RE: [-empyre-] authenticity - web content
Margaret,
I'm not a technician either, but here are some conclusions I've reached
about authentic reproduction, in particular in a web environment. This
environment is particularly interesting as the web content is specifically
designed to be transmitted through time and space to be rendered on a
platform other than the one it was created on. I would think the same rules
apply in a non-web environment, however there may be fewer standards or the
standards there are may be less broad in their adoption and so more
problematic from the perspective of determining how authentic a reproduction
is being generated.
That the web works as well as it does may be largely due to the standards
put in place by the WWW Corporation (whose site is worth a visit if you
haven't already been - http://www.w3c.org/). In particular the HTML
standard which provides codes that are to be interpreted by different
browsers in the same way. W3C also provides principles for good web design
which take into account both standard and non-standard browsing platforms
(see particularly the Web Accessibility Initiative - WAI - guidelines).
Obviously there is no direct penalty for not adhering to the standard or
principles but there are significant advantages if what one is seeking to
reach the greatest possible number of viewers.
What is frequently left out of the pot though is what might be referred to
as a target platform, i.e., "This web page is designed to be accessed using
MS Internet Explorer v. 5 on a standard PC with a 17" color monitor". This
might be enough in most cases. But there are a considerable number of
standards that can provide other information to support authentic
reproduction. For example, I was amazed to learn that there are apparently
no less than nine ways to represent colors using HTML attributes and
Cascading Style Sheets (http://www.december.com/html/spec/colordef.html) and
no browser supports them all. Standard or generic file formats are also
relevant here (e.g., jpegs) as they can be presumed to render correctly,
within their limitations, using standard application software. Now that
one can access the web using a cell phone, for example, without telling the
user what an optimal viewing platform is the user has no way of knowing
whether what is being seen is correct or complete.
So besides alerting the user to the kind of content that might appear on the
web, it may also be helpful (necessary) to communicate something of what the
user should expect, for example, whether plug-in applications will be
required to properly render the content or not. The Museum of Web Art
(http://www.mowa.org/home.html) is a really interesting site for a variety
of reasons, but one of the things I like about it is it states up front the
requirements for each work one looks at. Now this presumes that one knows
one's own platform well enough to know whether all those components are
there, but at least one has a place to start if you're not sure.
So this all supposes that the creator has very dutifully left good
information on how to properly render the content in the first place. What
happens when this isn't the case? I would look to the time of creation and
discover what I could about the most common browser, technology platform,
softwares used, and security of the underlying files and make an estimate.
And it would be incumbent on me to communicate that this was an estimate.
The best technical description of web content and capturing web content that
I've read is Filip Boudrez' and Sophie Van den Eynde's "Archiving Websites"
(http://www.antwerpen.be/david/website/teksten/Rapporten/Report5.pdf).
Jim
P.S. Sorry for the late response - and in particular if I'm going over
ground that someone else has already covered. I'm just back on my feet
after a nasty bout with the flu and so wildly behind on the emails.
-----Original Message-----
From: Margaret Phillips [mailto:mphillips@nla.gov.au]
Sent: February 8, 2005 6:34 PM
To: empyre@gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au
Subject: RE: [-empyre-] authenticity
Luciana
I'm interested in your statement one message back:
Now, when the
software-hardware environment in which the object is generated and or
kept
begins to become obsolete, we upgrade it. This means that we are
changing
the bit-stream of the object, much of its form, and much of the
information
linked to the object.
I'm not a technician and am often struggling with this, but what I had
understood from listening to various people talk on this subject is that
we can fairly easily preserve/maintain the bit-stream, but that
rendering it authentically is the problem. Would you please comment
further on this?
Thanks everyone for the fabulous discussion. I'm alternatively moved,
inspired and challenged as the morning progresses.
Margaret
Margaret E Phillips
Director Digital Archiving
National Library of Australia
email: mphillips@nla.gov.au
phone: + 61 2 6262 1140
fax: + 61 2 6273 4322
-----Original Message-----
From: empyre-bounces@gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au
[mailto:empyre-bounces@gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au] On Behalf Of Luciana
Duranti
Sent: Wednesday, 9 February 2005 10:18 AM
To: soft_skinned_space
Subject: RE: [-empyre-] authenticity
Paul:
Preservation of authenticity does not mean preservation of the original.
The original (i.e. the first complete instantiation of an entity that
reached its purposes) disappears in the digital environment the first
time
it is saved. What we retrieve is a copy. We cannot preserve digital
entities. We can only preserve the ability to reproduce them over and
over
again. In this context, a preserved digital entity is considered
authentic
if it can be considered to be or, better, declared to be, an authentic
copy
by the preserver who would attest to its identity and integrity when
first
acquired and document the process of preservation (including any
migration
and its consequences on form and content) afterwards. In other words,
with
traditional media, authenticity was established on the object itself, so
the preserver did not need to be concerned because any user could
analyze
the object and reach conclusions about its authenticity. With digital
media, what the user needs to scrutinize is the authority and capacity
(competence) of the preserver, and the documentation of the preservation
process.
As to why we need to know that something is authentic, well, all
researcher
want to know whether they can trust their sources, and any spectator
wants
to know whether is looking at the real thing or some forgery, imitation,
or
surrogate. Besides, don't authors want to be given credit for what they
actually created rather than some bad imitation?
As on whether this is a selection issue, I would say that it is a
creation,
selection and preservation issue. If the chain is broken at any one
point,
authenticity is no longer there. It is a selection issue in the measure
in
which, when one select what to acquire, one has to be sure of its
identity
and can establish its degree of integrity and document it.
