Table of Contents
Editors' Note - Expanded Digital Preservation Focus for
RLG DigiNews
RLG News - Retaining Digital
Resources for Tomorrow's Researchers
Editors' Note
Expanded Digital Preservation Focus for RLG DigiNews
Marie Leveaux, the famous Voodoo Queen, is buried in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 in New Orleans. Her crypt is always strewn with flowers, coins, and mementos from followers and admirers. On a tour of the cemetery, a guide points out other inhabitants of note - and those less fortunate souls forgotten by family and friends. Their above-ground graves have begun to tilt and sink because the water table is so high in this part of the Mississippi Delta. Left alone, the ground eventually claims these graves. The guide points to a particularly sorry one and says, "no payola." His comment implies that you have to continue to afford to be dead here, and that requires perpetual care.
Maintaining digital resources over time is somewhat analogous to being buried in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, only the timeframe is much shorter. Both require active intervention to thwart the forces of nature. In the digital world, the forces of nature represent technological change, a lack of institutional will and way, legal impediments, and financial constraints. Preservation in this domain must begin with the assumption that all digital resources will sink into the ground unless they are continuously re-selected for care, and the appropriate methods are used to maintain their presence until the next threat comes along.
In this issue, and every following one, RLG DigiNews will
focus on some aspect of digital preservation. This issue highlights
one of RLG's new initiatives: preserving digital information. In the
future, we'll explore the preservation of digital material - images,
text, numeric files, sound, and moving images - from many views,
examining alternative methods, technical constraints, and cooperative
models. We'll present bright, untested ideas; lessons learned (and
unlearned!); promising applied research; and maybe even some voodoo.
We will examine the technical, social, legal and financial dimensions
in articles, FAQs, highlighted Web sites, announcements, and the RLG
News section. To make it easier for you to find relevant items, we'll
highlight the coverage with our new logo that incorporates the infinity
symbol typically associated with preservation, e.g., denoting the use
of permanent/durable paper. But we'll also be trying out some new
ideas, so stay tuned. As always, if you have suggestions, comments,
or questions, we'd love to hear from you. Just write us at
preserve@cornell.edu.
Feature Articles
The Persistence of Vision: Images and Imaging at the William Blake Archive
Editors and Staff, The William Blake Archive
blake@jefferson.village.virginia.edu
Introduction
A free site on the World Wide Web since 1996, the
William Blake
Archive was conceived as an international public resource
that would provide unified access to major works of visual and
literary art that are highly disparate, widely dispersed, and
increasingly difficult to gain access to as a result of their value,
rarity, and extreme fragility. Currently eight American and British
institutions and one major private collector have given the
Archive permission to include thousands of Blake's images and
texts without fees. Negotiations with additional institutions are
underway. As of this writing, the Archive contains fully
searchable and scalable electronic editions of 39 copies of 18 of
Blake's 19 illuminated books in the context of full bibliographic
information about each work, painstaking diplomatic transcriptions of
all texts, detailed descriptions of all images, and extensive
bibliographies. When the longest illuminated book, Jerusalem
(100 plates), appears, the Archive will contain at least one
copy of every illuminated book printed by Blake and multiple copies
of most. It will also feature a searchable new electronic version of
David V. Erdman's Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake,
the standard printed edition for reference, and detailed hand-lists
documenting the complete Blake holdings of the collections from which
the contents are drawn. At this point we will then turn our attention
to Blake's prodigious work outside the illuminated canon, notably
watercolor and tempera paintings, drawings, individual engravings,
and commercial book illustrations, as well as manuscripts, letters,
and typographic materials. We anticipate that the full Archive
will contain approximately 3,000 images.
The Blake Archive is the result of an ongoing five-year collaboration between its editors (Morris Eaves, Robert N. Essick, and Joseph Viscomi - based at the University of Rochester, the University of California, Riverside, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, respectively) and the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities (IATH) at the University of Virginia. Matthew Kirschenbaum (formerly Project Manager at Virginia, now at the University of Kentucky) serves as Technical Editor. The project has also involved a number of talented graduate students at the editors' institutions (notably Jessica Kem, Kari Kraus, and Andrea Laue). With the efforts of this dispersed group coordinated by daily exchanges on the Archive's internal discussion list, we have been able to achieve exceptionally high standards of digital reproduction and electronic editing that are, we believe, models of their kind. We offer images that are more accurate in color, detail, and scale than the finest commercially published photomechanical reproductions and transcribed texts that are more faithful to Blake's own than any collected edition has provided. We have applied equally high standards in supplying a wealth of structured contextual information, which includes full and accurate bibliographical details and meticulous descriptions of each image. Finally, users of the Archive attain a new degree of access to Blake's work through the combination of text-searching and advanced image-searching tools, including two custom-designed Java applets. The latter allow us to provide a visual concordance to Blake's oeuvre - a scholarly resource without precedent in any medium, print or electronic.
Value of Image-Based Archives
The Blake Archive is part of an emerging class of
electronic projects in the humanities that may be described as
"image-based." (1) These projects share a
commitment to providing structured access to high-quality electronic
reproductions of rare (often unique) primary source materials.
Image-based electronic archives also reflect a more generalized shift
in editorial theory and practice towards treating texts (of all
varieties) as material documents rather than abstract assemblages of
words. The result has been renewed attention to such matters as
typography, printing methods, bindings, illustrations, and the
graphical features of texts, as well as a reluctance to produce
so-called "eclectic" editions that borrow from various versions of a
work in order to generate an idealized text that accords with the
author's putative final intentions. Blake's own title pages, often
signed "The Author & Printer W. Blake" are themselves a
significant reminder that texts always occupy a physical medium that
needs to be accounted for by the editorial process. And while Blake's
illuminated books, with their spectacular commingling of word and
image, may be taken as unusually dramatic examples of literary works
that must be reproduced in forms faithful to their status as material
artifacts, scholars in numerous other fields - Dickinson scholars for
example, who have found her handwritten (essentially non-pictorial)
manuscripts increasingly vital to an understanding of the poet's
work-are now undertaking image-based projects of their own.
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Note the centrality of the image in the interface design. |
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It should be understood that these image-based humanities archives are not strictly definable as digital library projects. Rather, they are an extension of the kind of work traditionally pursued under the aegis of scholarly editing and share with it a rigorous commitment to detail and the relentless critical evaluation of all primary source materials. This in turn bears consequences for the Archive's technical practices and procedures. We recognize therefore that our methods may not always be suitable to the needs and production schedules of large-scale digital library projects; nonetheless, we believe that our focus on images, and our thinking about the role of images in humanities research, is relevant to communities beyond the Archive's immediate audiences in art history and literary studies.
