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| August 15, 2003, Volume 7, Number 4 | ISSN
1093-5371 |
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Feature
Article 2 Highlighted
Web Site
FAQ RLG
News Building a Digital Library of Kinematics
As a team of Cornell University librarians and faculty in mathematics and mechanical engineering, we are building a digital library for teaching the principles of kinematics—the geometry of pure motion. The Kinematic Models for Design Digital Library (K-MODDL)[1] project is funded by a two-year collection grant from the National Science Digital Library , a program of the National Science Foundation to build shared digital collections of high-quality materials and services in support of science education at all levels. The project is scheduled for completion in summer 2004. The core of K-MODDL is the Reuleaux Collection of Mechanisms and Machines, an important collection of nineteenth-century model machine elements held by Cornell’s Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. K-MODDL will make freely available on the Web:
A freely accessible, Web-based resource, K-MODDL documents a beautiful and historically significant artifact collection. In addition, the inclusion of navigable moving images and simulations of mathematical principles related to the machines’ movements restores the objects to their intended classroom use as teaching models of geometric and kinematic principles. National Science Digital Library (NSDL) The mission of the NSDL is to enhance science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education through a partnership of digital libraries joined by common technical and organizational frameworks. Individually and collectively, these partners engage and inform multiple clienteles, using shared resources to serve many communities of users, each with its own level of knowledge and approach to learning. The NSDL embodies long-standing library traditions of service, longevity, equal access, fair use, and privacy, as well as innovations that foster a spirit of inquiry and the accessibility of science to all.[3] K-MODDL will exist as an autonomous collection housed at Cornell University Library and will also be searchable through the shared NSDL portal. For a collection such as K-MODDL to participate in the NSDL, it is necessary that the descriptive metadata associated with each item in the collection be shared with the NSDL central metadata repository. The Open Archives Initiative (OAI) Protocol for Metadata Harvesting facilitates this exchange by defining a mechanism for harvesting XML-formatted metadata from repositories.[4] OAI compatibility is thus an essential requirement of the K-MODDL project. In his article "Developing a 3D Digital Library for Spatial Data," Jeremy Rowe describes topological modeling techniques that permit precise analysis of an artifact’s surface and volume based on its digital representation[5]. The K-MODDL project has taken a different approach to representing three-dimensionality in a two-dimensional medium. For this project the principle spatial quality that must be represented is three-dimensional kinematic motion. We concluded that interactive photographic animations coupled with abstract simulations of the mechanisms suffice to illustrate this factor in most cases. Interactive Moving Images The K-MODDL team is producing navigable movies that show the kinematic performances of the model machines. A navigable movie is a collection of still images that appear in a sequence determined by the motion of a user interface device, such as a mouse. This allows the display of images in a user-controlled way. For example, if the images depict an object viewed from various viewpoints revolving around the object, then moving the cursor will create the illusion of spinning the object, making the experience three-dimensional. The navigable movies in K-MODDL either depict a machine from various viewpoints, so it appears to spin about its center when the movie is navigated, or they portray various stages in its kinematic motion, so that the machine appears to function when the movie is navigated. This allows the user to go back and forth and examine the kinematic causality in detail.
Kinematic Simulations Still images and movies demonstrate the functionality of the machine but often obscure the pure kinematic motion associated with it. We have therefore developed a number of kinematic simulators to illustrate the geometric motion first hand. Moreover, a simulator allows users to interact with the machine, pushing and pulling in unscripted ways, modifying it and observing the consequences, and even breaking it. The simulator is written as an applet so that it executes on the user’s computer and is thus fast and responsive. It simulates propagation of forces and motion using a relaxational algorithm. The user interacts with the machine using a "rubber band" that intuitively translates displacement to force. The machine moves, and any overloaded links change colors to red or blue depending on whether they are in tension or compression, respectively. The users can modify link lengths, connect and disconnect bars, and remove or modify grounding points, thereby creating inversions. They can also erase a machine and build a different one from scratch.
“Printing” in Three Dimensions[6] What cannot be experienced with a digital collection is the physical handling of the models. Physical models of machines were prevalent in exhibitions and universities in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; today their role is largely filled by computer-aided design (CAD) models and simulations. These computational models are more versatile and of lower cost, but they lack the physical embodiment that is essential for an intuitive appreciation of many critical concepts of motion and force.
