This is a bit of an older story, but I was reading over this news story recently and it struck a nerve with the archivist in me, particularly since it's similar to the topic I was writing for my archiving class essay.
When looking at digital archiving, it's always surprised me how much digital records get dismissed as not being "real" records; it somehow seems many people feel the same way, since the White House for awhile successfully carried out a program of deleting e-mails because digital content is supposedly inherently unarchival. (See articles on "Armstrong v. Executive of the President" to get an idea of how a couple of administrations almost made it practice to completely discard all e-mail.) It makes me wonder, now that we're moving into a digital culture, just how much material is going to be lost forever because no one thinks it's worth saving.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Friday, November 2, 2007
Analysis: DSpace for use in an Archives
For my software evaluation, I've chosen to evaluate the possibility of using DSpace in an archives organization. My conclusion is somewhat wordy here, but I thought providing some background information would be valuable. DSpace is a digital "archiving" repository (the quotes will be significant later) whose primary purposes are to preserve digital content and to make content accessible, primarily over the internet.
Unfortunately, however, I've found a few snags concerning the use of DSpace in an archives specifically. Although it's often called a digital archives tool, it's actually meant for published works; it's only archival in the sense of "self-archiving." As a result it's missing a number of features that would be important for an archives by the professional definition, such as the ability to restrict specific records. (The only proposed solution to this I've seen is to create separate public and private databases, which seems inconvenient, and which would prevent storing all documents from a series in the same database.) Similarly, it doesn't appear to support RAD notation out of the box, although this can be added with some work. DSpace's public presentation is designed to be customizeable. In general, because DSpace is open-source, even outright non-existent features such as restricting files could be added; this would significantly add to the cost of adoption, however, and it's difficult to estimate how much this might cost.
Otherwise, however, its cost is likely not to be too significant. It is designed for Unix-like operating systems, and Linux, the most popular Unix-like, is very common as a server operating system; similarly, the other software on which DSpace is built, such as Apache, is also common and well-docuented. An archives' IT staff is likely to already be supporting Apache on Linux or a BSD, minimizing the cost of adding a new server with the same base software. This is somewhat complicated by the lack of commercial support for DSpace, however, which may require training IT staff for it.
DSpace's preservation support is likely its most valuable feature; I won't go into it in detail here, but put simply it can perform automatic migration of data formats provided that the data is in a standard format. This alone would make DSpace adoption worthwhile. Its other primary feature is its public presentation of data. Archives websites are somewhat of a wild west at the moment, and public availability of archival holdings is spotty at best. DSpace could make it possible for archives to make the majority of their holdings publicly available. These features make it worthwhile to do a more thorough cost analysis of making up for these missing features; if possible within the budget, adopting DSpace could be a major benefit to an archives.
Unfortunately, however, I've found a few snags concerning the use of DSpace in an archives specifically. Although it's often called a digital archives tool, it's actually meant for published works; it's only archival in the sense of "self-archiving." As a result it's missing a number of features that would be important for an archives by the professional definition, such as the ability to restrict specific records. (The only proposed solution to this I've seen is to create separate public and private databases, which seems inconvenient, and which would prevent storing all documents from a series in the same database.) Similarly, it doesn't appear to support RAD notation out of the box, although this can be added with some work. DSpace's public presentation is designed to be customizeable. In general, because DSpace is open-source, even outright non-existent features such as restricting files could be added; this would significantly add to the cost of adoption, however, and it's difficult to estimate how much this might cost.
Otherwise, however, its cost is likely not to be too significant. It is designed for Unix-like operating systems, and Linux, the most popular Unix-like, is very common as a server operating system; similarly, the other software on which DSpace is built, such as Apache, is also common and well-docuented. An archives' IT staff is likely to already be supporting Apache on Linux or a BSD, minimizing the cost of adding a new server with the same base software. This is somewhat complicated by the lack of commercial support for DSpace, however, which may require training IT staff for it.