Digital Image Creation
Digital images are scanned from three types of source media:
4x5-inch transparencies (our preferred and most often used
reproductive source) and 8x10-inch transparencies (both of which
include color bars and gray scales to ensure color fidelity), and
35mm slides. In most cases, the transparencies have been verified for
color accuracy against the original artifact by the editor
responsible for color-correcting the digital image, and in all cases
by the photographer. Transparencies were initially scanned on a
Microtek Scanmaker III, a
flatbed scanner with a transparent media adapter. Since May of 1998,
they have been scanned on a Microtek Scanmaker V, which, instead of
the adapter built into the lid, uses a separate drawer to hold
4x5-inch film inside the scanner's body, where it is scanned using
Microtek's EDIT (Emulsion Direct Imaging Technology) system (Figure
2).
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Scanning transparencies directly and not through glass creates a sharper scan (one less layer to absorb light), eliminates Newton rings (circular impressions), and reduces dust. Slides (which have only rarely been used in the Archive) are scanned on a Nikon LS-3510AF Slide Scanner and a Microtek 35t Plus Scanner. Current versions of Microtek's ScanWizard software (3.1.2) are used with the Microtek scanners; the Nikon runs version 4.5.1 of its supporting plug-in. The Microtek III flatbed and the Nikon slide scanner are attached to a Macintosh PowerPC; the Microtek Scanmaker V is attached to a Macintosh G3; the Microtek 35t Plus is attached to a Macintosh 8600 PowerPC. All three Macs run OS 8.1.
The baseline standard for all scanned images to date is 24-bit color and a resolution of 300 dpi. All scanned images are scaled against the source dimensions of the original artifact so as to display at true-size on a monitor with a 100-dpi screen resolution. (Recognizing that most users access the Archive with a lower screen resolution, we have programmed a Java applet to resize images on the fly - see below.) We have found that these settings produce excellent enlargements and suitably sized inline images. Nonetheless, we have begun to scan at 600 dpi now that our hardware (the Macintosh G3 is equipped with 384 Mb of RAM and 9 Gb of internal storage and another 5 Gb external) can better accommodate the resultant larger file sizes, and we have also changed the type of image file we color-correct. Initially, we saved our raw 300-dpi scans as uncompressed TIFFs and as JPEGs, storing the TIFFs on 8mm magnetic Exabyte tape - data which we have since migrated to CD-ROM (in Mac/ISO 9660 hybrid format). Now, by scanning at 600 dpi, we capture more information, including paper tone and texture, but the resulting files are quite large - artifacts a mere 8.5 x 6.5 inches produce files in excess of 100 Mb. Consequently, we store these raw scans on CD-ROM as LZW-compressed TIFFs, which cuts the file size in half. From the original 600-dpi TIFF image, we also derive an LZW-compressed 300-dpi TIFF, which significantly reduces the file size with no noticeable loss of information.
As part of the scanning process for each image, a project assistant has also completed a form known as an Image Production (IP) record (Figure 3). The IP records contain detailed technical data about the creation of the digital file for each image. These records are retained in hard copy at the project's office, and also become part of the Image Information record that is inserted into each image as metadata.
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The 300-dpi compressed TIFF images thus generated are each individually color-corrected against the original transparency or slide by an editor using Adobe Photoshop and calibrated, hooded Radius PressView 17SR and 21SR monitors (Figure 4). We now color-correct the TIFF file because the lossless compression does not discard image data each time changes are made to the file in Photoshop. This color-corrected TIFF image is then saved on CD-ROM. We do no color correction to the master image file.
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The color-correction process, which takes upwards of thirty minutes - and sometimes as long as several hours - for each of the Archive's 3,000 images is necessary to bring the color channels of the digital image into alignment with the hues and color tones of the original artifact. This is a key step in establishing the scholarly integrity of the Archive because, although we cannot control the color settings on a user's monitor, the color-correction process ensures that each image will match the original artifact when displayed under optimal conditions (which we specify to users). But reproductions can never be perfect, and our images are not intended to be "archival" in the sense sometimes intended - virtual copies that might stand in for destroyed originals. We recognize, however, that if we are going to contribute to the preservation of fragile originals that are easily damaged by handling, we must supply reproductions that are reliable enough for scholarly research. Hence our benchmarks produce images accurate enough to be studied at a level heretofore impossible without access to the originals (Figure 5). In side-by-side comparisons, images in the Archive are almost always more faithful to the originals in scale, color, and detail than the best photomechanical images, including the original Blake Trust facsimiles, which were produced through a combination of collotype and hand-painting through stencils. The Archive's images create no visual "boundaries" between colors (the result of using stencils), and we have achieved greater color fidelity in some notable instances. For example, several plates in the Blake Trust's facsimile of The Book of Urizen, copy G have a reddish hue not found in the originals. In this respect, the images in the Archive are truer to the tonality of the originals.
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showing the variety of coloration (and the importance of color fidelity). |
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The color-corrected images that we display to our users in the online Archive are all served using the JPEG format. A 300-dpi JPEG is derived as the final step of the color-correction process and a 100-dpi JPEG derived from it using ImageMagick, software that enables the batch processing of image files from the UNIX command line. Users are thus presented with an inline image at 100 dpi and have the option to view an enlargement at 300 dpi for the study of details (Figure 6).
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Metadata Creation
Each and every image in the Archive also contains textual
metadata constituting its Image Information record. The Image
information record combines the technical data collected during the
scanning process from the Image Production record with additional
bibliographic documentation of the image, as well as information
pertaining to provenance, present location, and the contact
information for the owning institution. These textual records are, at
the most literal level, a part of the Archive's image files.
Image files are typically considered to be nothing but information
about the images themselves (the composition of their pixilated
bitmaps, essentially); but in practice, an image file can be the
container for several different kinds of information. The Blake
Archive takes advantage of this by slotting its Image Information
records into that portion of the image file reserved for textual
metadata (the header). Because the textual content of the Image
Information record now becomes a part of the image file itself in
such an intimate way, this has the great advantage of allowing the
record to travel with the image, even if it is downloaded and
detached from the Archive's infrastructure. The Image
Information record may be viewed using either the "Info" button
located on the control panel of the Archive's ImageSizer
applet (see below) or the Text Display feature of standard software
such as X-View. (2)
Specialized Tools
The Blake Archive uses two specialized Java applets, developed
at IATH in order to support the image-based editing that is
fundamental to the project. Both of these applets, Inote and the
ImageSizer, should be understood as computational implementations of
the editorial practices governing the design of the Archive
and its scholarly objectives. Both applets are based on version 1.1
of the Java Development Kit (JDK) and are available for public
distribution.
Inote is an image-annotation tool. It permits us to append textual notes ("annotations") to selected regions of a particular image; these annotations are generated directly from the SGML-encoded illustration descriptions prepared by the editors. Inote, which can be invoked from each general description, will bring up the pertinent illustration in a separate window, with access to more elaborate descriptions of individual details within illustrations. The importance of images and their contexts to the project registers powerfully in this Java applet. By means of a location-grid/overlay metaphor, Inote makes it possible to view whole images, components (details) of images, and descriptions of any or all of them (Figure 7). When the user of Inote clicks on any sector of the image, the descriptions of all components in that sector appear. These descriptions are, again, specific to the image being displayed; they are not general descriptions that average (or enumerate) the differences among plates across various copies (instances) of a work. This level of plate-specific description has never been attempted before.
