Presentation
From Mass Digitization To Mass Description: Indiana University’s Strategy To Overcome The Next Great Challenge
8 June 2015
Over the past decade, much focus has been placed on mass digitization of legacy audiovisual collections. With progress on this front, today there is a new focus emerging: mass description. In 2014 Indiana University (IU) began an effort to digitize hundreds of thousands of hours of audiovisual materials from across campus, leading to the challenge of describing this extraordinarily diverse set of materials both at scale and at a sufficient level of granularity to enable meaningful and effective discovery.
In 2015, with the support of AVP, IU began a strategic planning project to research, analyze and report on technologies, workflows, staffing, timeline and budgets to address this challenge. This presentation, given by Jon Dunn and Chris Lacinak at the Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA) conference in 2016, delves into the background, goals, approach and next steps for this work.
Pixels, Lines, And Bits: An AV Preservation Primer
16 April 2015
On Thursday, April 16, 2015, Kathryn Gronsbell spoke at the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) in Brooklyn. The event, “PIXELS, LINES, AND BITS: An A/V Preservation Primer for Artists”, was a discussion around personal archiving and preservation approaches for artists interested in stabilizing their work so that it can be available in the short- and long-term.
The presentation and Q+A session was an introduction to concepts like preserving and managing media, how you can leverage your time and money to make more sustainable decisions, and what the benefits might be now and in the future. Thank you to NYFA and Independent Media Arts Preservation for helping organize this event. See NYFA’s Highlight Reel from the discussion.
ISO 16363: Sizing Up The Standard
29 January 2015
This presentation from Seth Anderson covers recent efforts at AVP to reframe the often information-heavy results of ISO 16363 audits into straightforward data points based on scoring criteria with actionable recommendations for achieving compliance. The presentation includes examples of different applications of the standard as a means of assessing developing digital preservation infrastructure and planning for completely new policies and systems.
Additionally, extensive work with the standard has revealed inconsistencies and repetitive elements that cause confusion and difficulty in interpreting and applying the requirements of a trustworthy digital repository. Seth posits an altered hierarchy to address these issues in future versions of the standard, an approach that looks to such documents not as a static, inflexible set of guidelines, but pragmatically as a framework to apply and continually refine as results and technologies change, much like digital preservation itself!
Implementation Of Systems For Media & Digital Asset Management In 10 Steps
29 January 2015
Kara Van Malssen‘s presentation from the Take Control of Your Records! conference at the National Audiovisual Institute in Warsaw, Poland offers 10 steps an organization can take to help ensure successful implementation of a media/digital asset management system.
An Introduction To Using The Command Line Interface To Work With Files And Directories
25 October 2014
With the increasing ingest of born digital and digitized collections, we are at the point (perhaps well past the point) of admitting that almost all archives are digital archives, and as a profession we must identify and gain training on the tools that will help us describe, store, and manage file-based collections in the same ways we do with physical collections.
The Command Line Interface (CLI) is a critical tool here, both for managing files from ingest to storage directly or being able to access certain applications that only have a CLI option for running. These introductions to CLI (both for Mac and Windows OS) provide a basic understanding of managing directories and files with the command line, skills which can be expanded from managing individual files to ingesting and caring for large sets of files in batches in order to save time and address the realities of file-based acquisition.
FIAT/IFTA Cost Of Inaction Presentation
25 October 2014
AVP President Chris Lacinak was invited to give a keynote presentation at the 2014 Fédération Internationale des Archives de Télévision / The International Federation of Television Archives (FIAT/IFTA) World Conference on the topic of our Cost of Inaction Calculator. The COI Calculator is a planning tool that provides estimated budgets and schedules over the long term so that one can begin to develop a preservation plan for beyond the immediate near term. By looking at the costs of physical storage and management, digitization, and digital storage, an institution can think about distributing costs over time while also considering the critical need for sustainability of preservation activities (and their associated costs) beyond short term fund raising or grants.