DSpace's preservation support is likely its most valuable feature; I won't go into it in detail here, but put simply it can perform automatic migration of data formats provided that the data is in a standard format. This alone would make DSpace adoption worthwhile. Its other primary feature is its public presentation of data. Archives websites are somewhat of a wild west at the moment, and public availability of archival holdings is spotty at best. DSpace could make it possible for archives to make the majority of their holdings publicly available. These features make it worthwhile to do a more thorough cost analysis of making up for these missing features; if possible within the budget, adopting DSpace could be a major benefit to an archives.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Library 2.0
I have abandoned you, my notebook! I apologize sincerely to my readers (I assume there must be at least two), and I'll try not to leave things quite this long in the future.
I was overall interested to read the assigned article. As a student in the archives stream, I was largely unaware of the "Library 2.0" concept until I began studying here at UofT; the needs of archives are very different from the needs of libraries, because the dynamic between the organization and its patrons is extremely different. Regardless, I'm familiar enough with the ways that libraries operate, as oulined briefly in the article, to be able to get an impression of the very significantly different methods of offering services being suggested.
To my mind, perhaps the most interesting thing the article suggests is the possibility for integration of the library's resources into the other web resources a user might try to access. In my experience, most users looking for information on the web aren't looking explicitly for a particular resource of information when they search Google or other services; someone doesn't look for something on Google because the information is on Google itself, but because "all" information can be accessed through Google. (The fact that many users type URLs into Google seems to back this up.) More than anything else, making the library's resources accessible to the user through the same ways they look for other information takes the library's holdings out of the separate ghetto in which it exists now and brings it into the context of "global" information.
The idea of a collaborative library, which can interact with its users, is related to this last point to an extent, at least in that it also involves the use of Web 2.0 technology. A blog where libraries can openly discuss collections policies with users, or take suggestions for future holdings, seems as though it could significantly alter the way that people think about library holdings - I suspect that to many people, collections policies must seem like some sort of mysterious black box. I would have liked to hear more about this sort of an idea, even if I find it likely to be used only by the most dedicated bibliophiles. Similarly, I would have liked to read more about the ideas of how libraries could collaborate on item descriptions and the like.
I am a bit concerned the the article confuses its description of Web 2.0; two somewhat overlapping but distinct descriptions of Web 2.0 are given, once as a set of remote backend technologies accessed through flexible and combinable APIs, and later as a social technology - without a clear connection between the two. Both aspects are important to the concept of Library 2.0, but I would have appreciated a bit more of a clear definition of the interrelationship of these aspects. Similarly, it glosses over a few potential disadvantages of its suggestions, like the dangers of relying on third-party APIs and services that aren't under the library's control; the article is brief enough, however, that I don't feel it was intended as a detailed concept of Library 2.0.
Despite this somewhat unfocused impression of Library 2.0, however, I'm very intrigued by the concept and some of the ideas it brings up. The main idea of the paper seems to be to propose a range of broad ideas, not a single focused concept, so I'm interested in seeing how these ideas will be interpreted and expanded by others.
I was overall interested to read the assigned article. As a student in the archives stream, I was largely unaware of the "Library 2.0" concept until I began studying here at UofT; the needs of archives are very different from the needs of libraries, because the dynamic between the organization and its patrons is extremely different. Regardless, I'm familiar enough with the ways that libraries operate, as oulined briefly in the article, to be able to get an impression of the very significantly different methods of offering services being suggested.
To my mind, perhaps the most interesting thing the article suggests is the possibility for integration of the library's resources into the other web resources a user might try to access. In my experience, most users looking for information on the web aren't looking explicitly for a particular resource of information when they search Google or other services; someone doesn't look for something on Google because the information is on Google itself, but because "all" information can be accessed through Google. (The fact that many users type URLs into Google seems to back this up.) More than anything else, making the library's resources accessible to the user through the same ways they look for other information takes the library's holdings out of the separate ghetto in which it exists now and brings it into the context of "global" information.