STL files for several of the Reuleaux models will be available at the K-MODDL site, allowing users with access to rapid-prototyping equipment to download, 3D-print, and interact with their own fully functional physical replicas. While the audience for this part of the collection is clearly limited to a few large research facilities, the project team expects that as rapid-prototyping becomes more commonly available, such forms of documentation will become increasingly prevalent. Meanwhile, this technology is already reproducing accurate historical kinematic models as tools for both teaching and artifact conservancy. The team has reproduced several pre-assembled, fully functional mechanisms; a sample of a clock escapement is shown in the figure below.
Reading and Writing Kinematics Along with the machine images and their descriptions, K-MODDL will be a rich source of text materials pertaining to kinematics and the history and theory of mechanisms and machines. The collection will include original scholarship by project team members and others in the form of preprint articles, book chapters, and the like, as well as historical books, digitized in their entirety, and tutorials that model ways of using the collection’s resources in the classroom. Historical Resources The K-MODDL project has selected fifty books and other print documents for digitization and inclusion in the collection. These stem principally from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; some are older, and several are rare titles from Cornell Library’s History of Science Collection. These items will constitute a freely accessible and searchable digital collection of the historical literature of kinematics and the theory of machines. The materials are being scanned in a nondestructive process and stored as 600 dpi TIFF image files backed by searchable OCR’d text. K-MODDL will display PDF versions in a reader similar to the pages in other Cornell retrodigitization projects, such as the Making of America collection. Learning Modules The project team is developing several tutorials or learning modules that will aid instructors at various educational levels in integrating K-MODDL materials into their students’ curricula. At release in summer 2004, K-MODDL will include tutorials suitable for students in undergraduate, high school, and middle school mathematics and technology classes, as well as for undergraduate education in engineering design and the history of technology. The high school and middle school tutorials are being developed in collaboration with teachers from several school districts in Ithaca, New York, and surrounding areas. This direct contact with members of a key target audience has been crucial in ensuring that the materials developed for the K-MODDL collection are understandable, useful, and usable in as many different ways as possible. It is the aim of the project to encourage other educators to produce tutorials of their own from the K-MODDL source material and submit them for possible inclusion in the collection. Technical issues Mathematics on the Web The display of mathematical symbols and equations presents a challenging implementation issue, not only for K-MODDL, but for any Web-based mathematics project. To date, there is no accepted standard for mathematical notation in html. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has issued a recommendation for MathML, an XML application for mathematics, but it is not yet widely implemented. The remaining option is to reproduce the equations and symbols as imbedded graphics files, which in some implementations appear fuzzy or otherwise difficult to read. All of these issues can be avoided using PDF files, but at the sacrifice of the flexibility of html pages. The project team is still wrestling with how best to display mathematics on the K-MODDL site. Metadata creation The K-MODDL project team includes subject experts—mechanical engineers and mathematicians—who are acting as descriptive catalogers for the objects in the collection. The project team is working with Digital Consulting and Production Services, Cornell University Library’s internal consulting unit, to build a rich, Qualified Dublin Core-based metadata schema to drive collocation and retrieval. The team plans to declare an XML namespace that would establish qualifying element and attribute names for describing mechanical objects. K-MODDL contains several types of digital object: documents in a variety of formats, bibliographic records, images, and audiovisual formats, as well as multiformat, multipage learning modules, Java-based simulations, etc. Many of these relate in a one-to-one relationship to a specific model, and the concept of the "model" serves as a base element from which the related components inherit certain descriptive metadata. Repository Development
