Table of Contents
RLG News
Feature Article
Copyright Clearance in the Refugee Studies Centre Digital Library Project
by Mike Cave, Marilyn Deegan, and Louise Heinink
mike.cave@qeh.ox.ac.uk
marilyn.deegan@qeh.ox.ac.uk
louise.heinink@qeh.ox.ac.uk
Introduction
Clearing and protecting copyright are two major challenges facing every digital
library today. With the increasing diversity of materials held within a given
collection and specific rules applying to the different media, libraries must
ensure that procedures are put in place to deal with complex issues of copyright
when acquiring new material, digitizing existing material, and looking to protect
against misuse of their own collections. This article describes the copyright
issues encountered and the procedures adopted by the Refugees
Studies Centre Digital Library Project.
Background
The Refugee Studies Centre (RSC) and its Library are part of the University
of Oxford's International Development Centre at Queen Elizabeth House. It was
set up in the early 1980s as the Refugee Studies Programme with entirely soft
money, and is now a well respected academic department with slightly more secure
funding—though it still relies heavily on grant income. The RSC's objectives
are to carry out multidisciplinary research and teaching on the causes and consequences
of forced migration; to disseminate the results of that research to policy makers
and practitioners, as well as within the academic community; and to understand
the experience of forced migration from the point of view of the affected populations.
Forced migration includes a number of different areas: refugee issues, development-induced
displacement and resettlement, internal displacement, trafficking, etc. These
issues are worldwide concerns, and the RSC has a broad remit.
The RSC's Library is the largest dedicated to forced migration in the world, with a catalogued collection of more than 33,500 items. It is now both an invaluable archive and a centre for the collection and dissemination of current material in the field of forced migration. The majority of the collection is grey literature—that is material of an unpublished or semi-published nature. All items in the RSC library collections are catalogued electronically, and a simple Web catalogue has been available for searching since 1995. The library collection is visited by scholars, students, and practitioners from all over the world. More of the RSC's readers are from outside than are from within Oxford.
The Digital Library Project
In order to make the unpublished materials more widely available, The Andrew
W. Mellon Foundation made a grant of $500,000 for the digitization of a substantial
portion of these materials, and the Digital Library Project started in September
1997. A grant of c.80,000 ecus was also obtained from the European Union under
its Phare democracy programme.
The Phare grant was made for joint work with the Czech Helsinki Committee in
Prague. Between 1997 and 1999, comprehensive feasibility and pilot studies were
carried out, and a test set of
digital documents (attached to catalogue records) is available for searching.
This system will need substantial revision for the full project; it is intended
as a "proof-of-concept" at the moment. A CD-ROM of background information
on the Balkans containing approximately 100 searchable documents was also produced.
The feasibility study was carried out by the Higher Education Digitisation Service
(HEDS).
The project has now moved into a production phase, with documents going through a workflow process of selection, copyright clearance, removal from the collection, inventory, dispatch to vendors for scanning, return of documents, receipt of digital images and text, and reintegration of documents into the collection. Specification of delivery systems is under way (in collaboration with other services within Oxford University), and roll-out of the digital library will begin in 2001.
Copyright Issues
Materials in the Library have been collected since the early 1980s. Many of
the archive materials are older than this, but everything in the collection
is in copyright. Some of the grey literature comes from organizations; much
of it is supplied by individuals. Over the next two to three years, 8,000-10,000
documents from the collection will be digitized, and the process of clearing
the copyright on these is under way. It is a fearsome task. Many libraries eschew
tackling the issues by deciding to work with older, rights-free materials. We
cannot do that. It is the up-to-date nature of our collection that makes it
a potentially vital resource for those who need the information it contains.
In the original estimates of timescales, costs, and deliverables for the project,
it was never assumed that the copyright clearance process would take so long
or cost us so much even though we don't actually pay anything to obtain rights
to digitize.