The idea of a collaborative library, which can interact with its users, is related to this last point to an extent, at least in that it also involves the use of Web 2.0 technology. A blog where libraries can openly discuss collections policies with users, or take suggestions for future holdings, seems as though it could significantly alter the way that people think about library holdings - I suspect that to many people, collections policies must seem like some sort of mysterious black box. I would have liked to hear more about this sort of an idea, even if I find it likely to be used only by the most dedicated bibliophiles. Similarly, I would have liked to read more about the ideas of how libraries could collaborate on item descriptions and the like.
I am a bit concerned the the article confuses its description of Web 2.0; two somewhat overlapping but distinct descriptions of Web 2.0 are given, once as a set of remote backend technologies accessed through flexible and combinable APIs, and later as a social technology - without a clear connection between the two. Both aspects are important to the concept of Library 2.0, but I would have appreciated a bit more of a clear definition of the interrelationship of these aspects. Similarly, it glosses over a few potential disadvantages of its suggestions, like the dangers of relying on third-party APIs and services that aren't under the library's control; the article is brief enough, however, that I don't feel it was intended as a detailed concept of Library 2.0.
Despite this somewhat unfocused impression of Library 2.0, however, I'm very intrigued by the concept and some of the ideas it brings up. The main idea of the paper seems to be to propose a range of broad ideas, not a single focused concept, so I'm interested in seeing how these ideas will be interpreted and expanded by others.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Archival blogs
In class we've been talking primarily about library blogs, so I thought it might be interesting to take a look for blogs run by archivists. I need to finish a more thorough search, but I've found a few interesting things so far:
The most promising site I've found is ArchivesBlogs, a meta-blog that syndicates articles from a variety of archival blogs. It has sources in a large variety of languages, and the quality of the source material seems to vary fairly widely but its list of blogs seems useful as a quick reference for blogs to follow. Fortunately, it offers an English-only page and feed here.
Of the ones it links to, my personal favourite is Foldering, which is tragically currently on hiatus.
LISNews - This seems to be the Slashdot of the library world. It's mainly focused on library articles, but occasionally touches on archiving information. As a Slashdot clone, the articles are sometimes strange and inaccurate (this article on "Where the Web Archives Are" doesn't really link to anything that could be legitimately called an archive), but it seems interesting enough to follow nonetheless.
I'll try to ferret out some more interesting sites for any other archives students who may be curious too.
Have a story about cats.
One day, Števu Lolek had a lot of shopping to do. So he went out early to do some of his chores, and he brought his wallet (which was very big, so big that he had to have an extra-large car just to fit it in) with him, because he had to buy things.
First he visited the grocery store, and here he bought some groceries. There were some things on sale, so he bought them because he liked to save money. Everyone liked to save money, anyway. I probably didn't have to mention it, you can just forget it.
There were a lot of groceries, so he brought them home before going to the next store to buy some more things.
Next he went to the cat store, which was where they sold cats; he saw a cat there that he liked, and so he gave some money to the cashier (that's how they do it over there) and the cashier let him take the cat home with him in a big box. Except of course he didn't go home yet and so he put the cat in the car.
Next he went to the wife shop, only by now he had spent too much time on buying groceries and the cat and so he didn't have time to pick one out and he just bought the first one he saw.
He took the wife and the cat in the box (the wife was too big for the box) home with him, and he put them in his house so he had someone else there, too, and this made him happy.
That lasted for about two weeks, until something surprising occurred.
The cat found a bulldozer on the top of a hill, and because it had always wanted to ride in a bulldozer it jumped in and rode down the hill. The bulldozer hit a tree, and the tree broke. The bulldozer broke, too.
The wife was very angry because the cat was hurt, and yelled at Števu Lolek because the cat had been hurt in a bulldozer. She yelled at him quite a lot. He decided that the wife must be broken, too, and so he put her in his car and took her back to the wife shop.