Having established the metadata we will share with other systems via the NSDL Metadata Repository and OAI, we are now mapping metadata requirements to fields and tables in a relational database management system, using a MySQL database server. Our user interfaces for database administration, as well as for searching and browsing the data, are coded in PHP; in a later phase of development, PHP will also be used to develop the OAI interface for metadata harvesting. The K-MODDL Web server is Apache. MySQL, PHP, and Apache are robust, widely used, open source technologies. The use of open source software both technically and philosophically supports our mission to build a repository that is secure, reliable, interoperable, and sustainable over time. Ease of Use Though a functional prototype of the K-MODDL repository is not yet complete, the project team is working to identify target audiences and their characteristics as Web users (for example, bandwidth limitations, technical ability, system limitations, etc.). K-MODDL is a pedagogical space designed for use by teachers and researchers, as well as students at a range of educational levels, and other young and adult learners in a variety of environments; the project team cannot assume that all our end users possess fast connections to the Internet, up-to-date computers, and advanced computer skills. Special care is being taken to assure that all target audiences will find K-MODDL easy to use and valuable as a learning resource. K-MODDL will be a resource of lasting value for interdisciplinary teaching and research in machine design, mathematics, the history of science, and other fields. The project breaks new ground in the scholarly application of multimedia techniques on the Web and offers new ways of approaching representations of movement and three-dimensionality in digital libraries. While much work remains to be done, we hope that the project can offer lessons and perhaps even templates that can be applied to digital library work in other areas. Acknowledgments Thanks to Paul White, Susan Peck, Kathryn Gelsone, Jimmy Hai, and Carlo Paventi for assisting in modeling, photographing, and simulating the exhibits and to Javier Lezaun and David Caruso for project research. Footnotes [1]The K-MODDL Web site contains project information, news, and pertinent links. Samples and demonstrations from the collection are added and updated periodically. The full collection will debut in summer 2004.(back) [2]Francis C. Moon, “Franz Reuleaux: Contributions to 19th C. Kinematics and Theory of Machines,” Cornell University Library Technical Reports and Papers and Applied Mechanics Reviews 56.2 (Mar. 2003): 261-285.(back) [3]On the NSDL, see Lee L. Zia, “The NSF National Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education Digital Library (NSDL) Program: New Projects and a Progress Report,” D-Lib Magazine 7.11 (Nov. 2001).(back) [4]For more information on the NSDL’s prescription and use of metadata, see the NSDL Metadata Primer. The NSDL Communications portal has more information about the architecture of the metadata repository, as well as other technical and social aspects of the NSDL.(back) [5]Jeremy Rowe, "Developing a 3D Digital Library for Spatial Data: Issues Identified and Description of Prototype," RLG DigiNews 6.5 (15 Oct. 2002).(back) [6]On 3D-printing technology and its application in K-MODDL, see Hod Lipson, Francis C. Moon, Jimmy Hai, Carlo Paventi, “3D-Printing the History of Mechanisms,” Cornell University Library Technical Reports and Papers.(back) The Cost to Preserve Authentic Electronic Records in Perpetuity: Comparing Costs across Cost Models and Cost Frameworks Shelby
Sanett “Within the U.S. and elsewhere, funding agencies are advancing digital preservation as a serious research area. Digital preservation projects and cooperative international efforts have increased significantly over the past decade. Examples include the US National Science Foundation (NSF), collaborative international programs with the UK Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), with the Deutsche Forschunsgemeinschaft (DFG), and with the European Union (EU); and the international InterPARES Project, which has received funding from a number of countries. These have spurred the development of an interdisciplinary domain that has as its primary goal ensuring long-term access to materials in digital format for legal, economic, and cultural purposes. This domain unites the interests of librarians, archivists, museum specialists, and other preservation professionals with digital object creators, computer scientists, lawyers, publishers and others. The issues cut across government, non-profit, commercial, and academic sectors.” Editor's Note, RLG DigiNews, October 15, 2002 The economics of digital preservation underlies many projects and programs exploring how to identify and resolve various practical and theoretical problems of preserving digital objects. There is a need to provide scaleable, workable solutions quickly. Large numbers of born-digital and born-again electronic records and materials require immediate attention,[1] and more will be produced over time. Along with technological advances goes a responsibility on the part of the creators and the preservers to develop both an economic framework and a context within which these processes can assure continuing access to information preserved in electronic form. This paper explores issues of cost modeling and proposes a possible methodology to evaluate costing frameworks and models to preserve authentic electronic records. The methodology could be adapted by institutions interested in the costs of the preservation strategy under consideration. For the purposes of this paper, the term electronic materials will refer to authentic electronic records in born-digital or born-again (reformatted) digital form. Currently several research projects and institutional initiatives are investigating a broad spectrum of issues in preserving electronic materials. The emphasis in research so far has been on the development of software and hardware to support the implementation of long-term preservation strategies. Significant funding has been provided to various projects to assess whether and how authentic electronic records can be preserved and to address other questions that have arisen from previous research. Assuming there are workable strategies for maintaining digital information, I believe we must now consider how to evaluate costing strategies, develop policies to ensure continued preservation and access, and formulate other long-term mechanisms for digital preservation. Rationale for a Proposed Methodology to Evaluate Cost Models
