Priscilla Caplan

Practical Preservation: The PREMIS Experience

In 2003 the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) and Research Libraries Group (RLG) established an international working group to develop a common, implementable core set of metadata elements for digital preservation. Most published specifications for preservation-related metadata are either implementation specific or broadly theoretical. PREMIS (Preservation Metadata: Implementation Strategies) was charged to define a set of semantic units that are implementation independent, practically oriented, and likely to be needed by most preservation repositories. The semantic units will be represented in a data dictionary and in a METS-compatible XML schema. In the course of this work, the group also developed a glossary of terms and concepts, a data model, and a typology of relationships. Existing preservation repositories were surveyed about their architectural models and metadata practices, and some attempt was made to identify best practices. This article outlines the history and methods of the PREMIS Working Group and describes its deliverables. It explains major assumptions and decisions made by the group and examines some of the more difficult issues encountered.

The Florida Digital Archive and DAITSS: a working preservation repository based on format migration

The Florida Digital Archive is a long-term digital preservation repository for the use of the libraries of the public universities of Florida. It is managed by the Florida Center for Library Automation (FCLA) and based on Dark Archive in the Sunshine State (DAITSS), repository software developed by FCLA with the aid of grant funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). DAITSS is designed to implement active preservation strategies based on format transformations including forward migration, normalization, and localization. As a case study, the Florida Digital Archive and DAITSS show that active preservation strategies can be incorporated into repository applications from the start, and that doing so affects all aspects of application design. The Florida Digital Archive has been in production since November 2005. The DAITSS application is nearing completion and will be released as open source software in 2006.

On discovery tools, OPACs and the motion of library language

Purpose – This paper aims to select a few terms in common use today in the library and information science domain, and looks into their usage over time.Design/methodology/approach – The use of terms is traced historically, if somewhat informally, through writings such as websites, press releases and articles.Findings – “Discovery tool” suddenly acquired a specific meaning in 2009. “Digital preservation” and “digital curation” may never sort themselves out. “OPAC” and “ILS” are terms in disfavor as the products they refer to lose luster.Originality/value – The value of the paper is to make readers more aware of the way they use words by reflecting on some commonly used terms in the library and information science domain.

Towards Interoperable Preservation Repositories (TIPR)

The TIPR (Towards Interoperable Preservation Repositories) project is a partnership between the Florida Center for Library Automation, Cornell University Library, and New York University, funded for two years by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). TIPR is based on the assumption that responsibility for long-term digital preservation must be distributed across a number of stewardship organizations running heterogeneous and geographically dispersed repositories. For reasons of redundancy, succession planning and software migration, these repositories must be able to exchange copies of archived information packages with each other. Practical repository-to-repository transfer will require a common, standards-based transfer format capable of transporting rich preservation metadata as well as digital objects, and repository systems must be capable of exporting and importing information packages utilizing this format. The project, which is reaching the midpoint of its second year, has drafted, implemented, and tested a specification for a Repository Exchange Package (RXP), a hierarchical packaging format designed to facilitate the exchange of Archival Information Packages (AIPs) between digital repositories. The RXP encodes structural and preservation metadata using METS and PREMIS, two widely used schema in the cultural heritage community. It is agnostic to the application software used by the sending or receiving repositories or the number of representations included in any AIP.

Metadata rematrixed: merging museum and library boundaries

Linking Floridas Natural History uses species information as the nexus for pulling together scientific data from museum specimen databases and library catalogs of scientific literature. The goals of the IMLS funded project were to integrate specimen records and bibliographic records about the same species; to create an interface equally easy for scientists, students and laymen to use; and to enhance bibliographic description to make it more usable in a taxonomic and environmental context. Although some development was required to enable Z39.50‐based broadcast search across bibliographic and specimen collections, the bulk of the work was devoted to identifying and overcoming inconsistencies between the resource description practices of libraries and museums. Enriching records with taxonomic and geographic information was also a challenge.

Reference Linking for Journal Articles: Promise, Progress and Perils

The increased availability of electronic journals on the Web has not only improved access and convenience for readers, but has occasioned many improvements in how journal literature is found and used. In many online services, the full text of journal articles is directly searchable, multiple formats of articles are available, and direct e-mail links to authors are given. Internal hyperlinks within articles improve navigation through different sections and among text, tables, footnotes, and references. Users can tailor their default displays, increase font size, and magnify illustrations. Undoubtedly, however, the most significant innovation of all for the scholarly community is the implementation of reference linking. Reference linking is one of the important added values to emerge from the rise of electronic scholarly publishing. Indeed, such technologies are a key raison d’etre for the move to electronic publishing. Reference linking has existed in one form or another for some time now, and the technology is advancing rapidly in providing increased functionality for the user and increased feasibility for the producer. However, it is important to grasp the significant obstacles to developing complex applications in the Internet environment where libraries are only one of the players. This column describes the state of the art in reference linking and suggests why librarians should care enough both to understand the technology and to influence the shape of its application.

Building a digital preservation archive: tales from the front

This article describes the evolution of the design of the FCLA digital archive, a preservation repository under development for the libraries of the public universities of Florida. The starting assumptions of the designers were challenged as they moved from theory towards implementation. The logic leading to changes in policy and in preservation strategies is described.

A Technique for Evaluating Automatic Term Clustering.

This study reexamines the feasibility of automatic thesaurus generation by establishing a framework for analyzing the degree of correspondence between automatically generated thesauri and a thesaurus of the same terms constructed by a team of subject specialists. In order to test the evaluative procedure, a series of thesauri are generated using the same clustering algorithm and three different measures of association. By comparing the relative effectiveness of the generated thesauri to the human standard, it is determined that substantial differences exist among them.

The Florida Digital Archive and DAITSS: a model for digital preservation

Purpose – This paper aims to describe the Florida Digital Archive (FDA), a long‐term preservation repository for the use of the public university system of Florida, and the DAITSS preservation repository application used by the FDA. It seeks to explain requirements that shaped DAITSS design, outline functions of the current software, and describe how DAITSS is being rearchitected as a series of Web Services (DAITSS 2). It also endeavours to place the FDA and DAITSS in the context of various models for implementing digital preservation functions.Design/methodology/approach – This is a case study of one model of digital preservation implementation that includes some comparison with examples of other models. The preservation protocol implemented by DAITSS combines bit‐level preservation, format normalization, and forward format migration; extensive preservation and format‐specific metadata are supported, and authenticity of content is maintained through application design and a complete record of digital pro...

Ten years after

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to reflect on progress over the last ten years in the field of digital preservation for cultural heritage institutions.Design/methodology/approach – This is an opinion piece, based on the experience of a practitioner in digital preservation.Findings – Digital preservation has become a mainstream activity. There are differences in the American and European approaches to supporting and organizing preservation initiatives. US institutions would benefit from wider outreach and education efforts.Practical implications – The implications are left to the reader, but may suggest that more reflection on the goals and strategies of the preservation community is in order.Originality/value – This paper identifies a need to develop and support distributed centers of excellence to promote digital preservation, provide expertise to other institutions, and to organize sharing and training opportunities for their constituencies.