Inote functions most powerfully when used in conjunction with the Archive's image searching capabilities, where it can open an image found by the search engine, zoomed to the quadrant of the image containing the object(s) of the search query, with the relevant textual annotation displayed in a separate window. (3) From there, Inote allows the user to resize the image for further study and/or to access additional annotations located in other regions of the image. Inote may also be invoked directly from any of the Archive's pages, allowing users to "browse" the annotations created for a given image. In addition, users can download and install their own executable copies of Inote on their personal computers (using a version of the software programmed in the Java Runtime Environment); upon doing so, they may attach annotations of their own making to locally saved copies of an image, for use in either teaching or research. The most recent release of Inote is version 6.0.
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The ImageSizer is a sophisticated image manipulation tool. Its principal function for the Archive is to allow users to view Blake's work on their computer screens at its actual physical dimensions. Users may invoke the ImageSizer's calibration applet to set a "cookie" informing the ImageSizer of their own monitor's resolution. Based on this data (recorded in the cookie), all subsequently viewed images will be resized on the fly so as to appear at their true size on the user's screen (Figure 8). If a user returns to the Archive at some later date from the same machine, the data stored by the cookie will remain intact, and there will be no need to recalibrate. Users may also set the ImageSizer's calibration applet to deliver images sized at consistent proportions other than true size, for example, at twice normal size (for the study of details). In addition, the ImageSizer allows users to enlarge or reduce the image within its on-screen display area, and to view the textual metadata constituting the Image Information record embedded in each digital image file (Figure 9).
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as displayed by the Archive's ImageSizer applet. |
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Future Directions
A few words about the future of images and imaging at the
Blake Archive. We have been following progress on the
JPEG 2000 standard
very closely, and have made some preliminary experiments with an
image-viewer that uses essentially the same discrete wavelet
transform compression technology as the forthcoming JPEG 2000
standard. JPEG 2000 promises a number of advantages that may
significantly change the way image-based projects operate. These
include lossless image compression, incremental decompression,
Inote-like regions of interest, and improved metadata provisions. In
particular, we hope that the lossless compression enabled by JPEG
2000 will yield better results than the current JPEG does for the
dense line networks characteristic of engravings (interestingly,
wavelet technology was originally pioneered by the FBI for
compressing large fingerprint databases). Moreover, we expect that
the incremental decompression supported by the standard will
eventually allow us to keep only one very high quality master copy of
an image on our server, and give users the option to retrieve the
image (or only a portion of it) at multiple resolutions and levels of
detail. Likewise, we have also begun following the International
Color Consortium's work on embedded color profiles and anticipate
using them to ensure that all users can enjoy the benefits of the
painstaking color-correction process we employ.
(4)
Finally, we are broadly interested in the future of image-based humanities computing. Although the term "image-based" humanities computing has been in circulation for some time, it appears as if the field is now approaching a watershed: a number of pioneering projects (many of them begun in the early nineties) whose promise could heretofore be discussed only in speculative terms are now coming to fruition, while new software tools and data standards are poised to redefine the way we create, access, and work with digital images. All of this activity, moreover, is transpiring at a moment when there is an unprecedented level of interest in visual culture and representation in the academic humanities at large. We hope our work at the Blake Archive continues to contribute to these developments. (5)
(1) A very brief and selective list of other image-based projects would include the Rossetti Archive, the Dickinson Electronic Archives, and the Whitman Archive, all based at Virginia's Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities <http://www.iath.virginia.edu/reports.html>; and the Electronic Beowulf, the result of a collaboration between the University of Kentucky and the British Library <http://www.uky.edu/~kiernan/eBeowulf/guide.htm>.
(2) See Matthew Kirschenbaum, "Documenting Digital Images: Textual Meta-data at the Blake Archive," The Electronic Library, 16.4 (August 1998): 239-41.
(3) For a detailed discussion of our image searching, see Morris Eaves, Robert N. Essick, Joseph Viscomi, and Matthew Kirschenbaum, "Standards, Methods, and Objectives in the William Blake Archive," The Wordsworth Circle 30.3 (Summer 1999): 135-44.
(4) For more on JPEG 2000, see http://webreview.com/pub/1999/08/13/feature/index3.html; for more on color calibration, see: http://webreview.com/pub/1999/08/06/feature/index.html.
(5) For additional resources on next-generation image-based
computing in the humanities, see the LOOKSEE listserv and Web site
maintained by Matthew G. Kirschenbaum
< http://www.rch.uky.edu/~mgk/looksee/>.
Matthew Cook, Coordinator, Rights and Reproductions, Chicago
Historical Society
cook@chicagohistory.org
In August of 1998, the Chicago Historical Society (CHS), the New-York Historical Society, and the Library of Congress were awarded $520,000 from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for a three-year cooperative digitization project. The project's goal is to digitize and catalog for incorporation into the National Digital Library photographic collection materials from the two historical societies. At CHS, the grant is funding the digitization and cataloging of 55,000 glass plate negatives from the Chicago Daily News photo morgue, ranging in date from 1900 to 1929. In the course of creating the Daily News digital archive, we drew on technical standards and scanning methodologies created by other cultural institutions undertaking similar projects. We considered our project's contribution to be the streamlining of processes, i.e., by digitizing faster and more economically than other projects. This article presents some of the methods that we employed to increase production and reduce costs while meeting the digitization standards established by the library and museum community.
CHS chose to digitize the Daily News glass plate collection for both access and preservation reasons. In scanning the glass plates and creating individual MARC records, we are developing a browsable and searchable image database allowing local and remote access to an inaccessible collection (patrons are not allowed to use the glass plates). As for preservation, we believe that by scanning the plates to a high quality standard, we can create prints that would mimic continuous tone photographs and meet the needs of a majority of our users. That is to say, we could create study and publication-quality 8x10-inch and 11x14-inch prints from the scans, enabling us for all intents and purposes to retire the original glass plate negatives, thus ensuring their longevity. In addition, the project provides an opportunity for our staff to inspect, rehouse, and refile each and every plate, helping us to simultaneously identify plates requiring conservation treatment and to create a safe, long-term storage environment in our temperature-controlled negative vault.
Our goal was to scan the original negative once in a manner that would meet all of our intended purposes. Similar projects and the literature indicated that for our master or archival scans we would want to create uncompressed TIFF files captured at 8 bits-per-pixel at 600 dpi with resultant files being 7 Mb for the 4x5-inch plates and 12 Mb for the 5x7-inch plates. Some imaging experts suggest capturing 12-bits-per pixel scans. (1) This bit depth was rejected at CHS, as our principal aim was to improve access to the collection. In a field where there are conflicting standards, it is important to establish project goals and create scans that meet those goals. We felt that an 8-bit per pixel scan would meet our goals of access (first) and preservation (second), while simultaneously meeting our production goals.