Copyright Clearance: Our Process
It has taken some time to establish the workflows for copyright clearance. First
of all, we had to ascertain exactly what the legal situation was, and what,
under UK law, we could and could not do. Laws differ from country to country,
but that does not greatly affect the overall process. Professor Charles Oppenheim
of Loughborough University is one of the leading experts in copyright for digital
libraries in the UK, and does a great deal of work for the Joint Information
Systems Committee (JISC) of the UK Higher Education Funding Councils. We therefore
commissioned Professor Oppenheim to review the copyright situation for us, and
to produce a model license agreement to use as a basis for negotiation. The
next step was to confirm with the University of Oxford's legal department that
the license was appropriate, and they in turn had to check with the University's
insurers so that they could indemnify us against anything going wrong. This
proved to be a lengthy process. Finally, we had everyone's agreements, and a
license that all were happy with. The agreement and a copy of a covering letter
explaining what we were going to do with the documents are both available online.
Our intention when we began work on copyright clearance was to do the best we could to clear as many rights as possible, and then to use what is called 'best endeavour' and digitize and make available materials that we had been unable to clear. 'Best endeavour' is a term that assumes the best effort possible has been made to find the rights owners and seek their permission. If the rights owners have not been found, or have not replied after several attempts, materials can be reproduced and made available as long as there is a statement saying what efforts have been made to clear the rights, and all steps taken have been fully documented. For various reasons given below, we may not now scan materials without explicit, signed permissions.
Workflow
While all the legal work was in progress, we began to think through workflows,
and how we could streamline these as much as possible. Copyright clearance is
only done on materials that have been selected for scanning, but as it is the
most time-consuming part of the document preparation process, we felt that it
was not possible to select documents, pull them from the collection, then start
the clearance. What we have is a working collection, and items must only be
out of commission for the shortest possible time. They therefore have to be
available during the clearance, and are taken from the collection just before
being sent away for scanning. It was also clear to us that if we were dealing
with thousands of documents, each one needing several transactions in the selection,
clearing, and scanning process, we would need some means of recording and tracking
all the steps taken. A database was therefore developed in Microsoft Access
to manage this. The database (1) contains bibliographic
records of all selected documents (downloaded from the library catalogue), contact
details of all individuals and organizations who hold the rights, and records
of all the transactions entered into during the clearance and scanning phases.
At any time, we can find out what the status of a document or transaction is,
and can print reports on batches of documents. We can also print out lists of
documents to be sent to an individual or organization when we write to secure
the rights, and we can generate bulk mailings using the database. What we have
established is a sophisticated process, and one that works well.
Problems
The processes described above have all taken much longer to set in place than
could ever have been imagined, and progress is slow. We had to appoint a new
member of staff to manage copyright (Louise Heinink), who has been working three
days a week for over a year, and the end is not yet in sight. This has sent
the costs of the project up significantly. One of the most difficult tasks is
tracking down the rights owners. Where documents have been produced by organizations,
this is generally straight forward. We may have a record of the address in the
Centre, it may be on the document, or they may have a Web site that we can find.
With organizations, too, the chances are that we have a whole batch of material,
so one transaction enables us to clear a substantial volume. Individuals are
a different matter. Refugee studies is a fast-moving field in many senses, and
the academics and practitioners engaged in it move around a great deal according
to current need. Someone in Kosovo in 1999 is likely to have moved on by now,
and we have been trying to find people who deposited reports, conferences papers,
and other documentation with us in the 1980s. Locating authors is our single
biggest problem, and we get many of our communications returned as "unknown."
As suggested above, we had planned to make our best efforts to find people, and then scan if we did not hear from them. The great majority of people and organizations we hear from are warmly supportive of our aims; they sign the forms gladly, and also often send further documents for scanning. But some sensitive issues have arisen that have led us to conclude that we will probably need to have an explicit release for all documents. For instance, some of the documents may have been written for circulation to a very small audience, and while it is acceptable to have them available on paper in one location, much wider access through the Internet (which is of course the key aim of the project) may not be appropriate for a number of reasons, such as anonymity of asylum seekers. Then, too, some of the holdings are conference papers that have been given at an early stage in a project, and then published in a revised form. Another, very strange, problem is that people often do not remember writing a particular document, and they telephone or email us to ask us to send a copy! We have had several responses when we do send them out, the most common being that we should get rid of the document.
