Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 1 Building a Digital Future: Sustainable, Interoperable, Accessible Repositories Howard Besser NYU Archiving and Preservation Program and Library Senior Scientist

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 2 Sustainable, Interoperable, Accessible Repositories -  Models for Digital Repositories  Importance of Metadata Standards & Philosophies  Discovery Metadata: The Dublin Core  Administrative and Structural Metadata: MOA2/METS  Actors Metadata  Longevity Metadata  Identification/Provenance  The 4/99 NISO/DLF Image Metadata Workshop  Various other Metadata

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 3 From Digital Collections to Digital Libraries, Museums, and Archives _ No longer merely experiments _ Adhere to our fields’ traditions (access, interoperability, sustainable, privacy, …) _ Provide services

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 4 To respond to our needs for both Service & Traditions, we face the challenges of:  Access (discovery)  Sustainability (longevity)-  Interoperability-

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 5 Serious Longevity Problems  What we know from prior widespread digital file formats  Images separating from their metadata  Inaccessibility of software needed to view an image  Inability to even decode the file format of an image

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 6 Traditional Digital Repository Model DL user search & presentation

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 7 Ideal Digital Repository Model DL user search & presentation

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 8 For Interoperability, Repositories Need Standards (as well as Sustainability & Access)  Descriptive Metadata for consistent description  Discovery Metadata for finding  Administrative Metadata for viewing and maintaining  Structural Metadata for navigation ... Terms & Conditions Metadata for controlling access...

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 9 Why are Standards and Metadata consensus important?  Managing digital files over time  Longevity  Interoperability  Veracity  Recording in a consistent manner  Will give vendors incentive to create applications that support this

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 10 Philosophical Metadata Decisions- _ Warwick vs MARC _ Where to put the metadata

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 11 Containers and Packages of Metadata Warwick, not MARC _ modular _ overlapping _ extensible _ community-based _ designed for a networked world to aid commonality btwn communities while still providing full functionality within each community

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 12 Some different schemes where Metdata is kept _ embedded within the object (TIFF headers) _ encapsulated with image (MOA2/METS) _ in a separate related DB maintained by same organization (OPAC) _ in a separate DB maintained by a separate organization (Books in Print, ratings systems)

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 13 Discovery Metadata _ Dublin Core - NISO Z39.85 (3/95)- _ CBIR (ongoing)

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 14 Dublin Core--further work _ Warwick Framework – metadata packages for extensible functions – layed groundwork for RDF _ Canberra Qualifiers – refining the semantics of the element set to provide more precise info – SUBELEMENT, SCHEME, LANG _ Granularity – no hierarchical relationships w/i a given DC record; only one record per discrete object (collection or item-level), and relationship field plus qualifier links them

The Research Process and Functional Categories of Metadata _ Discovery _ Retrieval _ Collation _ Analysis _ Re-presentation

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 16 Structural & Administrative Metadata-  Making of America II (MOA2)  Metadata Encoding & Transmission Standard (METS)

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 17 MOA II Classes of Objects  Continuous Tone Photos  Photo Albums  Diaries, journals, letterpress books  Ledgers  Correspondence

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 18 MOA II Metadata _ Administrative Metadata – for enhancing resource management _ Structural Metadata – for reflecting internal hierarchies and relationships btwn parts _ Raw/Seared/Cooked

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 19 MOA II Behaviors  Navigation  Display/Print

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 20 MOA II Best practices  Use/Users/Collection:  Benchmarking  Masters vs. Derivatives  Scanning-  Administrative Metadata-  Structural Metadata-

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 21 Scanning Best Practices _ Think about users (and potential users), uses, and type of material/collection _ Scan at the highest quality that does not exceed the likely potential users/uses/material _ Do not let today’s delivery limitations influence your scanning file sizes; understand the difference between digital masters and derivative files used for delivery _ Many documents which appear to be bitonal actually are better represented with greyscale scans _ Include color bar and ruler in the scan _ Use objective measurements to determine scanner settings (do NOT attempt to make the image good on your particular monitor or use image processing to color correct) _ Don’t use lossy compression _ Store in a common (standardized) file format _ Capture as much metadata as is reasonably possiple (including metadata about the scanning process itself)

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 22 Why Scale is important

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 23 Administrative Metadata to uniquely identify a digital resource and manage it over time _ Information about where the various pieces/versions of the object reside _ Information to view the digital object _ Information about the scanning process

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 24 Structural Metadata: that which is relevant to presentation of the digital object to the user _ metadata defining the "object”: a book, a diary, a photo album _ metadata defining the “sub-objects”: pages (physical) or chapters and subheads (intellectual)

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 25 Other Types of Metadata- _ Actors Metadata _ Longevity _ Identification/Provenance _ Rights Management

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 26 Reference Models for Digital Libraries: Actors and Roles DELOS/NSF Working Group

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 27 NSF/DELOS Actors/Roles Project _ Classes of Actors, including –Persons –Organizations –automata _ Roles & implications –Production –Dissemination –Management –use

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 28 Multimedia & Collaborative Authorship imply _ Not only: –Authors –Editors –Publishers _ But also creators of –Text –Illustrations –Composers –Musicians...