From our master scan, we create two derivatives: a compressed reference image of approximately 640 pixels on the long end that can be sharpened or otherwise enhanced and saved in JPEG file format; and a thumbnail image of approximately 150 pixels on the long end, sharpened or otherwise enhanced, and saved in the GIF file format. Both sets of derivatives will be served via our Web site and in-house OPAC and searchable via the full-MARC catalog records.
Once we established our scanning criteria, we had to go about determining a production methodology. By talking with colleagues and reading product specifications and pertinent literature, we identified hardware and software that would enable us to create scans per our stated goals. I cannot overemphasize the importance of speaking with - or better yet conducting a site visit with - colleagues who have experience administering digitization projects. Their insights, warnings, and expertise will enrich your and your institution's understanding and contribute to the success of any digitization undertaking.
After examining product information and talking with vendors, we determined that the AGFA DuoScans, a machine already in use by our in-house photo lab and thus possessing a good reputation at CHS, could create digital files meeting our desired specifications. We were happy to discover that DuoScan retails at roughly $2,000, a modest price, with the downside being that the scanner requires approximately 70 to 90 seconds to complete a scan. Since production was such an issue, we compensated for that time-lag by purchasing two scanning stations that could be operated by one technician. Thus, as one DuoScan captures an image, staff would set up to scan a negative on the adjacent machine. As of this writing, one staff member is generating roughly 25 scans per hour. The price of scanners has dropped dramatically but staff salaries continue to rise. The cost of purchasing two scanners is more than offset by the increased productivity.
Our project scanning staff consists of one full-time project leader and several part-time scanning technicians. For the first seven months of the project, which represented our peak production period, the part-time scanning staff consisted of three people operating the machines six days a week. Since February 1999, we have created 45,000 scans, for an average of 4,000 scans a month. As we begin to wrapup and begin addressing "problem" areas (i.e., cracked plates, over-size plates, and some nitrate film), we have scaled back to two part-time scanning technicians and a full-time project leader.
The DuoScans have a pull-out platen on which the transparencies lie. For each machine, we created a frame made of archival matte board, which lies directly on the AGFA platen and into which a technician will place a plate. Unless a plate shows significant damage, we lay the plate emulsion side down to eliminate depth of focus issues. The technician previews the scan using the AGFA proprietary software PhotoLook and at that stage adjusts the histogram reading. This is the only adjustment the technician will make during the capture stage. In attempting to balance quality and production, we felt that by adjusting the histogram, we could rely on the scanner and the PhotoLook software to capture the full tonal range of the negative. By applying contrast adjustment and sharpening only to derivatives, we preserve the raw scan and save image processing time. Because there is no guarantee that any significant number of the 55,000 plates would be printed, we felt that contrast, sharpening, and other digital corrections could be made by experienced staff in the Photo Lab at the time prints are ordered by patrons. Thus, our scanning staff was able to concentrate on production without dedicating a significant amount of time to issues of image manipulation.
After each scan is completed, the technician saves the negative scan based on its Daily News negative number (a unique identifier assigned by the newspaper which corresponds to a caption card) and re-sleeves the plate. Because of the repetitive nature of this duty, technicians are scheduled for roughly four-hour shifts. Virtually every other day, the project leader writes to CD-ROM a subset of the previous day's scans to clear the hard drive. We have just recently begun copying the archival scans back to the hard drive and running a batch program in PhotoShop to create the derivatives. Care is taken in creating derivatives to ensure that the images meet a certain quality level when viewed on-screen. The derivatives are then saved to the network for access by CHS catalogers and also written to an archival CD.
To date, we've been able to meet, even exceed, our project goals at a cost lower than we anticipated. In just about a year's time, we have nearly scanned our entire 55,000 glass plate collection, which has allowed us to fold in some other related and hard-to-serve Daily News materials, such as over-sized glass plates and a small set of nitrate film. As of this writing, we are creating scans at about $2.11 per glass plate, with 29% of that comprising equipment costs and 71% going to staff salaries.
But this is just stage one of the project. Stage two, creating intellectual control over the collection, will significantly increase our costs. The creation of full MARC catalog records on a one-to-one basis is time-consuming and expensive. We have just recently begun this stage of the project and expect that it will take about two years. We will shift the scanning staff into support roles for the catalogers as the scanning nears completion so that they can conduct additional research on an as-need basis, thus allowing the catalogers to concentrate on production. The savings in real over projected costs in scanning will enable us to enhance the quality of the cataloging and indexing of the negatives, improving searchability of the materials and hence their value to researchers.
(1) See for example, John Stokes, "Imaging Pictorial Collections at the Library of Congress," RLG DigiNews, April 15, 1999 < http://www.rlg.org/preserv/diginews/diginews3-2.html#feature>.
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Highlighted Web Site Digital
Imaging Group (DIG) |
FAQs
The DVD technology seems poised to take over the market. How does it compare to other formats in terms of cost and capacity?
This issue's FAQ is answered by Tim Au Yeung, Manager of Digital Intiatives, Information Resources Press, University of Calgary.
DVD (which at the time of writing does not have an official expanded name) actually encompasses a number of read only and writeable formats. The writeable DVD formats are the primary focus for this FAQ. An earlier RLG DigiNews article by Steve Gilheany discussed the promise of DVD for digital libraries.
Writeable DVD comes in three flavors: DVD-RW, DVD-R, and DVD-RAM. DVD-RW has yet to see the light of day and will not be examined at this time. It is this proliferation of standards that has caused confusion among users and uncertainty about adopting DVD as a storage medium of choice. Despite that, the technology holds significant promise in the long term. In the short term, the choice to adopt DVD depends on your requirements. Before examining the relative pros and cons, let's look at the writeable formats.
DVD-R is a write once, read many times format that uses a dye-based substrate as its underlying technology. Currently, only Pioneer manufactures DVD-R drives. The previous generation DVD-R drive cost $15,000 and was generally intended for mastering DVD-ROM discs. Pioneer has recently announced a second generation DVD-R drive, which costs considerably less ($5,400) but is still relatively expensive. Two types of media are available; a 3.95 Gb single-sided disc and a newer 4.7 Gb single sided disc. DVD-R discs are compatible with most DVD-ROM drives.
DVD-RAM and DVD-RW are both rewritable formats, utilising a phase-change technology similar to magneto-optical drives. The first entrant in the DVD-RAM field is a drive by Creative Labs and there are a number of manufacturers who have DVD-RAM drives now. DVD-RAM media can store 2.6 Gb per side, for a total of 5.2 Gb on a single disc. The media is available in single and double sided formats. DVD-RAM discs are generally incompatible with DVD-ROM drives although fourth generation (8x) DVD-ROM drives are able to read DVD-RAM discs.
