besser--colorado longevity & policy 6/29/01 1 digital longevity: problems & policy colorado...

Besser--Colorado Longevity & Policy 6/29/01 1

Digital Longevity:Problems & Policy

Colorado Cultural Heritage Collaboration in the Digital Age

Howard Besser

UCLA School of Education & Information

http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/~howard


Planning to Maximize Longevity of Digital Info-

Access and Preservation The Short Life of Digital Info The Disappearance of an Info Commons Major Issues Facing Digital Projects Pragmatic Issues Projects to Watch Larger Policy Problems


Access and Preservation

_ Digitizing can serve both Access and Preservation– E.g. Access to digital surrogates saves wear & tear on

originals

_ But Digitization for Access can be quite different than Digitization for Preservation– Level of dtail, scanning quality, extensiveness of

rexources

– And long-term retention of digital works is still an open issue


Major Issues Facing Digital Projects

Dangerous Changes in Intellectual Property Law

Intellectual Access Storage Delivery Integration with other tools Interoperability


Serious Longevity Problems

_ What we know from prior widespread digital file formats

_ Images separating from their metadata_ Inaccessibility of software needed to view a

work_ Inability to even decode the file format of a

work


The Short Life of Digital Info: Digital Longevity Problems-

Disappearing Information The Viewing Problem The Scrambling Problem The Inter-relation Problem The Custodial Problem The Translation Problem


The Viewing Problem

Digital Info requires a whole infrastructure to view it

Each piece of that infrastructure is changing at an incredibly rapid rate

How can we ever hope to deal with all the permutations and combinations


The Scrambling Problem

Dangers from: Compression to ease storage & delivery Container Architecture to enhance digital

commerce


The Inter-relation Problem

-Info is increasingly inter-related to other info

-How do we make our own Info persist when it points to and integrates with Info owned by others?

-What is the boundary of a set of information (or even of a digital object)?


The Custodial Problem

In the past, much of survival was due to redundancy

How do we decide what to save? Who should save it?

Mellon-funded E-Journal Archives How should they save it?-


The Custodial Problem:How to save information?

Methods for later accessRefreshingMigrationEmulation

Issues of authenticity and evidence


The Translation Problem

Content translated into new delivery devices changes meaning– -A photo vs. a painting– -If Info is produced originally in digital form in

one encoded format, will it be the same when translated into another format?

– Behaviors


Pieces of the Solution (1/2)

-We need to insist upon clearly readable standardized ways for digital objects to self-identify their formats

-We should discourage scrambling -We need to better understand information

inter-relates to other Info, and what constitutes “boundaries” of Info objects


Pieces of the Solution (2/2)

-People and organizations wishing to make information persist need guidelines of how to go about doing it

-We need to better understand how translating from one storage or display format to another affects the meaning of a work

-We need to save the “behaviors” of a digital object, not just its “contents”


Conceptual Approaches to Digital Preservation

_ Refreshing always necessary due to volatility of physical strata– Impact on evidential value

_ Migration -- advantages & disadvantages_ Emulation -- advantages & disadvantages


Pragmatic Issues

_ Save Metadata!!! (Descriptive, Administrative, Structural, …)

_ Separate master from delivery_ Consistent file-naming conventions_ Good work-flow_ Develop cooperative long-range plans


Metadata can be the first line of defense

Can tell you– where the file is (if you can’t find the file)– where more info about the file is (if you have the

file but most other metadata has become separated)

– what the file format is– what the compression scheme is– what application program and version is needed

for the file


Important Planning Considerations

File Formats Choosing Interoperable Systems Adhere to standards Vendors with large installed base Refreshing and/or Migration


Key Considerations for Imaging Projects

Image Quality– Archival– Current online delivery

Intellectual Property Standards

– Modular and Layered Architecture– Terminology– Technical imaging information


Some nuts-and-boltsPlanning Considerations

Think about users (and potential users), uses, and type of material/collection

Scan at the highest quality that does not exceed the likely potential users/uses/material

Do not let today’s delivery limitations influence your scanning file sizes; understand the difference between digital masters and derivative files used for delivery

Many documents which appear to be bitonal actually are better represented with greyscale scans

Include color bar and ruler in the scan

Use objective measurements to determine scanner settings (do NOT attempt to make the image good on your particular monitor or use image processing to color correct)

Don’t use lossy compression Store in a common (standardized)

file format Capture as much metadata as is

reasonably possiple (including metadata about the scanning process itself)


Projects to Watch-


Groups Working onthe Big Problem

http://sunsite.Berkeley.EDU/Longevity/

CPA Task Force Getty “Time & Bits” Conference & Follow-ups Emulation experiments in US and Europe

NEDLIB, CURL, Michigan

LC- Mellon-funded E-Journal Archive experiments-

Internet Archive Long Now


Library to Lead National Effort to Develop Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (1 of 2)

U.S. Congress Provides $100 Million Special Appropriation in

Support of Project http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2001/01-006.html

_ Response to NAS report LC 21: A Digital Strategy for the Library of Congress_ The Library of Congress has been empowered by the U. S. Congress to develop a

national program to preserve the burgeoning amounts of digital information, especially materials that are created only in digital formats, to ensure their accessibility for current and future generations.