It is expected, however, that the full costs of preserving electronic records will be high and will extend over a long period. Therefore it is particularly important for decision makers to use a methodology to evaluate the various frameworks and models, because they must have information that is as specific as possible. This information will support the choice of a preservation strategy (indicative of the full range of costs) or suite of strategies appropriate to a particular institution, its mission, and anticipated use of the materials. An evaluative process is needed that can be applied when the decision-making process has begun. In the end this process should facilitate making an appropriate choice from among the cost models. So far, such a methodology to evaluate across models has not been addressed in the literature. The requirements for an evaluative strategy of this type are complex. The proposed methodology must be flexible enough to be applied to a broad spectrum of extant models, yet credible so that the results have merit. It must be applicable to costing frameworks and models not yet developed. As well, the methodology should be user friendly and easy to apply. A daunting prospect. A Proposed Methodology to Evaluate Cost Models For an evaluative methodology in this area to be effective, it must be straightforward. Costing models and frameworks can be evaluated in terms of (1) acquisition and preservation-related activities, and (2) access-related activities. Earlier I proposed a cost framework that includes three categories: (1) Costs for Preserving Electronic Records (table 1), which include capital costs, direct operating costs, and indirect operating costs; (2) Costs for Use (table 2), which are costs associated with the continued institutional use of the preserved records; and (3) User Populations (table 3), which provides information relating to access and the users’ use of the records. This activity includes gathering various types of information that could then be used to provide access and user services. Costing categories were then established in the first two categories in combination with the preservation process model developed by the Preservation Task Force of the InterPARES 1 Project.[4] The components of the activity categories may shift as necessary in the future, but the cost categories themselves are consistent with generally accepted accounting principles. Table 1
Table 2
Table 3
To apply the proposed evaluative methodology, acquisition and preservation-related activities would include the following: Table 4
Costs associated with access-related activities, including the institution’s own use would include: Table 5
Thus the categories referenced in tables 1, 2, and 3 have been reduced to two tables (4 and 5) when an activity-driven evaluative methodology of those categories is applied. The discussion of the process to arrive at costs to acquire, preserve, and access the records is revised as follows:
This evaluative strategy can be applied to extant and future cost models to determine the costs to be incurred to preserve electronic materials. Using this activity-driven methodology, one can compare similar categories of costs across the cost models and frameworks and against the context of a particular preservation strategy or suite of preservation strategies being examined, e.g., cost-related decisions can be determined within a context of other models as well as according to the requirements of a particular preservation strategy. The methodology can also be customized to a particular institution by adding or deleting appropriate components of the categories. For example, an institution may determine that it must delete records or re-appraise records with each new migration and consider each of these actions to be an institutional use activity. The activity can be added to the direct operating costs in table 5 and would include the cost (planned or actual) allocated for staff to accomplish the task. If the institution determined that costs for the activity were associated with the acquisition and preservation of electronic records, the cost category would be added to table 4, part 2 (direct operating costs). When the methodology is applied, it may in fact turn out to be less expensive for an institution to continue to maintain the records if its mission permits. In walking through this exercise, not all the costs are allocated evenly. Individual institutions knowing their own priorities and situation best would choose where to allocate a number of the capital and indirect costs. However, this approach is a step toward identifying commonalities among the extant models. Having that information should result in more-informed choices on the part of the decision makers. How Does This Fit into the Larger Picture? We must develop a strategic plan for the future to fund the long-term preservation of the world’s digital and born-again digital materials. This plan should include preservation process models; costing frameworks; preservation policies; a financial, organizational, and economic infrastructure to support ongoing preservation efforts; a pedagogical platform to train future preservation administrators; a centralized funded agency to coordinate these activities; and a blueprint to develop a model of coordinated cross-institutional cooperation and regional repositories. Footnotes [1]Born-digital electronic records refer to those that originated in electronic form; born-again digital electronic records refer to those that originated in an analog form and were subsequently transformed, e.g., reformatted, into digital form.