Cost and Capacity
Having done a brief survey of the playing field, it is now
possible to compare the formats. Below is a chart comparing major
storage media types. All common DVD-RAM and DVD-R formats are
included as well as their predecessors, CD-R and CD-RW. For
comparison purposes, magnetic disks (hard drives), DLT (digital
linear tape), and Jaz and Zip drives are included.
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CD-R |
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CD-RW |
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DVD-R (single - 4.7 Gb) |
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DVD-R (single - 3.95 Gb)(1) |
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DVD-RAM (single) |
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DVD-RAM (double) |
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DLT-IV |
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Magnetic disk |
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Jaz |
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Zip |
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* for magnetic disks, the cost is based on the drive itself; there are no separate media costs. Magnetic disks have substantial variance in pricing reflecting interface (IDE or SCSI), speed and reliability. | |||||
From a strict cost standpoint, the CD-R comes out quite strongly as the lowest cost format for storage on a per gigabyte basis. When combined with the fact that CD-R drives are among the cheapest around, it makes for a compelling case when examining cost alone. In comparison, DVD-RAM technology costs two to three times more for the drives and three to five times more per megabyte while DVD-R drives cost 20 times more and the per megabyte costs run between three to four times more. This adds up to a substantial difference over the long haul. If you were to store 100 Gb of data, the cost difference between using CD-R and DVD-RAM would be well over $800.
Preservation Issues
From a longevity stand point, none of the formats has endured
sufficient time to get a thorough testing. Most of these formats are
less than a decade old and many have been out less than five years.
Manufacturers have been claiming 50- to100-year shelf-life for the
CD-R format. Based on this data, some speculate that DVD-RAM and
DVD-R formats have analogous life spans. However, these claims need
to be taken with a couple of caveats. First, while the shelf life may
span that time, handling of any sort can damage the surface of these
media types (CD-R/W, DVD-RAM/R) as they have no external protective
casing. Minute scratches can render CD-Rs unreadable and DVD-R/RAM
with their tighter tracks are even more susceptible to this kind of
data loss. Secondly, the shelf life represents laboratory conditions
and as stated earlier, have not stood the test of time in the field.
CD-R/W and DVD-RAM/R formats are less susceptible to environmental
conditions than their magnetic counterparts in DLT, Zip, and Jaz
formats, particularly with regards to magnetic fields. In addition,
magnetic disk, DLT, Zip, and Jaz formats have mechanical components
than can fail long before the media itself fails. As a final note on
longevity, if accidental erasure is a concern then DVD-R and CD-R are
the media formats of choice as they are both write once formats that
prevent accidental erasure or overwriting of the data.
An issue related to longevity is format compatibility. Even if the media survives for 10 or 15 years, there are few guarantees that there will still be devices available to read the media. Almost no proprietary device has withstood more than 5 years on the market. As users of older tape formats will note, getting the new tape drives to read the older tapes (even when marketed as compatible) can be a considerable challenge. In addition, even if the hardware is capable of reading the older media, the software may not be so equipped. In this area, CD-R and DVD-R do have some advantages. Both formats are designed with conformity to the older, read only standards for CD and DVD. This ensures that generations of CD and DVD that maintain backward compatibility will also maintain compatibility with the CD-R and DVD-R standards. In comparison, CD-RW and DVD-RAM have had incompatibilities with current standards. CD-RW discs can only be read in multi-read CD-ROM drives and second generation DVD-ROM drives. DVD-RAM is only readable on fourth generation DVD-ROM drives, which are only now hitting the market.
Data Access
The situation is less clear when data access is the objective.
Manufacturers have been selling CD towers and jukeboxes for a number
of years now as a means of providing large quantities of archival
data. These mass storage devices come in two flavors; ones allowing
near-line storage of data and ones allowing on-line storage of data.
On-line storage devices allow for instant access to all the data they
store, usually by having as many read devices as their disc capacity.
For example, a 66 CD on-line storage device would have 66 CD-ROM
drives housed in the controller box. Near-line storage devices allow
for instant access to only a small quantity of the data they store at
any particular moment but can change rapidly enough that the user can
generally wait for the data. An example of this kind of device is a
200 CD tower, which can hold 200 CD-ROMs but may only have 8 CD-ROM
drives, allowing instant access to 8 out of the 200 CD-ROMs (with
mechanical disc changer system that allows a CD-ROM not in use to be
put away and another one brought to the reader drive).
Because the physical configuration between CD-ROM and DVD-ROM/RAM drives are quite similar, the same mechanisms for CD towers and jukeboxes can be used for DVD-R/RAM towers and jukeboxes. This provides a tremendous boon from a storage-for-access stand point. Suddenly a $20,000 CD tower that housed 66 CD-ROM drives can be converted (by the manufacturer) to house 66 DVD-RAM or DVD-ROM drives for perhaps 10% more in cost. This would give you four times the capacity with DVD-RAM and seven times the capacity with DVD-R than a similar CD-ROM model. One clear advantage these kinds of storage arrays have over more traditional hard-drive based RAIDs is that if the device fails, the data is still intact and can be up and running as soon as the device is replaced. These devices can serve up tremendous quantities of data. Several manufacturers offer models with a 600 disc capacity, translating into a 2.8 terabyte capacity utilising DVD-Rs at the 4.7 Gb capacity range.
Errata:
(1) Clarification note added 28 March 2000: Original text said "(single - 3.95 Mb)."
Calendar of Events
E-Journals
Workshop
February 20, 2000, Philadelphia, PA
NISO and NFAIS will jointly sponsor a pre-standardization workshop to
explore the need for best practices for electronic publishing and
publishing journals on the Web. Problems and issues from the
perspectives of primary publishers, secondary publishers, and
libraries will be presented.
NINCH
Copyright Town Meetings 2000 Series
February 26, 2000 - College Art Association Conference in New
York, NY
March 7, 2000 - Triangle Research Library Network in Chapel Hill,
NC
April 5, 2000 - Visual Resources Association Conference in San
Francisco, CA
May 18, 2000 - American Association of Museums Annual Meeting in
Baltimore, MD
With support from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, the National
Initiative for a Networked Cultural Heritage will offer four more
Copyright Town Meetings for the cultural community during the year
2000. Issues to be covered include changes in copyright law as it
affects working online; fair use and its online future; the status of
the public domain; ownership and access of online copyrighted
material; distance education; and the development and implementation
of institutional and organizational copyright policies and
principles.
National
Science Foundation Digital Library for Science, Mathematics,
Engineering and Technology Education
Letters of Intent Due: March 13, 2000
Building on work supported under the multi-agency Digital
Libraries Initiative, this program aims to create a national digital
library that will constitute an online network of learning
environments and resources for science, mathematics, engineering, and
technology (SMET) education at all levels.
