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| April 15, 2002, Volume 6, Number 1 |
ISSN
1093-5371
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The workshop was structured around five main areas of Cedars activity, metadata; intellectual property rights (IPR); preservation strategies; collection management; and the distributed archiving prototype. Written guides to each of these have been prepared and will be made available from the Cedars Web-site. The guides to metadata, IPR, and collection management are also available in hard copy. Because there is an overlapping interest between publishers and libraries in metadata and IPR, the sessions on these were held on the first day and presentations on the work that Cedars had done combined with a look at the publishers' perspective and the wider context made a stimulating first day. The second day concentrated on the work of Cedars with presentations on the wider perspective. Sessions on preservation strategies, collection management, and distributed archiving led to lively and informed discussion. The opening session on metadata introduced preservation metadata and linked this to some key concepts defined in the Open Archival Information System (OAIS) reference model (1). Issues raised included the comment in the presentation by Geeti Granger (John Wiley & Sons Ltd.) that the development of metadata systems for Wiley's digital archive had involved making considerable changes to the working practices of publishers and their suppliers. Another problem was that the exact costs of generating and maintaining metadata are unknown. Granger noted that even if these costs could be estimated, it would be difficult to calculate the exact return on investment. Later discussions included the comment that "submission metadata" required from publishers should, where possible, be able to be easily mapped from the information that publishers already hold. It was also observed that it is probably time to stop developing detailed preservation metadata specifications and to begin evaluating their use in real implementations. Issues raised in the session on IPR included the comment that contracts would increasingly provide the main framework of discourse rather than legislation. Also that content was sometimes tied up with "'look-and-feel"' and that the authenticity of the content would sometimes depend on this being preserved. The presentation by Andrew Charlesworth (University of Hull Law School) stressed that copyright was traditionally seen as a social bargain in that the state provided particular powers to rights holders with the aim that society as a whole could benefit. One of these benefits is that copyright works will eventually pass into the public domain. In the digital world, this aspect of the social bargain was in danger of being neglected by some rights holders. In addition, the typical time-span of copyright lasting until 70 years after the death of authors is likely to mean that digital materials are no longer accessible by this time. Despite this, he also argued that many academic publishers, librarians and others involved in digital preservation were becoming increasingly aware of the benefits of collaboration. The technical strategies session included an account of work in the CAMiLEON (Creative Archiving at Michigan and Leeds: Emulating the Old on the New) project (2) on software longevity and an introduction to the concept of "migration on demand." Margaret Hedstrom (University of Michigan) argued that different preservation strategies would need to work together. She said that strategies would need to take account of technical complexity, e.g. the potential loss of the significant properties of a resource through migration, and should be scalable. There was also a need for more awareness of collection management issues, the implications of rights management decisions on preservation strategies and more information on costs and effective economic models. The following session concerned collection management. Amongst the many issues raised was the need for increased staff awareness of digital preservation issues. As in other sessions, it was noted that it was almost impossible to get precise information on costs. In his presentation, Neil Beagrie (JISC Programme Director for Digital Preservation and Secretary of the Digital Preservation Coalition) noted that we would have to adapt to high volumes of information which would emphasise the importance of distributed solutions and the automation of ingest and metadata capture processes. The last workshop session on "distributed archiving" included a description of the workings of the Cedars prototype. Lynne Brindley (The British Library) gave the final presentation. She reviewed comments that she had made at the Cedars Preservation 2000 conference (3) and remarked on progress since then. She argued that we need to be more precise as to what roles and responsibilities should be undertaken by particular types of institution and that we should be more creative in thinking about how to fund digital preservation. Brindley also outlined the role of the newly formed Digital Preservation Coalition and urged all to support this initiative. A more detailed summary of the Cedars Workshop will be made available from the Cedars project Web-site. Footnotes
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The Final Cedars Workshop: a report from Manchester, UK 