Mapping Standards For Richer Assessments: NDSA Levels Of Digital Preservation And ISO 16363:2012
1 June 2014
The basis of Bertram Lyons’ panel presentation at Digital Preservation 2014. To date, the difficulty and high bar of doing an internal assessment as a Trusted Digital Repository have created a hurdle to the ability of organizations to track or rank their progress towards digital preservation standards. AVP has been working on means of adapting TDR risk assessment by improving reporting options and analyses. Two assessment tools currently in use for digital preservation risk assessment are the NDSA’s Levels of Digital Preservation Matrix (Version 1) and ISO 16363:2012 Audit and Certification of Trustworthy Digital Repositories.
The two tools offer overlapping yet distinct methods of analysis, very useful but resulting in differing reporting classifications and outcomes that are not easy to reconcile. In order to encourage the use of the two tools under one roof, and, especially, to increase the outputs of a standard ISO 16363 assessment, AVP staff have mapped the Levels of Digital Preservation categories to the ISO 16363 requirements. A full paper on the topic will be available here soon.
Linked below is our work that documents the mapping of NDSA Levels of Digital Preservation categories to ISO 16363 criteria and the DigPres14 slidedeck. We offer these as an opportunity for community discourse and involvement. Please evaluate our mappings and let us know what you think to help us work towards a shared mapping that others can employ in a standardized way.
- ISO REQUIREMENT MAPPED TO NDSA CATEGORIES (XLSX)
- MAPPING STANDARDS FOR RICHER ASSESSMENT DIGPRES14 SLIDEDECK (PDF)
Nine Things To Consider When Assessing Cloud Storage
20 February 2014
When evaluating cloud storage providers, it is dangerous to assume such services are only storage and therefore uncomplicated or that requirements for storage are obvious and therefore inherently met by the service provider. Experience with any technology selection will prove the opposite.
No two services are the same and the variance between services often represents the difference between successful implementation and a failed initiative. Never purchase a service without proper vetting; uninformed decisions risk loss of time, money, and even assets. These nine assessment criteria will help you get started in asking the right questions and making a practical, informed decision on using cloud storage for archival or preservation needs.
Smithsonian Digital Preservation Readiness Assessment
1 January 2014
In July 2009, Smithsonian Secretary G. Wayne Clough spoke of the digital future of museums, libraries, and archives. “We have the capacity to tell the story of America and all its hopes, struggles, triumphs, creativity, contradictions, and courage.” “Ultimately, we want to put all of our … objects … online so you can access them wherever you live. We want to offer the Smithsonian experience to everyone,” said Clough to a group gathered at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
To ensure the longevity of these born-digital and digitized collections, research, and resources, in 2014 Secretary Clough chartered a Digital Preservation Working Group to assess current preservation practices and develop lifecycle management recommendations for the future.
AMIA 2013 Presentations
8 June 2013
AVP was involved in a number of panels and events at the 2013 Association of Moving Image Archivists Conference in Richmond, Virginia, including organizing the first ever AMIA HackDay and presentations related to the imminent decay of magnetic media, the importance of metadata development for digital preservation, and the intricacies of vendor selection for digital asset management systems.
- CHRIS LACINAK “THE END OF ANALOG MEDIA: THE COST OF INACTION AND WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT” (PDF)
- MIKE CASEY, INDIANA UNIVERSITY, “WHY MEDIA PRESERVATION CAN’T WAIT THE WEATHERING STORM” (PDF)
- AMIA & DLF HACKDAY 2013 PROJECTS (Wiki)
- SETH ANDERSON, “NAVIGATING THE DIGITAL ARCHIVE: FIRST, KNOW THYSELF” (PDF)
- SETH ANDERSON, “MASTERING YOUR DATA: TOOLS FOR METADATA MANAGEMENT IN AV ARCHIVES” (PDF)
- KARA VAN MALSSEN “FROM ZERO TO DAM” (PDF)