But the clerk told him that his wife was an older model and it would just be cheaper to buy a new wife than to repair the old one. So Števu Lolek agreed and threw the old wife away and bought a new one, only he hurried again because of course the cat was still hurt in the bulldozer and he had to rush back home.
This story really isn't any better. It doesn't make any sense at all. Let's try talking about something else.
The most promising site I've found is ArchivesBlogs, a meta-blog that syndicates articles from a variety of archival blogs. It has sources in a large variety of languages, and the quality of the source material seems to vary fairly widely but its list of blogs seems useful as a quick reference for blogs to follow. Fortunately, it offers an English-only page and feed here.
Of the ones it links to, my personal favourite is Foldering, which is tragically currently on hiatus.
LISNews - This seems to be the Slashdot of the library world. It's mainly focused on library articles, but occasionally touches on archiving information. As a Slashdot clone, the articles are sometimes strange and inaccurate (this article on "Where the Web Archives Are" doesn't really link to anything that could be legitimately called an archive), but it seems interesting enough to follow nonetheless.
I'll try to ferret out some more interesting sites for any other archives students who may be curious too.
Have a story about cats.
One day, Števu Lolek had a lot of shopping to do. So he went out early to do some of his chores, and he brought his wallet (which was very big, so big that he had to have an extra-large car just to fit it in) with him, because he had to buy things.
First he visited the grocery store, and here he bought some groceries. There were some things on sale, so he bought them because he liked to save money. Everyone liked to save money, anyway. I probably didn't have to mention it, you can just forget it.
There were a lot of groceries, so he brought them home before going to the next store to buy some more things.
Next he went to the cat store, which was where they sold cats; he saw a cat there that he liked, and so he gave some money to the cashier (that's how they do it over there) and the cashier let him take the cat home with him in a big box. Except of course he didn't go home yet and so he put the cat in the car.
Next he went to the wife shop, only by now he had spent too much time on buying groceries and the cat and so he didn't have time to pick one out and he just bought the first one he saw.
He took the wife and the cat in the box (the wife was too big for the box) home with him, and he put them in his house so he had someone else there, too, and this made him happy.
That lasted for about two weeks, until something surprising occurred.
The cat found a bulldozer on the top of a hill, and because it had always wanted to ride in a bulldozer it jumped in and rode down the hill. The bulldozer hit a tree, and the tree broke. The bulldozer broke, too.
The wife was very angry because the cat was hurt, and yelled at Števu Lolek because the cat had been hurt in a bulldozer. She yelled at him quite a lot. He decided that the wife must be broken, too, and so he put her in his car and took her back to the wife shop.
But the clerk told him that his wife was an older model and it would just be cheaper to buy a new wife than to repair the old one. So Števu Lolek agreed and threw the old wife away and bought a new one, only he hurried again because of course the cat was still hurt in the bulldozer and he had to rush back home.
This story really isn't any better. It doesn't make any sense at all. Let's try talking about something else.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
FIS1311 Introduction
I'm Misty De Meo, FIS 1311 student and pretentious blowhard. I've been interested in computing technology and, of course, archives and information systems for a long time, and I've been recently spending a lot of time thinking about issues related to archiving digital media. I'm looking forward to learning more about IT in library and information service organizations, and I'm quite interested to see how this class will be discussing the implications of IT for information studies. I'll be updating this blog with posts related to lectures to throw out ideas and discuss issues with other students.
Because this introductory post is at the moment terminally dull, I should like to entertain my readers (should they exist) with the following short stories about the life of William Shakespeare. They are guaranteed to be true and informative.
1.
Shakespeare ate ice cream every other Thursday, without fail. He didn't eat ice cream on even Thursdays, because they're unlucky. Sometimes on even Thursdays he refused to go outdoors. One time he did, but tripped over a duck that was in the road and fell in the dirt.
2.