Digitising
Journals: Conference on Future Strategies for European
Libraries
March 13-14, 2000, Copenhagen, Denmark
The conference aims to work out a joint policy of the European
national libraries and policy makers on digitizing journals, and
hopes to take the first steps towards the establishment of a European
JSTOR. The conference is organized by LIBER and Denmark's Electronic
Research Library (DEF) in co-operation with the European project
DIEPER, the North American JSTOR project, and NORDINFO, the Nordic
Council for Scientific Information.
Third International
Symposium on Electronic Theses and Dissertations
March 16th-18th, 2000; Preconference: March 15, 2000, University of
South Florida, St. Petersburg, FL
This symposium is organized by the NDLTD (Networked Digital Library
of Theses and Dissertations), a consortium of research universities
committed to improving graduate education by developing digital
libraries of theses and dissertations. This conference will serve as
a multi-disciplinary forum for graduate deans and their staff,
librarians, faculty leaders, and others who are interested in
electronic theses and dissertations, digital libraries, and applying
new media to scholarship.
Conference on the
Economics and Usage of Digital Library Collections
March 23-24, 2000, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
The Program for Research on the Information Economy (PRIE) and
the University Library at the University of Michigan are sponsoring a
research conference on the economics and use of digital library
collections. The primary audience consists of research scholars,
librarians, and publishers with an interest in the challenging
opportunities associated with digital publication, distribution, and
collection management of scholarly materials.
EVA
2000 Florence: Electronic Imaging & the Visual Arts
March 27-31, 2000, Florence, Italy
Supported by the EC's European Visual Archive Cluster Project,
this conference will feature tutorials, workshops, and sessions on
leading edge applications in galleries, libraries, museums; new
technologies in conservation; museum management and technology; and
international initiatives.
Preservation
Options in a Digital World: To Film or to Scan
March 30 - April 1, 2000, Brown University, Providence, RI
A Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC) workshop.
Museums and the Web
2000
April 16-19, 2000, Minneapolis, MN
Organized by the Archives & Museum Informatics, MW2000 offers
sessions, papers, panels, and mini-workshops on design &
development, implementation, evaluation, site promotion, education,
societal issues, research, museology, and curation. The Exhibit Hall
features hot tools, techniques, and services. Also includes
demonstrations of museum Web sites in which participants can meet and
question designers and implementers of some of the coolest museums on
the Web. Full and half-day workshops precede the conference on April
16.
CIR-2000:
The Challenge of Image Retrieval
May 4-5, 2000, Brighton, England
CIR covers all aspects of image and video retrieval from both the
UK and overseas. The main themes of CIR-2000 are video asset
management, image indexing and metadata, and content-based image
retrieval.
IEEE Advances in
Digital Libraries 2000 (ADL2000)
May 22-24, 2000, Library of Congress, Washington, DC
IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Digital Libraries
sponsors ADL2000, with the goal of sharing and disseminating
information about important current issues concerning digital library
research and technology. This goal will be achieved by means of
research papers, invited talks, workshops, and panels involving
leading experts, as well as through demonstrations of innovative
technologies and prototypes. The conference has the additional goal
of indicating the importance of applications of digital library
technologies in the public and private sectors of the economy by
reporting on and demonstrating available systems.
Moving
Theory into Practice: Digital Imaging for Libraries and
Archives
First Session: June 19-23, 2000, Cornell University, Ithaca,
NY
Offered by the Cornell University Library, Department of
Preservation and Conservation, this new workshop series aims to
promote critical thinking in the technical realm of digital imaging
projects and programs. This week-long workshop will be held four
times in 2000 (June 19-23, July 31-August 4, September 25-29, and
October 23-27). Each session is limited to 16 individuals.
Registration is now open for all four sessions. The workshop is
partially funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Digitisation
for Cultural Heritage Professionals
July 3-8, 2000, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland
The Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute
(HATII) announces the third annual international Digitisation Summer
School. This course, designed for archive, library, and museum
professionals, delivers skills, principles, and best practice in the
digitisation of primary textual and images resources with strong
emphasis on interactive seminars and practical exercises.
DRH 2000: Digital
Resources for the Humanities
September 10 - 13, 2000, Sheffield, England
Call for proposals. The submission deadline is March 6, 2000.
Call for Hosts: DRH 2001 and
2002, submit proposal by April 8, 2000.
The DRH conferences provide a forum that brings together scholars,
librarians, archivists, curators, information scientists, and
computing professionals to share ideas and information about the
creation, exploitation, management, and preservation of digital
resources in the arts and humanities.
Call for
Proposals ECDL2000 - The Fourth European Conference on Research and
Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries
September 18-20, 2000, Lisbon, Portugal
Deadline for all the proposals is May 1, 2000.
The ECDL series of conferences brings together researchers,
industrial members, professionals, user communities, and responsible
agents to promote discussion of new emerging issues, requirements,
proposals, politics and solutions. ECDL2000 is a co-organisation of
the National Library of Portugal, INESC (Instituto de Engenharia de
Sistemas e Computadores), and IST (Instituto Superior Técnico
- Universidade Técnica de Lisboa). The conference is also
supported by ERCIM (the European Research Consortium for Informatics
and Mathematics), and the DELOS Network of Excellency (supported by
the European Commission).
Announcements
Preservation
and Access for Electronic University Records Conference Proceedings
Available
In October of 1999, Arizona State University sponsored a conference
on Preservation and Access for Electronic University Records. The
proceedings are now available on the Web.
Online
Copyright Tutorial
The American Library Association, Office for Information
Technology Policy, is offering a copyright education course delivered
via e-mail. The Online Copyright Tutorial is designed for
librarians, educators, and researchers.
Improving
Access to Early Canadiana: Use of a Digital Collection With
Comparisons to Collections of Original Materials and
Microfiche
The User-Based Evaluation of the Digital Libraries Research Group
at the University of Toronto study is now available on the Web. The
focus of the study is on how digital versions of books compare to
paper and microfilm copies.
Digitisation of
European Cultural Heritage: Products-Principles-Techniques Conference
Proceedings Now Available
Held in the Fall of 1999 at Utrecht, this symposium focused on
distinctively European digitization projects, and included both
plenary sessions and small group demonstrations.
Proceedings
from the Telematics for Libraries Meeting Now Available
In November 1999, papers were presented at this meeting and
topics such as digital preservation research, and copyright and
licensing were discussed.
New Reports
from The Library of Congress National Digital Library Program
(NDLP)
The NDLP has released two new reports: "The NDLP Writer's Handbook, A
guide for the preparation of essays, Web pages and special
presentations for American Memory Collections," and "Conservation
Implications of Digitization Projects," issued jointly by National
Digital Library Program and the Conservation Division of LC.
Garden
and Forest: A Journal of Horticulture, Landscape Art, and
Forestry
The Preservation Reformatting Division of the Library of Congress
has digitized the full set of the first American periodical devoted
to horticulture, botany, landscape design and preservation. Included
is encoding using the Making of America (MOA) SGML Document Type
Definition.