(back) [2]In appendix 3 of his paper, Hendley provides a Table of Digital Preservation Cost Elements compiled by Neil Beagrie, Daniel Greenstein, and the Arts and Humanities Data Service.(back) [3]Sanett, Shelby. “Toward Developing a Framework of Cost Elements for Preserving Authentic Electronic Records into Perpetuity,” College & Research Libraries 63(5) (September 2002): 388-404.(back) [4]Both the US team and the International team have Web sites. The InterPARES 1 Project is an international research initiative that involves national archives, university archives, and various government agencies working together with industry representatives and a team of academic researchers in archival science, preservation, and computer science to address important issues of permanent preservation of authentic electronic records. The mandate of the InterPARES 1 Project was to investigate and develop theoretical frameworks, methodologies, and prototype systems. The InterPARES 1 Project focused on the permanent preservation of inactive electronic records, that is, records that are no longer needed for day-to-day business activity, but needed to be preserved for administrative, legal, or historical reasons. Examples of such records include organizational records, legal records, and research data. Among the electronic forms these records might take are ASCII text files, graphics, video and audio material, moving graphics, e-mail with attachments, materials incorporated into a database management system, and PDF viewer materials. The InterPARES 2 Project is currently under way.(back) Highlighted Web Site
FAQ XML/XSLT-Mediated File Format Migration as a Digital Preservation Strategy I've heard of XML being used for file formats such as SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) and OpenOffice and to encode metadata. Can XML also be used to transform one file format into another? This issue's FAQ is answered by Christopher Hamilton, Programmer/Analyst in the IRIS Research Department, Cornell University Library. Taking Responsibility and Control of Your Data Extensible Markup Language (XML) allows for the markup of information in a standard vocabulary free from control of proprietary software vendors. It has been said, “XML is shifting the balance of power from software vendors to software users” (Tidwell) because XML and its related family of technologies are open, standards-based, and platform-neutral. Metadata embedded in platform-neutral XML documents could outlive the original digital object or storage medium. However, to preserve metadata in XML documents is only one way to harness the power of XML for digital preservation. The XML standard for transforming XML documents into different formats is Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL). What Is XSL? XSL consists of a family of three World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommendations. These three technologies together form a set of tools for writing style sheets that transform XML documents and format them for display. XSL Transformations (XSLT) is the general-purpose tag-based language that defines rules for transforming an XML document into another XML document or another format such as XHTML, JPG, PDF, or SVG. XML Path Language (XPath) is the path expression language that is used with multiple XML standards for locating nodes within, and traversing the tree structure of, an XML document. XPath is embedded within an XSLT style sheet, and together they instruct the XSLT processor to transform an XML document. The other part of XSL is XSL Formatting Objects (XSL-FO), another tag-based language that adds advanced styling features and is optimized for describing the page layout of print and Web documents. XSLT as a Format Migration Tool With the ability to transform XML documents into other formats, it becomes possible to use XSLT to migrate digital objects to new formats. A typical example is using XSLT to transform an XML document into a PDF or an XHTML document. However, current research is working to extend XSLT to allow for the transformation of multimedia files (images, audio, video) to other formats. For example, XSLT could transform a TIFF file from an archive of multimedia objects into JPEG2000 format for display on the Web. However, a standard TIFF file is not encoded in an XML-compliant format. Therefore, something new is needed for parsing and generating XML descriptions of bitstreams, the most basic form of a digital object. For this purpose two languages are currently in development: Bitstream Syntax Description Language (BSDL) and Formal Language for Audio-Visual Object Representation (XFlavor). To continue with the above example, BSDL or XFlavor would be used to generate an XML-based bitstream-level description of a TIFF file, which is then transformable via XSLT into the desired JPEG2000 format.