_ "This collaborative strategy will permit the long-term acquisition, storage and preservation of digital materials, that will assure access to the growing electronic historical and cultural record of our nation," said Dr. Billington. "Just as the Congress enabled the Library of Congress to begin the last century by making its printed catalog cards widely available, the Congress has enabled its Library to begin this century by building a digital record and making it available in the information age.”


Library to Lead National Effort to Develop Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (2 of 2)

U.S. Congress Provides $100 Million Special Appropriation in

Support of Project http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2001/01-006.html

_ In December 2000, the 106th Congress appropriated $100 million for this effort, which instructs the Library to spend an initial $25 million to develop and execute a congressionally approved strategic plan for a National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program. Congress specified that, of this amount, $5 million may be spent during the initial phase for planning as well as the acquisition and preservation of digital information that may otherwise vanish.

_ The legislation authorizes as much as $75 million of federal funding to be made available as this amount is matched by nonfederal donations, including in-kind contributions, through March 31, 2003. The effect of a government-wide recission of .22 percent in late December was to reduce this pecial appropriation to $99.8 million.

_ The Library will consult with federal partners to assess joint planning considerations for shared responsibilities. The Library will also seek participation from the nonfederal sector and will execute its overall strategy in cooperation with the library, creative, publishing, technology and copyright communities in this country and abroad.


Larger Policy Problems-

_ Access to Content_ The Tasini Case_ Journal Archiving_ A disappearing Information Commons_ Important Traditions


Access to Contentmajor issues

_ Licensing and the effect on walk-ins_ Authentication systems and granularity_ IP restrictions_ “Best-sellers” will be first digitized and

easiest to obtain


Access to Contentmajor implications

_ Favoring of content that is most easily accessible_ Economics will favor organizations with more

resources for digitizing, metadata creation, aggregation, user interfaces

_ Users will favor particular content sources– won’t search lots of diff sources if can’t use the images

seamlessly

_ Easily accessible info will get used often, while hard to access info will be marginalized


The Tasini Case

_ Publishers may choose not to negotiate with freelancers

_ If so, significant parts of our published heritage will disappear from the electronic formats


Journal Archiving

_ License, don’t own; may not be even able to obtain right to make archival copy

_ Increasingly no paper back-up at all_ Usually we don’t have the important

redundancy factor_ Mellon-funded Journal Archivng Projects-


The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation's e-Journal archiving program (1 of 2)

http://www.diglib.org/preserve/ejp.htm

_ Increasingly scholarly journals are published electronically

_ What will it take to keep them accessible electronically in perpetuity?

_ Can the property rights of publishers, the access responsibilities of libraries, and the reliability assurances that scholars need be reconciled in agreements to create archives of electronic journals?


The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation's e-Journal archiving program (2 of 2)

http://www.diglib.org/preserve/ejp.htm

_ Cornell University, Project Harvest: Developing a repository for e-journals

_ Harvard University, Proposal for a study of electronic journal archiving _ MIT, Planning for an archive of dynamic journals at MIT _ New York Public Library, Archiving performing arts journals: A

planning project _ Stanford University, LOCKSS: A distributed digital archiving system_ University of Pennsylvania, Proposal for a planning grant for archiving

and preservation of electronic journals

_ Yale University, Proposal for a digital preservation collaboration

between Yale University Library and Elsevier Science


Dark Archives


Knowledge Conservancies

_ Tax breaks/incentives (Minnow report & spectrum tax)

_ ALA Rockefeller Initiative_ http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/~howard/Copyright/commons.html


The Disappearance of an Info Commons-

_ Changing Copyright Laws_ The rise in Licensing_ USCITA_ only minimal exemptions for Preservation


Anti-Circumvention & Rule-Making (1/3)

_ Perfectly legal activities (fair use) may be rendered impossible without circumventing technical protection mechanisms

_ DMCA makes circumvention of these protection mechanisms illegal



_ DMCA compromise required Rulemaking by Lof C as to which circumvention measures should be allowed

– Concern from library and other communities that circumventing protection mechanisms to engage in perfectly legal acts (like fair use and preservation) would make them subject to criminal penalties

_ House Bill Section 1201(a).– No person shall circumvent a technological protection measure that effectively controls

access to a work protected under this title.

