Weekly readings - 27 October 2006

Preserving a copy of the future. The Guardian. October 19, 2006.

The UK recording industry is trying to extend the copyright of sound recordings from 50 years to 95, which it currently is in the US. The British Library Sound Archive opposes the change, because "we are unable to copy for preservation purposes film or sound material that sits in our permanent collection." In addition, 185,000 tapes are unpublished; many of the copyright owners are unknown, which makes the problem more difficult. Extending the term increases these ‘orphan works’. Others feel term extension and preservation copying are separate issues. Digital media increase the complications. Preservation must begin immediately because deterioration is invisible. Digital rights management also impacts preservation, since many licenses do not grant as many rights as the law allows. Access is important; preservation is not enough.

Fujifilm to Show MicroFilm Archive System at ARMA 2006. Press release. October 19, 2006.

The Fujifilm Document Archive System records documents onto their 16mm film. The documents can be scanned from paper, or transferred as TIFF files, which are then indexed to the imaging system. These files are imaged up to 130 pages per minute. The film can be read on any traditional microfilm reader. An index file containing the roll number, frame number, and file name, is also available. The system cost is $54,995. www.fujifilmusa.com/AR-1000

Fedora and the Preservation of University Records Project. Kevin Glick, et al. RLG DigiNews. Oct 15, 2006.

The project was intended to decide if Fedora could serve as an electronic records preservation system. The project was framed within the OAIS model and beneath that there was a set of requirements that they needed. They soon realized that Fedora would only be one part of the preservation system, which would also include ingest and access, and creation of preservation policies. These must shape what Fedora will become for an institution. The team felt that Fedora provides a promising basis of a preservation system. It can manage essentially any type of file, complex hierarchical relationships, multiple bitstreams, versioning, and transformations. It can provide for persistent identifiers, access policies, and handles XML. Setting the requirements was the most difficult part.