Moreover, using BSDL or XFlavor would not alter or incrementally corrupt the original object over time, therefore preserving the longevity of the original object. Endless Possibilities Once it’s possible to generate an XML-based description of a multimedia object’s bitstream, an XSLT style sheet could be applied to transform the file into another format. Entire digital collections could be migrated to the latest file format or platform. Tools could also be developed that automate XML/XSLT-based migration of files (i.e., with one XSLT style sheet an entire digital collection could be migrated into a derivative format). Users would no longer need to rely on software that reads obsolete file formats, since obsolete formats would be transformable into more-stable formats with XSLT. While much work remains before such scenarios become real, successful implementation would represent a substantial improvement over file format migration using current tools and techniques. References Amielh, M. and Devillers, S. May. “Bitstream Syntax Description Language: Application of XML-Schema to Multimedia Content Adaptation” WWW2002: The Eleventh International World Wide Web Conference, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA.. Eleftheriadis, A. and Hong, D. “Flavor: A Language for Media Representation”. To appear as chapter four in Handbook of Video Databases: Design and Applications, Furht, B., and Marques, O., Ed. CRC Press, September, 2003. The World Wide Web Consortium. “Extensible Markup Language (XML)." The World Wide Web Consortium. “The Extensible Stylesheet Language Family (XSL)." Tidwell, Doug. XSLT, O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. 2001. Calendar of Events Digital
Resources for the Humanities Conference Conference themes include the impact of access to digital resources on teaching and learning, as well as issues related to digital libraries, archives, and museums. ERPANET
Training Seminar: Metadata in Digital Preservation The seminar will discuss various perspectives on the use of metadata to facilitate preservation and issues of interoperability, as well as the role of standards and schemas. In
Practice, Good Practice: Fourth Open Archives Forum The event will focus on good practice in the implementation of open archives. A particular theme of the workshop will be the use of the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting [OAI-PMH] in the area of cultural heritage. Toward
a User-Centered Approach to Digital Libraries Conference This digital libraries conference will focus on user experience, challenges, evaluation, and open access to scientific publications. ICHIM03:
International Cultural Heritage Informatics Meeting Exploring Cultural
Institutions and Digital Technology Major themes include cultural institutions and digital publishing, management and technological strategies for digitization of cultural heritage materials, and the dissemination, exploitation, and enrichment of digital assets. ERPANET
Training Workshop: DSpace Installation Jointly sponsored by the Cambridge-MIT Institute and ERPANET, this workshop provides training and guidance for technical staff of institutions that are considering implementing a digital repository using the “DSpace” software. Preservation
of Electronic Records: New Knowledge and Decision-Making Cohosted by the Canadian Conservation Institute (CCI), the Library and Archives of Canada (LAC), and the Canadian Heritage Information Network (CHIN), the goal of this symposium is to increase awareness of the issues surrounding digital preservation. Panels will focus on making decisions and finding practical solutions that can be implemented immediately. Document
Management and Document Imaging Course The course is free to graduate students in library science, to persons traveling from Africa, and to the native peoples of the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Please ask for a scholarship request review. Safeguarding
European Photographic Images for Access (SEPIA) This conference will look at issues of digital preservation, scanning requirements, and other photographic preservation issues. Digital
Library Program Development A two-day SOLINET workshop on developing local digital resources in a responsible, sustainable, and systematic manner. Thesauri
& Taxonomies: An International Conference and Workshop 2003
Dublin Core Conference The conference will provide participants with a forum for interaction with researchers, practitioners, and decision makers concerned with advances in metadata for resource discovery, retrieval, management, and use. This years’ conference theme is Supporting Communities of Discourse and Practice: Metadata Research & Applications. Digital
Preservation Management: Short-Term Solutions to Long-Term Problems Cornell University Library is offering the second digital preservation training program October 20-24 with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The workshop targets managers at organizations that are facing the digital preservation challenge and highlights the need for the integration of organizational and technological issues to devise an appropriate approach. This limited-enrollment workshop has a registration fee of $750 per participant. Registration is now open for the October workshop. There will be three additional offerings of the workshop in 2004. Off
the Wall and Online: A Preconference to the Museum Computer Networks Annual
Meeting This conference explores digitization for collections management and education in museums and other cultural institutions. Museum
Computer Network Annual Meeting SIS
2004: Digital Information Exchange, Pathways to Build Global Information
Society Conference themes include metadata strategy, digitization, metadata formats and standards, digital resources, open access initiatives, and management of digital resources. International