UK
Higher Education Joint Information Systems Committee Studies Now
Available
More than twenty supporting studies that have been funded as a
part of eLib are now all available on the Web. These were
commissioned in three thematic areas: studies in digital
preservation, evaluation and impact studies, and general studies that
include copyright guidelines.
MICROLINK
Listserv
The listserv is intended to be a forum for the exchange of issues and
ideas related to preservation microfilming and digitization.
European Commission on
Preservation and Access Receives EU Grant for Photo Project
'SEPIA'
The ECPA received funding for its project Safeguarding European
Photographic Images for Access (SEPIA). Dealing with historic
photographic collections, the aim is to promote awareness of the need
to preserve photographic collections, and provide training for
professionals involved in preservation and digitization of
photographic collections.
RLG News
The following article also appears in RLG News (no. 50) and is one of several exploring RLG's three new strategic areas. There, the digital preservation initiative is described in this article and in a companion piece written by Peter Graham, University Librarian, Syracuse University. (RLG News is a bi-annual print publication. To obtain a copy of the current issue or future issues, send an email request with your postal address to Jennifer.Hartzell@notes.rlg.org.
Retaining
Digital Resources for Tomorrow's Researchers
As institutions face an increasing accumulation of electronic research materials to care for and preserve, RLG's Board of Directors has encouraged the organization to help create a reliable, distributed system of long-term retention repositories, or digital archives, where these materials can be saved into the future.
In the 1980s and early 1990s, RLG brought its major library members together in a collaborative venture to preserve deteriorating print materials. Eight preservation microfilming projects ensured the survival of many thousands of volumes deemed of long-term value to scholarship. Stored in underground vaults, the master negatives will last several hundred years. With materials in digitized form, there is no such guarantee of longevity.
"The reason we are focusing on the long-term retention of digital materials is because of the multi-institutional character of the problem," says RLG president James Michalko. "The board feels this is something that won't be solved at the single-institution level. How to integrate this activity into their operations is an increasingly urgent challenge for our members. And some of the same mind and skill sets associated with earlier preservation activities are going to have to be brought to bear here."
The issue has ramifications not only for preservation specialists. "The discussion," says RLG program officer Nancy Elkington, "involves collection development people who contribute to decisions about what electronic resources they digitize, subscribe to, or buy; systems people who have to organize and manage access to electronic materials; and directors who worry about how they are going to pay for it all!"
"Until recently," adds program officer Robin Dale, "many libraries could and did rely on compact discs or similar technologies as their storage and delivery mechanisms. But in the past few years, the growing and evolving nature of digital collections has changed this greatly. With the increase in digitization and acquisition of electronic journals and documents, institutions are reaching a critical mass of digital materials they are responsible for. How will they provide continued access to this information? What policies are in place among institutions to support these efforts?"
To find out just how its members were coping, in 1998 RLG commissioned Margaret Hedstrom of the School of Information at the University of Michigan to research and report on Digital Preservation Needs and Requirements in RLG Member Institutions. The bottom line: Among the 54 institutions surveyed, no generally recognized, codified common practices or policies yet exist.
Policies and Practices
The Hedstrom survey informed work now being done by RLG in
conjunction with the Digital
Library Foundation (DLF), which operates under the umbrella of
the Council on Library and Information
Research (CLIR). "We are working with DLF members, as well as our
own, to help set some policy guidelines for the digital preservation
of three different types of resources," explains Anne Van Camp, RLG's
manager of Member Initiatives: "electronic records that have never
existed in paper form - such as e-mail; electronic publications and
journals, many of which are published only electronically - like
RLG DigiNews, and materials that have been converted into
digital form." The
RLG-DLF task
force will submit reports at the end of March of 2000.
Defining a "Digital Archive"
There is already a generic reference model to define what a digital
archive might look like and how it might function:
OAIS - the Open
Archival Information System. Developed under the auspices of the
Consultative Committee for Space Data
Systems,(1) with international input from a
broad-ranging set of communities responsible for digital
preservation, OAIS is soon to become an international standard. But
for RLG's members, responsible for a complex mix of heterogeneous
digital files - from business and students' records to electronic
journals and images of items in their collections - the generic model
needs to be complemented with guidelines specific to research
institutions and their particular research resources.
"Our members will need to retain all kinds of digital materials," says Elkington: "print, audio, two- and three-dimensional images, statistical data, and more. What we are trying to do is give them the tools they need in order to budget for and manage the process of moving those digital files - the ones deemed or mandated to have long-term value - from temporary holding places into permanent, durable, and accountable access systems."
Descriptive Metadata
To ensure the universal acceptability of the digital archives
envisaged, RLG is talking with other organizations involved, among
them OCLC - the
Online Computer Library Center. One common concern is in
establishing metadata standards - the descriptive information
associated with a digital file. "OCLC has been a leader in developing
metadata standards such as the 'Dublin
Core' that we know will be very important to all of us concerned
with long-term digital preservation in libraries and archives," says
Van Camp. "We want to work with OCLC to develop and codify metadata
standards that will meet our members' needs for discovery and
delivery, as well as long-term retention and access to their own
materials."
"A lot of thought has to go into determining common approaches to metadata naming and numbering systems, so that over time separate archives can be at least mutually accessible, if not interoperable," says Dale. "When an institution contracts with a service to archive and provide access to its material, we want to make sure that the work done to prepare those materials for long-term retention is the same across different archives. One would like them all to have more or less the same metadata documentation requirements. By working with OCLC, leaders in CURL's CEDARS Project (2), and the National Library of Australia, we expect to reach consensus on common approaches. These will streamline institutional workflows and improve access to preserved digital objects."
Selection for Long-Term Retention
Beyond the "how to" issues of saving materials long term is the
question of "what should be saved?" While individual institutions
feel relatively confident in deciding which of their locally
digitized collections should be retained into the future, the vast
number of digital publications held in multiple locations around the
world presents an entirely different set of issues.
Libraries are attempting to work directly with publishers to sort out rights associated with the long-term preservation of electronic journals and other works. National and other legal deposit libraries have taken major strides to pursue these responsibilities in a shared environment, but there is more work to be done. Building on its historic role in defining consortial selection methodologies for preservation microfilming and collection management, RLG will work with a number of partners to develop tools that support and encourage collaborative selection decisions for long-term retention of digital materials.
Partners and Allies
Building the necessary technical and organizational infrastructures
to support digital preservation internationally will be a huge
undertaking. "The really good news," says Elkington, "is that a host
of UK, Australian, and continental European organizations are eager
to work with their North American colleagues in sharing leadership,
investment, and expertise on this tough set of challenges."
In addition to projects underway at DLF, CLIR, the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI), and RLG, nationally funded work is being done by CURL, by the UK Arts and Humanities Data Service, at the National Library of Australia, and within the Networked European Deposit Library (NEDLIB) group. RLG is involved in several international projects, and staff members are in direct contact with the key players.