Once, when Shakespeare was nine years old, he had a girlfriend named Julia Hull, whose family had moved down the street from him just a little bit earlier. They liked each other two weeks and six days; the teasing lasted three weeks and four days.
3.
When Shakespeare was six years old, he wanted to be a garbage-man more than anything else in the world. He even made himself a special garbage-man hat out of construction paper. Unfortunately, he wore it out in the rain one day and the water ruined it so that he couldn't wear it anymore. He cried and cried, until his mother promised to sew him a new one out of cloth.
4.
Shakespeare's favourite candy was lemon drops. He would eat them up as fast as he could whenever he found one; he would just stuff them into his hands, which got so sticky that anything he touched would stick right to him. "You aren't eating candy right before dinner, are you, dear?" his mother would ask. "No!" he would say, as he stuffed his face. It was positively scandalous.
5.
Shakespeare wrote his first play when he was six and a half years old. It was called "The Cookye Manne of Stratteford-uponn-Ayvonne" and was three pages long. It was about a merchant who granted free treats for life to the greatest boy in the world, "Willie," after he slew his teacher in a duel for failing him on a test. His parents used to show it to other parents and laugh about it.
5 ½
[Unfortunately, the remainder of the manuscript was destroyed in a fire. We understand the disappointment of our readers; we have, however, been able to recover a single legible word and present it here in the hopes that it may prove useful: “bucket.”]
Although this blog exists primarily for the purposes of class, I would be remiss if I provided no entertaining content. I hope to intersperse my assignments and ruminations on class topics with similar short stories and other works of fiction over the course of the term, and I hope people enjoy them.
(Finally, in conclusion, I should mention my inspiration for today's entry, Daniil Kharms' Anecdotes from the Life of Pushkin.)
Because this introductory post is at the moment terminally dull, I should like to entertain my readers (should they exist) with the following short stories about the life of William Shakespeare. They are guaranteed to be true and informative.
1.
Shakespeare ate ice cream every other Thursday, without fail. He didn't eat ice cream on even Thursdays, because they're unlucky. Sometimes on even Thursdays he refused to go outdoors. One time he did, but tripped over a duck that was in the road and fell in the dirt.
2.
Once, when Shakespeare was nine years old, he had a girlfriend named Julia Hull, whose family had moved down the street from him just a little bit earlier. They liked each other two weeks and six days; the teasing lasted three weeks and four days.
3.
When Shakespeare was six years old, he wanted to be a garbage-man more than anything else in the world. He even made himself a special garbage-man hat out of construction paper. Unfortunately, he wore it out in the rain one day and the water ruined it so that he couldn't wear it anymore. He cried and cried, until his mother promised to sew him a new one out of cloth.
4.
Shakespeare's favourite candy was lemon drops. He would eat them up as fast as he could whenever he found one; he would just stuff them into his hands, which got so sticky that anything he touched would stick right to him. "You aren't eating candy right before dinner, are you, dear?" his mother would ask. "No!" he would say, as he stuffed his face. It was positively scandalous.
5.
Shakespeare wrote his first play when he was six and a half years old. It was called "The Cookye Manne of Stratteford-uponn-Ayvonne" and was three pages long. It was about a merchant who granted free treats for life to the greatest boy in the world, "Willie," after he slew his teacher in a duel for failing him on a test. His parents used to show it to other parents and laugh about it.
5 ½
[Unfortunately, the remainder of the manuscript was destroyed in a fire. We understand the disappointment of our readers; we have, however, been able to recover a single legible word and present it here in the hopes that it may prove useful: “bucket.”]
Although this blog exists primarily for the purposes of class, I would be remiss if I provided no entertaining content. I hope to intersperse my assignments and ruminations on class topics with similar short stories and other works of fiction over the course of the term, and I hope people enjoy them.
(Finally, in conclusion, I should mention my inspiration for today's entry, Daniil Kharms' Anecdotes from the Life of Pushkin.)
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