Tuesday, December 5, 2006

What is a Digital Asset?
Richard Pearce Moses, Arizona State Library & Archives

’Digital asset’ can be used to refer to a wide range of formats and genres, some of which have close analogs in the real world and others that exist only in virtual space. Pearce-Moses will explore the meaning of ‘digital asset’ in terms of functions and characteristics and how different contexts give different senses to the concept. A richer understanding of the use and components of digital assets can help frame the larger question of stewardship.

Assessing Risks for Digital Collections
Tom Clareson, PALINET

A wide variety of potential risks exists for our digital collections. In 2005-06, an NEDCC project to measure digital preservation readiness has discovered some of the real-life challenges facing cultural heritage institutions. This session will look at trends from the project, other risk factors, and suggest how “digital disaster planning” can aid institutions that are building digital collections.

Working Together Revisited: Diverse Skills for Sustainability
Robert P. Spindler, Arizona State University Libraries

What are the skills set needed for digital preservation and where do they come from? How do formal and continuing education programs reinforce or breakdown barriers to successful collaboration? A review of diverse information professions, the skills they offer and the prospects for collaboration.

Collaborative Adventures: Promoting and Preserving External Partnerships
Katherine Skinner, Emory University

This presentation will address some of the major challenges and opportunities that are presented by cross-institutional collaborative activity in the field of digital preservation. Among the questions considered are the following: What are some of the emerging models for cross-institutional ventures in digital preservation? How are such partnerships governed, and what roles and responsibilities are undertaken by the partners? What standards and software tools are helping to facilitate collaboration in digital preservation? And what can we envision such external partnerships offering in terms of stability and sustainability?

Wednesday, December 6, 2006

Virtual Use and Real Users: Understanding Use Requirements and User Needs
Elizabeth Yakel, University of Michigan

This presentation focuses on understanding use requirements for electronic files as well as surrogates and how to assess user needs in the digital realm. Although a substantial number of both born-digital and digitally reborn materials as well as other surrogates (MARC, EAD) for archives and manuscripts are now online, this increased access does not necessarily mean accessibility. Accessibility in this case refers not to the virtual availability of descriptions or even digital copies of archival records, but to intellectual and cognitive abilities as well as the context and metadata required to make effective use of these digital resources. For example, archival finding aids, the primary descriptive tools used to provide summary and logistical information about archival and manuscript materials can seem arcane and technical for novice and expert archival users alike. Furthermore, displays of surrogates for primary sources vary considerably from place to place making it difficult for users to recognize common information elements. The archival researcher’s ability to access information about primary sources on the web exceeds the accessibility of the current representations.

Specifically, this presentation will discuss the how the relationships among the researchers, reference personnel, and information objects are all altered in the digital realm. Topics to be covered include: the changing nature of mediation in the online environment, the critical place of usability testing, the creation of context in virtual space, and rethinking current paradigms to create opportunities for social navigation. The presentation will end with a discussion of the importance of evaluating how well online tools address user needs through such methods as surveys and web analytics and then feeding the results back in to the user interface and functionality of a system.

Metadata for Preservation
Priscilla Caplan, Florida Center for Library Automation

Metadata is needed to support the long-term preservation of digital materials. In addition to descriptive metadata, which supports discovery and access, preservation metadata is required to help a respository maintain the viability, renderability, understandability, integrity and authenticity of materials over time. There are some emerging standards for preservation metadata but no complete solutions; much work still remains to be done in this area. This session will introduce preservation metadata, review emerging standards, and look at how we can use these standards and what to do where no standard applies. It will also cover how values of metadata elements can be obtained and the potential role of central registries. It will end with examples of the use of metadata for preservation in actual implementations, including the DAITSS application used by the Florida Digital Archive.

Creating Digital Images Worth Preserving
David Joyall, Northeast Document Conservation Center

The goals for preservation of digital images should be considered before, during and after the time of digital capture. The focus of this talk are the choices to be made at the time of capture. There are a number of variables that determine the quality of digital images. Advantages and disadvantages for using scanners, digital cameras will be compared. Software settings can make a huge impact on the quality of digital images. Current best practices for digital capture will be discussed. The role of the technician performing the digitizing work will be reviewed to show their influence on creating digital images worth preserving.

Trusted Digital Repositories
Robin Dale, RLG - Programs, OCLC Office of Programs & Research

This is the age of critical digital mass and critical digital responsibilities. Tens of thousands of books and special collections items are being digitized weekly by Google, the Open Content Alliance, and individual institutional activities. Electronic publishing has increasingly become the dominant choice of publishers, especially for serials. We assume that this digital information will be preserved – most likely in a “repository” -- for the long-term greater good but what assurances do we have about the repositories and their capabilities to meet those assumptions? But with a varied landscape of repositories, it is and will be important to distinguish repositories and archives with not only a mandate (mission) to preserve digital information over the long-term, but the capability to do so. Which repositories should and can be entrusted with the responsibility to preserve digital information on behalf of the collective community?

Over the last six years, a series of efforts have taken place to scope and define trusted (or trustworthy) digital repositories, create tools and mechanisms to help objectively evaluate digital repositories and archives, and develop a process to audit and certify digital repositories. Audit and certification are tools that can be used to document and test repositories’ organizational and technical capabilities. These tools as well as a process for certification have been under development through the RLG-National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Digital Repository Certification Task Force and the Center for Research Libraries (CRL) Auditing and Certification of Digital Archives project. This presentation will discuss criteria development, the upcoming publication of the audit checklist (version 1.0), and envisioned uses of the checklist to help the community identify trusted digital repositories.

Stewardship in the 21st Century
Clifford Lynch, Coalition for Networked Information