DPC

The National Library of Ireland is the latest organisation to join the Digital Preservation Coalition, helping the Library to address the challenges and opportunities associated with long term management of digital collections.

The DPC has today published a response to the second phase of consultation on electronic legal deposit which was submitted to the Department for Culture Media and Sport at the end of December. It notes the essential relationship between preservation and access.

DPC Response to Second Consultation on Legal Deposit (December 2010)

The DPC has responded to the second phase of consultation on Electronic Legal Deposit noting the essential relationship between preservation and access. We note and welcome the proposal that extend legal deposit to include charged content as well as content to which access is restricted. This will create the conditions where a more rounded and more valuable national archive can be created.

Experience in digital preservation shows that normalization and adherence to standards in the creation of digital resources are advantageous to long term access. Therefore we have some questions pertaining to the practicality of provisions regarding deposit of materials, in particular those regulations that leave the medium and quality of electronic deposits at the discretion of publishers, and those regulations that pertain to adapting content for preservation. If poorly implemented, these provisions could have the inadvertent result of making preservation intractable or excessively complicated.

We recognise that recommendations from the DPC are best focussed on those topics where we can offer specialist commentary. Therefore it is not our intention to provide a detailed scrutiny of each element of these regulations. However it is our view that preservation is only sensible within the context of access, and that preservation should be configured around the impact that comes with access. Therefore we have commented on a small number of access issues that we believe have a bearing on the case for preservation.

In January 2010 the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) consulted on draft regulations for the legal deposit of ‘free of charge’ electronic publications – the ‘free web’.  This consultation was intended to be the first part of a two part process and the DPC responded arguing inter alia that the second phase of proposals be presented without delay as arguably the ‘paid web’ includes material of lasting value and that until regulations were introduced this element of our collected digital memory would be at risk. 

 In September DCMS published a paper for the second phase of the consultation process.  The regulations discussed this time apply to a much broader range of material including publications for which there is a charge, publications which are subject to access restrictions and material compiled by queries from databases.  It excludes sound and film recordings and unpublished material.

Details of this consultation are available online at: http://www.culture.gov.uk/images/publications/Cons-non-print-legal-deposit-2011.pdf 

The draft regulations to which the consultation applies are online at: http://www.culture.gov.uk/images/publications/draft-regulations-legaldeposit-nonprint-publications.pdf

Full text of the DPC response is available here. [pdf, 340KB]

The Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) is delighted to welcome the UK LOCKSS Alliance as its latest associate member.

The UK LOCKSS Alliance is a co-operative organization which ensures continuing access to scholarly work over the long term.  Its focus is on ensuring preservation and continuing access to electronic journals, but has interests and current research work on the preservation of all library collections, thus making it a natural fit within the DPC family.

Appropriate and timely examination of the digital preservation plans of digitization projects can have a lasting impact.  Projects may not know or understand the risks they run. Simple assessment can help them identify and address these risks sooner rather than later.

Appropriate and timely examination of the digital preservation plans of digitization projects can have a lasting impact. Projects may not know or understand the risks they run. Simple assessment can help them identify and address these risks sooner rather than later.

Digitization projects often - and sensibly - start by establishing and meeting the needs of a modern user community and are mostly funded over a short term. But the outputs from digitization projects are likely to be valuable in the long term, so how can we take steps to make the outputs of digitization robust in the long term? This case note reports some work undertaken by the University of London Computer Centre in assessing the long term plans of 16 digitization projects, providing a basic survey tool to help funders and project managers alike to relfect on the long term preservation plans.

Comments are sought on the DPC's draft response to the DCMS's consultation on the regulations for Legal Deposit of electronic materials.  The draft response is online at: http://www.dpconline.org/advocacy/direct-advocacy/dpc-response-to-electronic-legal-deposit [pdf, login required] Comments are requested by Monday 13th December. 

In January 2010 the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) consulted on draft regulations for the legal deposit of ‘free of charge’ electronic publications – the ‘free web’.  This consultation was intended to be the first part of a two part process and the DPC responded arguing inter alia that the second phase of proposals be presented without delay as arguably the ‘paid web’ includes material of lasting value and that until regulations were introduced this element of our collected digital memory would be at risk. 

Introduction

A free seminar to explore and examine the use of JPEG 2000 in the cultural heritage industry was held at the Wellcome Trust. The seminar included specific case studies of JPEG 2000 use. It examined technical issues that have an impact on practical implementation of the format, and explored the context of how and why organisations have chosen to use JPEG 2000. Although the seminar had an emphasis on digitisation and digital libraries, the papers are relevent to a range of research and creative industries. Places were limited to 80 attendees and papers are now available online. 

Christy Henshaw of the Wellcome Library has written a short report of the event.

This event was hosted by the JPEG 2000 Implementation Working Group and the Wellcome Library with assistance from the DPC. 

Programme and Presentations

09:00  Registration, coffee

10:00 Welcome and Introduction Christy Henshaw Chair of JP2K-UK and Simon Chaplin, Wellcome Library, 

Morning session Chair: William Kilbride, Executive Director, Digital Preservation Coalition

10:10 What did JPEG 2000 ever do for us? [pdf] Simon Tanner, Director, Kings Digital Consultancy Service

10:40 JPEG 2000 standardization - a pragmatic viewpoint [pdf] Richard Clark, UK head of delegation to JPEG and MD of Elysium Ltd.

11:10 JPEG 2000 profiles Three short presentations moderated by Sean Martin, Head of Architecture and Development, British Library

(see also chart comparing different profiles from institutions [pdf])

-Sean Martin, British Library JPEG 2000 profile [pdf]

-Christy Henshaw, Wellcome Library JPEG 2000 profile [link]

-Bedřich Vychodil, JPEG 2000 Specification of the National Library of the Czech Republic [pdf]

12:10 IIPImage and OldMapsOnline Petr Zabicka, Head of R&D, Moravian Library, Czech Republic

12:40 LUNCH

Early afternoon session Chair: Simon Tanner, Director, Kings Digital Consultancy Service

13:40 JP2K for preservation and access, experiences from the National Library of Norway [pdf] Svein Arne Brygfjeld, National Library of Norway

14:10 Practical usage of JP2 files with presentational web interface [link] Sasa Mutic, General Director, Geneza and Ivo Iossiger, General Director, 4DigitalBooks, Switzerland

14:40 JPEG 2000 for long-term preservation in practice: problems, challenges and possible solutions [pdf] Johan van der Knijff, Koninklijke Bibliotheek (NL)

15:10 Coffee

Late afternoon session Chair: Dave Thompson, Digital Curator, The Wellcome Librray 

15:40 Delivering High-Resolution JPEG2000 Images and Documents over the Internet [pdf] Gary Hodkinson, MD of Luratech Ltd.

16:10 Pros and Cons of JPEG 2000 for video archiving Katty Van Mele, IntoPIX

16:40 Questions and discussion Moderated by Ben Gilbert, Photographer, Wellcome Library

17:10 Concluding remarks

(Programme as a PDF)