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 29 And goes beyond conventional authors _ Others that are part of digital library process –Users –Catalogers –Reference librarians _ Even other groups/entities –Software agents –Mediators –Special rights holders...

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 30 Borbinha’s “naive tentative sketch” of the problem... User Registered Anonymous Librarian Agent CreatorEditor Distributor Preservation Publication LicensingAcquisition RegistrationDissemination Search Digital Library Access

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 31 Benefits for _ Linking metadata to authority records _ Rights management _ Privacy protection

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 32 Deliverables _ Workshop proceedings: proceedings with invited contributions and papers selected from a call, intended to be a reference source for the current state of the art. _ White paper: –Definition and introduction to the problem. –Description and analysis of the requirements. –A proposal to the community for a reference model, focusing on definitions of key concepts, terminology, classes of agents, services, relationships, etc. –Proposals for an international agenda for further technical and collaborative developments.

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 33 Core group DELOS (Europe) _ José Borbinha, National Library of Portugal (DELOS coordinator) _ Michel Mabe, Elsevier Science, UK (Publishing industry) _ Peter Mutschke, Social Science Information Centre, Germany (Software agents, Information Retrieval) _ Hans-Jörg Lieder, Berlin State Library, Germany (LEAF project) _ Gunnar Karlsen, University of Bergen, Norway (Archives) WIPO – World Intellectual Property Organisation _ Glenn Macstravic NSF (USA) _ John Kunze, University of California, USA (NSF coordinator) _ Barbara Tillett, Library of Congress, USA (Libraries) _ Becky Dean, OCLC, USA (Libraries services) _ Angela Spinazze, CIMI/RLG, USA (Museums) _ Howard Besser, University of California, USA (Multimedia and digital art production) DCMI - Dublin Core Metadata Initiative _ Warwick Cathro, National Library of Australia

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 34 Work plan Phase 1: Starting (March - April 2002) _ Tuning objectives, scope, and action plan _ Identification of reference sources _ Call for contributions to the workshop Phase 2: Internal Discussion (May - June 2002) _ Analysis of the problem _ Draft paper Phase 3: Public Discussion (July - October 2002) _ Expose the draft paper. Promote open public discussion _ Workshop in Portugal (July 3-5). Workshop report _ Draft paper (second version) Phase 4: Conclusions (November - December 2002) _ Review of the work done... _ Final report

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/ Actors and Roles ???

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 36 Recent Digital Preservation Activities -  The Problem  Preservation Repositories  Preservation Metadata  Other Digital Preservation Activities  Special concerns of Cult Heritage community

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 37 Serious Longevity Problems  What we know from prior widespread digital file formats  Previous formats required little ongoing intervention (remote storage facilities, Iron Mtn); digital formats require intense ongoing management  The Short Life of Digital Info-

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 38 The Short Life of Digital Info: Digital Longevity Problems  Disappearing Information  The Viewing Problem  The Scrambling Problem  The Inter-relation Problem  The Custodial Problem  The Translation Problem

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 39 Older Longevity Projects  CPA Task Force  Getty “Time & Bits” Conference & Follow-ups-  Preservation experiments in US and Europe  NEDLIB, CURL, Michigan  Internet Archive  Long Now

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 40 Preservation Repositories: Projects based on OAIS Model  CEDARS  NEDLIB  Pandora  CDL  OCLC/RLG Working Group on Preservation Metadata, Attributes of a Trusted Digital Repository, August 2001-

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 41 Preservation Metadata  OCLC/RLG Working Group on Preservation Metadata, Preservation Metadata for Digital Objects: A Review of the State of the Art, January  OCLC/RLG Working Group on Preservation Metadata, A Recommendation for Content Information, October 2001

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 42 Preservation Repositories: Open Archival Info System Model  High-level reference model describing submission, organization and management, and continuing access  Conceptual framework for different organizations to share discussions with a common language  Producers, consumers, management, actual repository  SIP, DIP, AIP  AIP consists of data objects plus representation info (Content, Preservation Description, Packaging, Descriptive)  Originally developed for Space Science community

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 43 Preservation Repositories -- AIP Metadata _ Preservation Description Info –reference info –context info –provenance info –fixity info _ Packaging Info _ Descriptive Info _ Content Info

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 44 Other Digital Preservation Activities-  LC Natl Dig Info Infrastructure & Preservation  InterPARES  Emulation Projects  E-Journal Archiving  ERPANET  Persistent Naming