"There's lots coming along soon that will contribute usefully to our knowledge base," says Dale. "We're planning an international symposium, as well as some new tools, concept papers, policy statements, and guidelines - all to help move things ahead."
(1) CCSDS is an "international voluntary consensus organization of space agencies and industrial associates interested in mutually developing standard data handling techniques to support space research, including space science and applications."
(2) CURL is the Consortium of University Research Libraries. CEDARS - "CURL Exemplars in Digital Archives" - is a three-year project focused on strategic, methodological, and practical issues for libraries in preserving digital materials into the future. Part of the UK Electronic Libraries Programme, the project, now in its second year, is led by the universities of Cambridge, Leeds, and Oxford.
Hotlinks Included in This Issue
Feature Articles
AGFA DuoScans:
http://www.agfahome.com/
ImageSizer:
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/inote/download.html
Inote:
http://www.iath.virginia.edu/inote/
JPEG 2000:
http://www.jpeg.org/JPEG2000.htm
Microtek:
http://www.microtek.com/
Nikon: http://www.nikon.com/
William Blake
Archive: http://www.iath.virginia.edu/blake/
Highlighted Web Site
Digital Imaging Group
(DIG): http://www.digitalimaging.org/
FAQs
The
Promise of DVDs for Digital Libraries:
http://www.rlg.org/preserv/diginews/diginews23.html#technical1
Calendar of Events
Call for Hosts: DRH 2001 and
2002: http://www.drh.org.uk/
Call for Proposals
ECDL2000 - The Fourth European Conference on Research and Advanced
Technology for Digital Libraries:
http://www.bn.pt/org/agenda/ecdl2000/
CIR-2000:
The Challenge of Image Retrieval:
http://www.la-hq.org.uk/directory/calendar/content4n4.html
Conference on the
Economics and Usage of Digital Library Collections:
http://www.si.umich.edu/PEAK-2000/
Digitisation for
Cultural Heritage Professionals:
http://www.hatii.arts.gla.ac.uk/DigiSS00/
Digitising
Journals : Conference on future strategies for European
libraries: http://www.deflink.dk/english/def.ihtml?fil=digit
DRH 2000: Digital Resources
for the Humanities: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~drh2000/
E-Journals
Workshop: http://www.niso.org/ejournalswkshp6.html
EVA
2000 Florence: Electronic Imaging & the Visual Arts:
http://lci.die.unifi.it/Events/Eva2000/eva2000.html
IEEE Advances in Digital
Libraries 2000 (ADL2000): http://cimic.rutgers.edu/~adl/
Moving
Theory into Practice: Digital Imaging for Libraries and Archives:
http://www.library.cornell.edu/preservation/workshop/
Museums and the Web
2000: http://www.archimuse.com/mw2000
National Science
Foundation Digital Library for Science, Mathematics, Engineering and
Technology Education:
http://www.nsf.gov/cgi-bin/getpub?nsf0044
Ninch
Copyright Town Meetings 2000 Series:
http://www.ninch.org/copyright/townmeetings/2000.html
Preservation Options in a
Digital World: To Film or to Scan:
http://www.nedcc.org/calendar.htm
Third International
Symposium on Electronic Theses and Dissertations:
http://etd.eng.usf.edu/Conference
Announcements
Digitisation of
European Cultural Heritage: Products-Principles-Techniques:
Conference Proceedings Now Available:
http://www.cs.uu.nl/events/dech1999/
European Commission on
Preservation and Access Receives EU Grant for Photo Project
'SEPIA': http://www.knaw.nl/ecpa/sepia/
Garden
and Forest: A Journal of Horticulture, Landscape Art, and
Forestry:
http://lcweb.loc.gov/preserv/prd/gardfor/gfhome.html
Improving
Access to Early Canadiana: Use of a Digital Collection With
Comparisons to Collections of Original Materials and Microfiche:
http://www.fis.utoronto.ca/research/programs/digital/frame.htm
MICROLINK
Listserv: http://www.slsa.sa.gov.au/microlink/
New Reports from
The Library of Congress National Digital Library Program (NDLP):
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ftpfiles.html
Online
Copyright Tutorial:
http://www.ala.org/washoff/alawon/alwn9002.html
Preservation and Access
for Electronic University Records Conference Proceedings:
http://www.asu.edu/it/events/ecure/
Proceedings
from the Telematics for Libraries Meeting:
http://www.echo.lu/libraries/events/FP4CE/proceed.html
UK
Higher Education Joint Information Systems Committee Studies:
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/services/elib/papers/supporting/
RLG News
Arts and Humanities Data
Service: http://ahds.ac.uk/index.html
CEDARS Project:
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/cedars/index.htm
Coalition for Networked Information
(CNI): http://www.cni.org
Council on Library and Information
Research (CLIR): http://www.clir.org
Digital Library Foundation
(DLF): http://www.clir.org/diglib/
Digital
Preservation Needs and Requirements in RLG Member Institutions:
http://www.rlg.org/preserv/digpres.html
Dublin Core:
http://purl.org/dc/
OAIS - the Open
Archival Information System:
http://www.ccsds.org/RP9905/RP9905.html
OCLC - the Online
Computer Library Center:
http://www.oclc.org/oclc/menu/home1.htm
National Library of Australia:
http://www.nla.gov.au
Networked European Deposit
Library (NEDLIB): http://www.konbib.nl/nedlib/
RLG's Board of
Directors: http://www.rlg.org/boardbio.html
RLG-DLF task
force: http://www.rlg.org/preserv/digrlgdlf99.html
Publishing Information
RLG DigiNews (ISSN 1093-5371) is a newsletter conceived by the members of the Research Libraries Group's PRESERV community. Funded in part by the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR), it is available internationally via the RLG PRESERV Web site (http://www.rlg.org/preserv/). It will be published six times in 2000. Materials contained in RLG DigiNews are subject to copyright and other proprietary rights. Permission is hereby given for the material in RLG DigiNews to be used for research purposes or private study. RLG asks that you observe the following conditions: Please cite the individual author and RLG DigiNews (please cite URL of the article) when using the material; please contact Jennifer Hartzell at bl.jlh@rlg.org, RLG Corporate Communications, when citing RLG DigiNews.
Any use other than for research or private study of these materials requires prior written authorization from RLG, Inc. and/or the author of the article.
RLG DigiNews is produced for the Research Libraries Group, Inc. (RLG) by the staff of the Department of Preservation and Conservation, Cornell University Library. Co-Editors, Anne R. Kenney and Oya Y. Rieger; Production Editor, Barbara Berger Eden; Associate Editor, Robin Dale (RLG); Technical Researcher, Richard Entlich; Technical Assistant, Allen Quirk.
All links in this issue were confirmed accurate as of February 11, 2000.
Please send your comments and questions to preservation@cornell.edu .
