RE: [-empyre-] archiving

["Paul Koerbin" <pkoerbin@nla.gov.au>]

Jason

I would not characterise our approach as feeling more comfortable with
archiving free software or open source codecs. Obviously, the more open
the software and codecs are the less  risk there would be for long term
access, since we would be more able to apply preservation processes by
migrating or emulating when and if that becomes necessary. The point I
would make is that such consideration does not affect our selection for
preservation. The first processes of preservation (for us) include
identification and selection and then acquiring the files and these all
require timely action. Our experience in the NLA is that this approach -
i.e. identifying and selection resources irrespective of whether we can
currently deal with all the preservation risks or indeed even
successfully harvest them - is that this proved impetus to our own work
in trying to contribute to solutions to these issues. It is after all a
major risk not to take those basic initial preservation actions on the
basis that there might be problems down the track. Certainly we need to
identify those potential problems and take what action we can to address
them - and that was certainly a purpose behind the risk analysis we
undertook of our digital collections.

Your suggestion about recording audio-visual content from the screen I
don't think is daft. I seem to recall we contemplated this at one stage,
some years ago, with Real Media files but did not get very far with it.
The problem for us would be the practicality of this sort of approach
unless there was efficient technology to do it and manage the output. It
may well be the sort of thing that creators - who have a special
interest in their work - could do to facilitate preservation. I don't
know. I'm not aware of the technology to do this. A constant battle for
us is to improve our workflows and archiving systems to automate a much
as we can in order to effectively increase the scale of archiving. As it
is our work is labour intensive and introducing what may be more labour
intensive processes now to over come future problems (that we are not
sure how they are going manifest) is problematic. 

Paul



-----Original Message-----
From: empyre-bounces@gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au
[mailto:empyre-bounces@gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au] On Behalf Of adam
Sent: Saturday, 5 February 2005 11:23 AM
To: soft_skinned_space
Subject: RE: [-empyre-] archiving


I was thinking on this issue of codecs and archiving and I ahve another
short question for you Paul (or anyone that wishes to chime in).

Do you feel more comfortable about the possibiltiies of archiving 'free
software/open source' codecs (with regard to your comments abotu the
difficulties preserving content archived in proprietary codecs).

Also, would it be a daft idea to preserve such materials not by getting
the original source materials from authors but my recording the entire
screen from a PC when replaying the content, to tape? I mention this as
much of the audio and video content is :
1. intended to be embeded
2. made for a certain screen size
3. plays with the artifacts of codecs in its aesthetic
4. encoded in bitrates to reflect the bandwidth availability of our time

perserving to tape would maintain the environment and context that the
time based material was intended to be viewed in, whereas going to the
original source material does not.

adam



On Fri, 4 Feb 2005, EAF Director wrote:

> >One of the benefits of having a 'sentient' process is that strategies
> >for preservation could be implemented on a case-by-case basis as the
> >time and needs arrive. Something that I'm sure PANDORA has
considered,
> >and I'd be very interested in hearing about more, are the ideas
around
> >not only the archiving the Internet, but how the systems of media are
to
> >be made available in 100, or 500 years time when we can only guess
the
> >relationship of user to digital networked media will be entirely
> >different.
>
> Isn't it strange that  the only reliable medium in image archiving
> and preservation
> (and especially if you expect your image to last for more than 500
> years) is Microfilm?
> Not very digital, I know, but taking into consideration the meager 15
> - 20 year life span of  CDs, DVDs, and the other carriers of
> information, makes one one think twice about the concept of the
> technologically outdated.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Melentie
>
> --
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Adam Hyde
~/.nz

r a d i o q u a l i a
http://www.radioqualia.net
Free as in 'media'

contact:
email : adam@xs4all.nl
phone : +64 21 1746 741 (new zealand mobile)


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