An earlier posting publicised the forthcoming DELOS conference
in Portugal. Other European initiatives which may be of interest
are the DLF-Forum for electronic records and Info2000. Details
of these projects below.
Within the UK there is currently a research programme of seven
studies examining different aspects of digital preservation,
which is being co-ordinated by the National Preservation Office.
One of them by Seamus Ross and other members of the Humanities
Advanced Technology and Information Institute at Glasgow
University has examined the Post-Hoc Rescue of Digital
Materials- a topic touched on in the discussion. Case studies
used in the report include the Challenger Space Shuttle tape
data recovery, the East German Central State Archives, Hurricane
Marilyn, and Archives of Ontario.
Another study by the AHDS Executive has been preparing a
strategic policy framework and implementation guidance for the
creation and preservation of digital resources.The framework and
the implementation guidance have been based on interviews with
representatives of organisations which have a major stake
in the creation or long-term maintenance of digital research and
on an extensive literature survey. Institutions interviewed included
a selection of international libraries, museums, archives,
scientific and other academic data archives. Details of the Open
Archival Information System (OAIS) being developed by the earth
observation and space communities are included below as an
example of one project covered in the interviews.
A consultation draft of the study by AHDS will be made available
on the web at the beginning of April. We would welcome input and
comment from members of the list I will post the url to
timeandbits once the study report is up.
Neil
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DLM-FORUM Electronic Records
<http://www.echo.lu/dlm/en/home.html>
The European Commission organises " a multidisciplinary Forum to be held in the framework of the Community on the problems of
the management, storage, conservation and retrieval of machine-readable data, inviting public administrations and national arc hives
services, as well as representatives of industry and of research, to take part in the Forum". Proceeding of the DLF-FORUM in
December 1996 are available in hard-copy published format (European Commission 1997a) or can be downloaded as PDF files from
<http://www.echo.lu/dlm/en/proc-index.html. An updated and enlarged edition of the Guidelines on best practices for using
electronic information prepared for the conference is also now available as a hard-copy publication (European Commission 1997 b).
International Standards Organisation (ISO), Open Archival Information (OAIS) Standard
<http://bolero.gsfc.nasa.gov/nost/isoas/overview.html >
ISO is working to develop standards for the long-term preservation of digital information obtained from observations of the terrestrial
and space environments and which could also apply to other long-term digital archives. ISO aims to provide a framework and
common terminology that may be used by Government and Commercial sectors in the request and provision of digital archive
services. Working papers and drafts (White Books) of the Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System are available
on the web and can be downloaded by ftp.
Information 2000- OII Service
<http://www2.echo.lu/oii/en/oii-info.html>
The Open Information Interchange (OII) Service started as part of the European Commission DG XIII's IMPACT 2 programme and is
continuing under INFO 2000, the Commission's multi-annual programme for stimulating the development of the European multimedia
content industry and encouraging the use of multimedia content in the emerging information society. The focus point of the OII
initiative is the comprehensive listing of published standards provided in the OII Standards and Specifications List <http:/
/www2.echo.lu/oii/en/oiistand.html#oiistand/. This list is wide-ranging and a valuable pointer to: sectoral standards for museum
information, library information, archiving, etc; electronic commerce; data coding; communications; and related areas. The list is
complemented by a series of OII Guides, the OII Fora List, reports and a comprehensive index.
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Neil Beagrie
Collections and Standards Officer
The Executive
Arts and Humanities Data Service
King's College London
Strand, London WC2R 2LS, UK
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