29 January 2009 Ex Libris Digital Preservation System session

A long overdue blog post indeed. ha ha. That is what you get when you have too many 'To do' lists. 

I have cut down by jumping from and to:

[a] Post-It notes (2006-07). However, i found myself doubling up and ignoring them when once the stickiness lackluster and fallen off to oblivion, preferably the floor and sucked up by the vacuum.

[b]  Created memo on mobile phone (2006-08). Yet I was unable to get it sort alphabetically or by priority on some hand sets. Also I tend to delete out of frustration.

[c] Emailed myself notes (2006-09) and ended up with lots of emails. Heaps of information which had no where to go and was shared at a delayed time frame. Now I move them to blogs and Twitter.

[d] I now sync everything that is a 'To do' thing onto my Google calendar. 

One of those 'To do' thing was clear out 'notes of thoughts' from events especially related to work.

29 January 2009 

Ex Libris' digital preservation system session @ SLV. 

Topic by Yaniv Levi, Ex Libris DSPS Product manager.

To store a digital file is more than saving onto an external hard drive in libraries.

To make it available online for eternity is a big challenge. There are heaps of criteria that ensues, such as mechanism used, embrace open language or classic choice coding that costs, how to link meta data so that it stays with the digital file. Before you get too cosy about how you want things stored, you need to consider retrieving methods and can the formatted data be transfered over to newer platforms in the near future.  The dilemma is can an ideal electronic architecture for archiving purpose be made workable in software programs. Ex Libris has attempted this with their product called 'digital preservation system' with the help of development partners, peer social interaction, based on international standards, and research & collaboration. 

In the session, they used National Library of New Zealand in regards to legal deposits and function specialisation to demonstrate 'digital preservation system' . There were points made about acquiring, authenticity, validating, storage, disseminate, manual assurance of digital born material against physical material scanned into the system. They mentioned use of SIP protocol to share access between devices and use of cloud computing for storage, especially small libraries with limited space capacity, and the risk in depending on cloud computing servers. 

The product looks well thought out and put together. Not that I have tested it or seen how a digital file was retrieved via DPS. It was an overall interesting session. I never thought about log files to go with my photographs I normally upload online. So I guess, a lot of meta data such as caption and tags that once went with the photograph is lost on cyberspace and not archived. So when people go to download my photograph they will not get the meta data that was added onto it. Curious. Maybe it ain't no big deal on an individual level but that is information libraries want to be able to retain for future and futures onward.