Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Friday, December 16, 2011
conferences and training
http://nedcc.org/dd2012/
Digital Directions 2012
Digital Directions 2012
New Foundations: Creation • Curation • Use
June 13-15, 2012 Boston
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Reading List
On my list to read:
Digital Preservation Coalition Technology Watch Reports, in particular Brian Lavoie's "Preservation Metadata." Lavoie also wrote a great introduction to OAIS.
Digital Preservation Coalition Technology Watch Reports, in particular Brian Lavoie's "Preservation Metadata." Lavoie also wrote a great introduction to OAIS.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Long-term Preservation for Spatial Data Infrastructures
This week I read "Long-term Preservation for Spatial Data Infrastructures: a Metadata Framework and Geo-portal Implementation," by Arif Shaon, Science and Technology Facilities Council, Didcot, UK and Andrew Woolf, The Bureau of Meteorology, Canberra, Australia. Corresponding author: Arif Shaon, R89, S21, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, STFC, Didcot, OX110QX, UK, arif.shaon@stfc.ac.uk. Found in D-Lib September/October 2011, Volume 17, Number 9/10. Link also found under resources on the sidebar.
Digital preservation is new to me, and geospatial data is new to me, so I was unsure of how much I could get out of the article. And yes, much of the geospatial and dataset details were over my head. But, I did appreciate the way the authors framed the issue of digital preservation as part of access. "Operability's scope must extend to the temporal dimension." And, a discussion and implementation of "preservation-aware" metadata model and infrastructure. The article and the problem were framed as "there's enough metadata for efficient discovery; what would it take to have efficient discovery in the future?" I thought this was a nice alternative to preservation as separate and distinct from access and interoperability. Another key idea was that the designated community (according to OAIS) would be humans or software applications to whom an object is beneficial.
I was able to learn about OAIS and metadata for geospatial datasets. There is an ISO standard, ISO 19115 for geospatial metadata (it has 400 elements, and 20 core elements.) Datasets are often 'normalized' (my word) from their original database structure in order to function within the SDI. There is also a catalog application to manage spatially referenced resources, GeoNetwork.
Many European institutions are beginning to contribute to INSPIRE, an infrastructure for environmental information, and to apply its Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) to their geospatial data. This involves implementing rules for metadata, data specifications, network services, and data-sharing through SDI. Environmental data is increasing in volume extremely quickly, and historical geospatial data is increasing in use and value. Geospatial datasets share the usual challenges of all digital objects, plus the diverse and highly-structured data formats, and the special domain knowledge needed for their interpretation. Thus, there is a need for exploring the long-term preservation of these digital objects. This article walks through the 'requirements for developing a preservation-aware SDI based on OAIS.'
OAIS offers conceptual models to inform a suitable preservation strategy for digital objects. The model is broken down for geospatial objects as such:
Content information=the original version of a data set
PDI (Preservation description information)=life-cycle information (provenance and versioning history), references, and annotations.
RI (Representation information)=information needed, either by humans or software applications, to render the object in an understandable way. This can be recursive, and different user groups will need different RI (for example those unfamiliar with geospatial datasets vs. experts).
Packaging Information=a way to bind or connect the data object/digital object with its associated metadata
Decription=information that facilitates the efficient discovery of the item.
The article then trots out a preservation profile, based on OAIS and PREMIS data dictionary. It's easiest to read this flowchart from the bottom. Items included are:
Representation information-might not be needed for the user, but important for future archivists.
Life cycle
Data Authenticity-fixity and signature
Annotations-particular to spatial objects.
The authors go on to test their preservation-aware metadata model with the GeoNetwork open-source software. This shows one approach to the problem of inter-operability into the future.
Digital preservation is new to me, and geospatial data is new to me, so I was unsure of how much I could get out of the article. And yes, much of the geospatial and dataset details were over my head. But, I did appreciate the way the authors framed the issue of digital preservation as part of access. "Operability's scope must extend to the temporal dimension." And, a discussion and implementation of "preservation-aware" metadata model and infrastructure. The article and the problem were framed as "there's enough metadata for efficient discovery; what would it take to have efficient discovery in the future?" I thought this was a nice alternative to preservation as separate and distinct from access and interoperability. Another key idea was that the designated community (according to OAIS) would be humans or software applications to whom an object is beneficial.
I was able to learn about OAIS and metadata for geospatial datasets. There is an ISO standard, ISO 19115 for geospatial metadata (it has 400 elements, and 20 core elements.) Datasets are often 'normalized' (my word) from their original database structure in order to function within the SDI. There is also a catalog application to manage spatially referenced resources, GeoNetwork.
Many European institutions are beginning to contribute to INSPIRE, an infrastructure for environmental information, and to apply its Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) to their geospatial data. This involves implementing rules for metadata, data specifications, network services, and data-sharing through SDI. Environmental data is increasing in volume extremely quickly, and historical geospatial data is increasing in use and value. Geospatial datasets share the usual challenges of all digital objects, plus the diverse and highly-structured data formats, and the special domain knowledge needed for their interpretation. Thus, there is a need for exploring the long-term preservation of these digital objects. This article walks through the 'requirements for developing a preservation-aware SDI based on OAIS.'
OAIS offers conceptual models to inform a suitable preservation strategy for digital objects. The model is broken down for geospatial objects as such:
Content information=the original version of a data set
PDI (Preservation description information)=life-cycle information (provenance and versioning history), references, and annotations.
RI (Representation information)=information needed, either by humans or software applications, to render the object in an understandable way. This can be recursive, and different user groups will need different RI (for example those unfamiliar with geospatial datasets vs. experts).
Packaging Information=a way to bind or connect the data object/digital object with its associated metadata
Decription=information that facilitates the efficient discovery of the item.
The article then trots out a preservation profile, based on OAIS and PREMIS data dictionary. It's easiest to read this flowchart from the bottom. Items included are:
Representation information-might not be needed for the user, but important for future archivists.
Life cycle
Data Authenticity-fixity and signature
Annotations-particular to spatial objects.
The authors go on to test their preservation-aware metadata model with the GeoNetwork open-source software. This shows one approach to the problem of inter-operability into the future.
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