PREMIS specifies the information needed to maintain digital objects long term. Many look at METS (Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard) to implement this. Ambiguities between the two need to be clarified. This shows some of the structures, the ambiguities and redundancies. A working group has been established to develop guidelines for using PREMIS and METS to resolve the differences. The PREMIS in METS guidelines are a work in progress, and as institutions experiment with them there will further revisions.
A Format for Digital Preservation of Images A Study on JPEG 2000 File Robustness. Paolo Buonora and Franco Liberati. D-Lib Magazine. July/August 2008.
Many have talked about JPEG 2000 not only as a "better" JPEG delivery format, but also as new "master" file for high quality images and as a replacement for the TIFF format. The authors look at JPEG 2000 from a technical viewpoint. JPEG 2000 file structure is not only robust itself, but there are some enhancements that can make it better to use. One is the utility FixIt! JPEG 2000 that can extract the file header; test and fix corrupted images; and save it in XML format. They conclude the format is a good solution for digital repositories.
New record keeping standards announced. Judith Tizard. Press Release: New Zealand Government. 27 August 2008.
The New Zealand Archives announced two new recordkeeping standards, the
1. Create and Maintain Recordkeeping Standard: identifies the key requirements for successful information management for recordkeeping.
2. Electronic Recordkeeping Metadata Standard: a systematic approach to managing information. "Information management is an essential and important legacy." These standards ensure that information has meaning; it can be found when needed; it can be relied on to be what it sets out to be; and it can be moved safely from one system to another. Archives need to answer who created a record, for what purpose, and whether or not it has been altered.
Dead Sea Scrolls go from parchment to the Internet. CNN. August 27, 2008.
The Dead Sea Scrolls are going digital as part of an effort to better preserve the ancient texts and let more people view them. The initiative, announced Wednesday, will also reveal text that was not otherwise visible. Over the next two years, the Israel Antiquities Authority will digitally photograph and scan every bit of crumbling parchment and papyrus that makes up the scrolls. The images eventually will be posted on the Internet. Israel has assembled an international team of technical people for the project.
Very Long-Term Backup. Kevin Kelly. Weblog. August 20, 2008.
Paper, while destructible and limited, can be a stable media over the long term. Digital storage is not stable over long periods. A project has been underway to create a stable medium. This page provides information (and pictures) on the Rosetta project. The project used technology commercialized by Norsam to etch 13,500 pages of information on a titanium disk. The disk is not digital and requires a microscope to read.
OCLC Crosswalk Web Service Demo. OCLC. August 2008.
The purpose of the Crosswalk Web Service is to translate a group of metadata records from one format into another. For this service, a metadata format is defined as:
· The metadata standard of the record (e.g. MARC, DC, etc)
· The structure of the metadata (e.g. XML, RDF, etc)
· The character encoding of the metadata (e.g. MARC8, etc.)
It requires a client software component. As a demo, only a limited number of records can be translated at a time.
OCLC's new Web Harvester captures Web content to add to digital collections. Press Release. July 29, 2008.
OCLC is now offering Web Harvester, a new an optional product that allows libraries to capture and add Web content to their ContentDM digital collections. It captures content ranging from single, Web-based documents to entire Web sites. Once retrieved, users can review the captured Web content and add it to a collection. Master files of the captured content also can be ingested to the OCLC Digital Archive, the service for long-term storage of originals and master files from libraries' digital collections. The Web Harvester is integrated into library workflows, allowing staff to capture content as part of the cataloging process, which is then sent to the digital collections where it can be managed with other ContentDM content. OCLC is committed to provide solutions for the entire digital life cycle.
