.php?/eng/Events/KEEP-Workshops-2011-2012">The Hague (or Zagreb or Rome</a>) and find out for yourself. Be sure to bring some old obsolete floppies with you to test the systems hands-on.</p> Inge Angevaarehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13015271073441769932noreply@blogger.com0