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 45 LC’s National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program _ Authorized Dec 2000 _ LC, Dept of Commerce, NARA, White House Office of Sci & Tech Policy _ with help from CLIR, NLM, NAL, OCLC, RLG _ Ongoing collab process _ Commissioned papers on preserving: the Web, periodicals, digital sound, E-Books, Digital TV, Digital Video

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 46 InterPARES International Research on Permanent Authentication Records in Electronic Systems _ Ongoing international archival world project examining how to make electronically-generated records last over time _ Developing the theoretical and methodological knowledge needed, then will formulate model policies, strategies, and standards _ Next year will be extended to include images and rich media

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 47 Electronic Resource Preservation and Access NETwork (ERPANET) _ Best practices and skills development for digital preservation of cultural heritage and scientific objects _ 3 year project launched Nov 2001; 1.2 million Euros

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 48 Persistent Naming  URNs  Handles  PURLs  Re-directs

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 49 What’s special about Cult Heritage Materials? _ Images & rich media _ Inter-relationships btwn parts _ For Contemporary Art: What is the Work?-

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 50 LeWitt: Wall Drawing 340

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 51 Installing LeWitt

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 52 LeWitt Install Directions

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 53 Complexity of Rich Media _ Works often have artistic nature (including video games) _ Enormous number of elements can, at times, be very important to preserve (pacing, original artifact, elements used to construct the artifact) _ Too complex to save every one of these aspects for every type of material _ Importance of saving documentation

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 54 What can we do specific to Electronic Art? _ Works themselves may no longer even exist; in many cases, what we can save amounts to forensic evidence _ Enormous number of elements can, at times, be very important to preserve (pacing, original artifact, elements used to construct the artifact) _ Too complex to save every one of these aspects for every type of material _ Importance of saving pieces, representations, and documentation _ Involve the artists to capture their intentions _ Importance of Standards _ Familiarize ourselves with recent conservation developments (Who Knows?, TechArcheology, Tate, IMAP)

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 55 Standards for encoding artists intentions (group efforts w/i Cult Heritage community) _ Artists Interviews Project, Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage , Modern Art: Who Cares ( _ TechArcheology: A Symposium on Installation Preservation (SFMOMA) _ More recent SFMOMA/Tate collaborations _ IMAP _ Guggenheim’s Variable Media

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 56 Structural Metadata Standards for Encoding Multimedia- (no time for details) _ SMIL _ MPEG 4

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 57 Identification/Provenance (Images)-  The number of variant forms of a work can be enormous  Image Families  A digital image frequently has many layers of parentage  Information about the parentage that can indicate the quality and veracity of the image (Dublin Core "Source" and "Relation")  how to deal with different versions derived from the same scan or different encoding schemes  Vocabulary Standards to express this

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 58 The number of variant forms of a work can be enormous  different views of the same object  different scans of the same photo  different resolutions  different compression schemes  different compression ratios  different file storage formats  different details of the same image ...

Image Families

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 60 Identification/Provenance  how to deal with different versions (browse, hi-res, medium res) derived from the same scan or different encoding schemes (TIFF, PICT, JFIF)  Vocabulary Standards to express this – VRA Surrogate Categories – CIMI's "Image Elements”

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 61 Incorporate parts of Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) _ work _ expression _ manifestion _ item _ (and push into “change history” section of Technical Image Metadata)

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 62 NISO/DLF Image Metadata Workshop--4/99 ( Z draft)  create metadata needed to manage images in digital repositories over long periods of time (full life-cycle mgmt)  document image provenance & history  ensure that the images will be rendered accurately on any output device

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 63 Technical Image Metadata Focus on Metadata that may prove helpful for  management  use  preservation ...

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 64 Technical Image Metadata In Scope  still, bit-mapped pictorial images  scanned/reformatted images (+ born digital)

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 65 Technical Image Metadata Out of Scope  vector images  moving images  images of OCR-able text  structural and hierarchical relationships between images  rights management, terms of use  (authenticity/security)

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 66 Technical Image Metadata Technical Image Metadata -Z39.87  Image parameters (MIME type, compression, colorspace & profile, …)  Image Creation (source, capture info, etc.)  Image performance assessment (sampling, colormap, whitepoint, target data, etc.)  Change history (source, processing, etc.)