Conference on Digital Libraries: Knowledge Creation, Preservation, Access
and Management Announcements OCLC
and RLG Announce the Formation of PREMIS NISO
Announces New Registration Process ALCTS
Metadata Enrichment Task Force (METF) NINCH
Symposium Report Released NISO
Announces New Thesaurus Initiative Seeking
Comments for a Web-based PRONOM ERPANET
Announces ErpaEPrints LizardTech
Acquired by Celartem Technology (PDF) NDIIPP
Calls for Applications RLG News Automatic Exposure:
Capturing Technical Metadata for Digital Still Images Automatic Exposure, a new RLG-led initiative, seeks to minimize the cost of technical metadata acquisition and maximize the cultural heritage community's capability of ensuring long-term access to digital assets. The project will engage manufacturers of high-end scanners and digital cameras in a dialog about how their products can automatically capture NISO Z39.87 technical metadata and make it available for transfer into digital repositories and asset management systems. (NISO Z39.87: Technical Metadata for Digital Still Images [Draft Standard for Trial Use] defines a standard, comprehensive set of data elements key to an institution's ability to manage and preserve its digital images.) The first phase of the initiative - a survey of existing technical metadata practices of cultural heritage institutions - has been completed. Over 100 responses, representing a broad variety of institutions, have been received. Survey responses are now being compiled and analyzed. The survey results will help us identify the stakeholders in the cultural heritage and vendor communities, as well as common technical metadata practices across institutions. The results will also help determine the invitation list for the next phase of the initiative - a joint meeting of vendors and cultural heritage professionals in November 2003. Potential outcomes of this project include a crosswalk (a mapping between the elements of two standards) for NISO Z39.87 and the industry's consumer standard DIG35, to enable both cultural heritage institutions and vendors to map existing DIG35 data to Z39.87; identification of existing equipment or software that automatically capture and record technical metadata; identification of potential partnerships between the manufacturer and cultural heritage community; and an opportunity to influence further development of digital camera/scanner products that may better meet the long-term needs of the cultural heritage community. For more details on this RLG initiative, please visit our website at http://www.rlg.org/longterm/autotechmetadata.html.
Publishing Information RLG DigiNews (ISSN 1093-5371) is a Web-based newsletter conceived by the RLG preservation community and developed to serve a broad readership around the world. It is produced by staff in the Department of Research, Cornell University Library, in consultation with RLG and is published six times a year at www.rlg.org. Materials in RLG
DigiNews are subject to copyright and other proprietary rights. Permission is
hereby given to use material found here for research purposes or private study.
When citing RLG DigiNews, include the article title and author referenced plus
"RLG DigiNews, Please send comments and questions about this or other issues to the RLG DigiNews editors. Co-Editors: Anne R. Kenney and Nancy Y. McGovern; Associate Editor: Robin Dale (RLG); Technical Researcher: Richard Entlich; Contributor: Erica Olsen; Copy Editor: Martha Crowe; Production Coordinator: Carla DeMello; Assistant: Valerie Jacoski. All links in this issue were confirmed accurate as of August 15, 2003.
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The
Cost to Preserve Authentic Electronic Records in Perpetuity: Comparing
Costs across Cost Models and Cost Frameworks, by Shelby Sanett
Members
of the K-MODDL team are using current rapid-prototyping technology to
reproduce physical models as three-dimensional “prints” from
digital files.
The replicas are based on CAD drawings of the Reuleaux models, captured
in stereolithography (STL) format. STL files can be exported for printing
on a rapid-prototyping fabricator. This process creates a sequence of
thermoplastic layers from a filament- wound coil that is heated and extruded
through a nozzle. In order to create functioning mechanisms, a second,
water-soluble release material is placed in the gaps between the movable
parts. 
The
project team deliberated at length on the question of a database structure
that would be suitable for the K-MODDL collection. Two proprietary solutions
for Internet-based image management and delivery already in use at CUL
were considered, as was the University of Wisconsin’s open-source
Now
is the time to develop frameworks against which cost, policy, and other
issues may be examined and answered. It is clear that the soft-funding
scenario of the past and present is not sufficient to fund present and
projected activities to preserve electronic materials. The issue of institutional
sustainability in preservation must be discussed and resolved. Who
will pay for the costs involved with acquiring, preserving, and accessing
the materials? A number of strategies have been proposed, some of which
are continued institutional support, fee for use, fee from the author,
fee from the publisher, and legislative support. Infrastructure
funding should be explored as well, to determine whether strategies may
be successfully applied by other institutions, e.g., in universities,
to determine how computer networking and other costs are paid or funded.
Not all of these are possible solutions for all institutions. If institutions
had a realistic idea of costs, they could plan accordingly. A cost model
makes intelligent planning possible. 