Luciana
At 09:29 AM 09/02/2005 +1100, you wrote:
>While I agree that authenticity and integrity over time is absolutely
>what we strive for in our preservation strategies, I'm not sure this is
>a "selection" issue. I mean, if our ability to ensure the absolute
>authenticity or integrity of an item is uncertain would we then make a
>decision not select something for preservation? Shouldn't we select on
>merit, as we see it and do the best preservation effort we can? This is
>partly what we tried to get to the nub of at the NLA when we beat our
>heads together trying to determine the significant properties of items.
>Basically we were left saying we need to preserve the entity in as
>authentic manner possible. But if that is not completely possible at
>least we can record and maintain the preservation metadata to declare
>the provenence of the item; that is, what has been done to the item
over
>time in order to preserve it. It may not be the authentic original but
>it may still be very useful and provided the preservation actions taken
>are documentated and delcared, this is still, to my mind, a valid
>preservation strategy.
>
>Paul
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: empyre-bounces@gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>[mailto:empyre-bounces@gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au] On Behalf Of Luciana
>Duranti
>Sent: Wednesday, 9 February 2005 7:12 AM
>To: soft_skinned_space
>Subject: Re: [-empyre-] authenticity was Who decides and what to
>preserve
>
>
>At 01:25 PM 08/02/2005 -0600, you wrote:
> >On Feb 8, 2005, at 10:14 AM, Luciana Duranti wrote:
> >> >3) selection must keep into account authenticity, which is often
>lost
> >> through >transmission through time and space. Much of what ends up
> >> preserved in digital >form is not the authentic output of the
>creator,
> >> and does not have identity and >integrity
> >
> >i am very curious about this issue of authenticity...
> >
> >are you referring to work that does not originate in a digital form
but
>
> >begins as analog or physical material, is transcoded to digital +
>thereby
> >loses authenticity, i.e. through this process itself, or unintended
> >results, or cultural uses, or aesthetic shifts, or technical
>constraints,
> >etc...?
>
>I am referring to born digital material.
>
> >also, how does transmission result in a loss of identity [+/or]
>undermine
> >integrity?
>
>transmission across space often alters the documentary form of the
>material, which does not look to the recipient the same way as it did
to
>
>the sender. When form is much of the substance, as it usually is in the
>arts, this is a problem because the received object is not what it
>purports
>to be. Transmission through time--preservation in other words--is a
>bigger
>problem. Every time we save a digital object we break it down in its
>digital components. Every time we retrieve it, we generate a
>reproduction
>of the original object that is always slightly different. Now, when the
>software-hardware environment in which the object is generated and or
>kept
>begins to become obsolete, we upgrade it. This means that we are
>changing
>the bit-stream of the object, much of its form, and much of the
>information
>linked to the object. Thus, the object risks losing its integrity (it
is
>no
>longer intact and the changes may have altered its meaning) and its
>identity, as demonstrated by its attributes (which might be expressed
in
>
>elements present in the form of the object or in metadata linked to the
>object) may be lost with the lost elements of form or lost links.
Unless
>
>the creator produces an object according to certain requirements that
>protect it, the risk of loss of authenticity is very high. And, from a
>legal point of view, if anybody is interested in copyright (which,
>remember, is always linked to form), even if the author recognizes
>something as its own, it is not authentic if he or she cannot
>demonstrate it.
>
>I cannot think now of examples in the arts, but I do have an example in
>government. When the Canadian army in Somalia was accused of abuse, the
>Commission of Inquiry scrutinized the messaging system of the
>headquarters
>of the Defense. The Commission could not find any evidence from the
>records
>in the system that abuse had been going on in Somalia, and it did not
>find
>evidence that the messaging system had been tampered with, but it could
>not
>find any evidence that the system had not been tampered with, so it was
>not
>able to clear the accused.
>
>InterPARES has many artists involved in its research because the
concern
>
>about authenticity is a very real one, especially authenticity over the
>long term, and we are developing parameters for each of the disciplines
>involved that help creators to generate things whose authenticity can
be
>
>proven over time, to maintain them, and to provide preservers with the
>documentation that will support the verification of authenticity at any
>given time in the future,
>
>If this is unclear, please, ask again,
>
>Luciana
>
>
>
>Luciana Duranti
>Chair and Professor, Archival Studies
>Director, InterPARES Project
>School of Library, Archival and Information Studies
>The University of British Columbia
>Suite 301 - 6190 Agronomy Road
>Vancouver, B.C.V6T 1Z3 Canada
>Tel. 604/822-2587
>FAX 604/822-6006
>www.interpares.org
>www.slais.ubc.ca/people/faculty/
>
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>empyre forum
>empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>
>_______________________________________________
>empyre forum
>empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>http://www.subtle.net/empyre
Luciana Duranti
Chair and Professor, Archival Studies
Director, InterPARES Project
School of Library, Archival and Information Studies
The University of British Columbia
Suite 301 - 6190 Agronomy Road
Vancouver, B.C.V6T 1Z3 Canada
Tel. 604/822-2587
FAX 604/822-6006
www.interpares.org
www.slais.ubc.ca/people/faculty/
_______________________________________________
empyre forum
empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
http://www.subtle.net/empyre
_______________________________________________
empyre forum
empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
http://www.subtle.net/empyre
This archive was generated by a fusion of
Pipermail 0.09 (Mailman edition) and
MHonArc 2.6.8.