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 67 Technical Image Metadata Technical Image Metadata -Z39.87  additional XML implementation schema (MIX)

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 68 Other Metadata _ Description of depiction/surrogate (What VRA calls its "Surrogate Categories") _ Description of original object _ Rights and Reproduction Information _ Location Information

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 69 Data Structures: The VRA Core  28 elements specifically for visual resource collections  Work Description Categories-  Visual Document Description Categories- 

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 70 VRA Core: Work Description Categories  Work type  Title  Measurements  Material  Technique  Creator  Role  Date  Repository name  Repository place _ Repository number _ Current site _ Original site _ Style/period/group/movem ent _ Nationality/culture _ Subject _ Related work _ Relationship type _ Notes

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 71 VRA Core: Visual Document Description Categories  Visual document type  Visual document format  Visual document measurements  Visual document date  Visual document owner  Visual document owner number  Visual document view description  Visual document subject  Visual document source

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 72 Data Value Metadata (vocabularies)  LCSH  TGM  AAT  ULAN  TGN  VRA Core

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 73 LCSH  very general

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 74 Thesaurus for Graphic Materials  designed for subject indexing of pictorial materials, particularly large general collections of historical images  for cataloging and retrieval  good for general audiences and broad approaches to the material  TGM-I: Subject Terms & TGM-II: Genre and Physical Characteristic Terms 

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 75 AAT  120,000 terms  for describing objects, textual materials, images, architecture, and material culture from antiquity to present  large and complex 

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 76 ULAN  name authority 

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 77 Thesaurus of Geographic Names  over 1 million records  hierarchical and global  throughout history  most records include coordinates and descriptive notes

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 78 Metadata for Digital Commerce  DOI  -

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 79  formal structure for describing and uniquely identifying intellectual property itself, the people and businesses involved in its trading, and the agreements which they make about it (primarily for publishing, music, and visual arts)  will develop high-level specifications for the services that will be required to implement a global IP trading system based on this generic data model  focus is on encoding rights at a high level, not on resource discovery  likely to involve metadata schma registration and directory to allow interoperation of personal identifiers for rightsholders and users  supported by EEC DG-13  First meeting July 1999 

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 80 Metadata Mapping-  Crosswalks  Resource Description Framework (RDF)

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 81 Crosswalks  mapping btwn differing metadata structures  eliminate the need for monolithic, universally adopted standards  focus on flexibility and interoperatiblity  RDF-based metadata registries

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 82 Crosswalk Example

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 83 Resource Description Framework (RDF, spec released 2/99) _ W3C Metadata activity _ designed to move the Web beyond simple links to semantically-rich relationships btwn resources _ metadata application using XML as a common syntax for exchange and processing _ flexible architecture for managing diverse application- specific metadata packets that can be processed by machines _ associates resources, property types, and corresponding values _

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 84 RDF _ Resources (character strings, names, digital objects) _ Property (“is the author of”) _ Value _ resources+properties=relationships _ many different relationships can be reflected

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 85 XML-encoded RDF _ _ Howard Besser _

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 86 Should you start building with RDF today? _ Tools are primitive _ Standard still likely to evolve

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 87 Digital Repository Traditions & Services require  Sustainability  Interoperability  Access  And all of these require Standards and Metadata

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 88 Building a Digital Future: Sustainable, Interoperable, Accessible Repositories Howard Besser NYU Archiving & Preservation Program Baca, Murtha (ed). Introduction to Metadata, Los Angeles: Getty Information Institute,

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 89

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 90 OCLC/RLG Digital Repository Attributes _ Administrative responsibility _ Organizational viability _ Financial sustainability _ Technological suitability _ System security _ Procedural accountability

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 91 OCLC/RLG Selected Recommendations _ Policies, Certification processes, Risk management, Persistent ID, Migration/Emulation experiments _ Stakeholders meet to decide how to describe what is in a dig repository _ Examine special properties of particular classes of digital objects _ Technical standards for exchange and interoperability btwn repositories _ Develop projects and case studies _ Copyright issues

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 92 Emulation Projects _ CAMiLEON (Michigan/Leeds) _ NEDLIB

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 93 E-Journal Archiving _ Issues –License, don’t own; may not be even able to obtain right to make archival copy –Increasingly no paper back-up at all –Usually we don’t have the important redundancy factor _ Mellon funded projects (2001) –Yale, Harvard, Penn working w/individual publishers –Cornell, NYPL--specific disciplines –MIT exploring characteristics that change (dynamic)\ –Stanford--archiving software tools

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 94 NEA 2001 grant to BAVC for $150,000 _ “To support development and dissemination of a DVD that contains a curriculum for the preservation of electronic art. The DVD will feature a preservation overview; discussions with conservators, artists, curators and technicians; a curriculum to train professionals in the field and project case studies to conserve electronic art.”

Besser--SfS-Hague 18/10/02 95 A few questions the NINCH community should address _ Special issues raised by non-library institutions _ Special issues raised by images and rich media _ What is the work (or salient points we need to preserve)? _ Bring the arts communities (artist intent, BAVC) together with the preservation repository communities and the preservation metadata communities _ Specifically get Cult Heritage communities involved with the selected OCLC/RLG recommendations _ Get cult heritage groups started on working to make sure that structure standards incorporate our works _ What organizations will take responsibility to save today’s digital “ephemeral” materials (online ‘zines, arts discussion groups, etc.)?