_ “While sounding innocuous, what the provision does is create a brand new and unlimited right to control access to copyrighted works. If enacted into law, this new right could bypass the carefully crafted balance between exclusive rights of ownership and public access to works for educational, scholarly, and scientific purposes, which has been part of copyright law for the entire 20th Century. In short, it could eliminate fair use from copyright law.” (John Hammer, National Humanities Alliance, 6/5/98)



_ On 10/28/00, Lof C ruled that the following should be exempted until 10/28/03:– Compilations consisting of lists of websites blocked by filtering software

applications; and

– Literary works, including computer programs and databases, protected by access control mechanisms that fail to permit access because of malfunction, damage or obsolescence.

_ Immediate responses of outrage from librarians, consumer protection groups, digital divide groups, etc.-


Important Traditions

_ A robust public domain_ Fair Use_ First Sale


One Final Question:Who will collect the digital works of

today that should become the Special Collections of tomorrow?

_ web sites_ zines_ electronic journals_ listserve and email discussions_ drafts of works that later become famous


Howard Besser

UCLA School of Education & Information

http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Longevity/_ http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/~howard/Copyright/commons.html_ http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/~howard/Copyright/

http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/~howard http://lockss.stanford.edu http://www.longnow.com/10klibrary/TimeBitsDisc/ http://www.archive.org/

Digital Longevity:Problems & Policy

Colorado Cultural Heritage Collaboration in the Digital Age


Outrage at Anti-Circumvention Rulemaking DecisionDigital Future Coalition 10/26/00 press release

_ “Unfortunately, today’s decision took 70 pages to essentially say that few persons may ever circumvent a technological protection measure — even to gain access to a work solely for legitimate noncommercial purposes.”

_ “Once again, content owners have successfully promoted their own narrow financial interests over the broader public interest in preserving consumer access to literary, scientific, and other works,”

_ “deep disappointment that content owners effectively had been given a green light to use technological protection measures to lock up access to copyrighted works.”


Outrage at Anti-Circumvention Rulemaking Decision

American Library Assn ALAWON 9:85, October 26, 2000

_ “The Librarian of Congress James Billington has ruled against the American public and library users by negating fair use in the digital arena..”

_ “Because of this decision users of digital information will have fewer rights and opportunities than users of print information. In fact, the pay-for-use scenario that librarians have feared appears to have now become a reality with this rule.”

_ "The Copyright Office has issued a misguided ruling taking away from students, researchers, teachers and librarians the long standing basic right of ‘fair use’ to our Nation's digital resources," said Nancy Kranich, ALA president. "All library users will be impacted."


Outrage at Anti-Circumvention Rulemaking Decision

Congressman Rick Boucher October 27, 2000 press release

_ “I regret the decision of the Librarian of Congress, acting upon the recommendation of the Register of Copyrights, to reject the recommendations of the Administration, concerned Members of Congress, universities and libraries in announcing a decision that does not protect traditional fair use rights. This disappointing decision has moved our Nation one step closer to a "pay-per-use" society that threatens to advance the narrow interests of copyright owners over the broader public interest of information consumers.”

_ “In crafting section 1201(a)(1) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Congress sought to preserve the principle of "fair use" that has served our Nation so well for more than a century. Unfortunately, based on the advice of the Register of Copyrights, the Librarian of Congress today announced his decision to limit the ability of ordinary consumers in most cases to circumvent electronic security measures for the purpose of exercising their non-infringing fair use rights. Consequently, any person who circumvents a technological protection measure to gain access to information to which he has a fair use right will be guilty of a crime. ”


Concern about Anti-Circumvention Rulemaking

DecisionUS Dept of Commerce National Telecommunications and

Information Administration (NTIA) 9/29/00 letter to Copyright Office from Gregory L. Rohde_ “NTIA believes that implementation of far-reaching access control

technologies without carefully drawn exemptions would not only invert 200 years of judicial interpretation regarding the scope of protections given to copyright holders, but also eviscerate individual scholarship and the notion of free inquiry. NTIA’s immediate concern is the very one envisioned by the Commerce Committee when it warned of the development of a legal framework that would inexorably create a pay-per-use society.”


Dangers_ Eliminating a public domain of information_ Controlling social/political commentary, satire,

creation of new derivative works/recombinant works-_ Criminalizing acts that might possibly impede digital

commerce_ Making sure that the Internet is used only for info

consumption, not production_ Controlling access to older info (controlling history)

besser--colorado longevity & policy 6/29/01 1 digital longevity: problems & policy colorado...

Documents