Costs
Estimating the costs of copyright clearance is very difficult. The first year
the costs are likely to be highest, as all of the up-front work of assessing
the scale of the problem, building the database, establishing the worksflows,
and writing the licenses have to be done then. Thereafter, the costs probably
drop by around 50%. There are also huge differences in the costs per item: it
can take less work to clear 30 long documents from one organization than to
clear one short one from an individual. Some rough calculations on our own expenses
show that it cost perhaps an average of #5-6 per document during the first year,
and is now dropping to an average of around #2-3 per document. This is just
the administration costs: we pay no fees. In 1998, we did scan some published
documents for a teaching module we were developing, and we were charged fees
by publishers for these. The highest was #200.
Conclusion
We have now cleared almost 2,000 documents for scanning, which has involved
thousands of letters and licenses to be mailed, chased up, and remailed; thousands
of dates and transactions to be entered into the database; and many hours of
work tracking down people all over the world. No one has asked us to pay for
the rights we have secured, and there has been much goodwill and enthusiasm
for the project. We do have a few words of advice to offer others in similar
situations. While this has been difficult and costly, our conclusion is that
there is no way to avoid having to clear copyright when scanning modern printed
materials—whether they are published or not. There are still some unresolved
legal issues, but conservatism in interpreting the law is probably wise, and
getting indemnity insurance in case something goes wrong is vital. This may
be a cost on the project, but those working in large institutions may find that
the institution's insurers will be prepared to apply coverage from existing
policies. In our case, what we had to do was satisfy the University's insurers
that we were taking all reasonable steps to apply the proper processes. They
then considered that we were covered on the overall block insurance of the University.
The key points were a) the risks were low because we were doing things properly
and there was a lot of goodwill on the part of the rights holders to our aims
and b) there was never any question that someone could lose revenue from what
we were doing as these are materials of no monetary value.
It is the sheer complexity of the copyright, and the time it takes to send out all the letters and process all the replies that is most daunting. This has become routine for us now, but it has taken us a long time to get there. If we can offer any help or advice to others embarking on similar endeavors, don't hesitate to contact us.
Footnotes
(1) Enquiries about the database should be addressed to Mike Cave (mike.cave@qeh.ox.ac.uk).
Feature Article
Digitization Grants and How to Get One: Advice from the Director, Office
of Library Services, Institute of Museum and Library Services
by Joyce Ray
Director, Office of Library Services, Institute of Museum and Library Services
jray@imls.gov
With Internet access rapidly becoming ubiquitous, digital content is beginning to supersede connectivity as the hot-button issue. If the Internet is to realize its potential to transform the way society uses information, it must offer high-quality resources. Commercial and entertainment sites abound on the World Wide Web, but there is a great need for good educational content. The growth of educational resources has been slower than other sectors, but many libraries, museums, and archives are trying to change that. These institutions hold a wealth of materials spanning the whole spectrum of human knowledge, and documentation that was once available only to a small number of scholars may now be used by students, teachers, researchers, and the general public worldwide, without fear of theft or damage to fragile and valuable items. When a museum or library establishes a Web presence and makes its holdings available to the cyber-public, it is contributing educational content to the Internet and serving the public good as well as enhancing the institution's visibility.
Yet the creation of accessible digital content is expensive. It requires an investment in hardware and software, a trained labor force to prepare materials and scan them at the appropriate level of quality—while handling fragile items carefully—and catalogers and indexers to create the metadata that is needed to retrieve and manage the digital information. Even when the scanning is outsourced, the institution must develop conversion guidelines and Requests for Proposals, pay for vendor services, perform quality control checks, and create metadata. It is no wonder that most institutions turn to outside sources of funding—usually private foundations or government agencies—for some of the costs of digitization.
The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) was fortunate enough to
benefit at its creation from the growing interest in digitization. This new
U.S. federal agency, established by Act of Congress in 1996, has statutory authority
for the "preservation or digitization of library materials and resources." Since
1998, IMLS has been funding digitization projects through its National Leadership
Grants program. Over the past three years, our understanding of what is required
for a successful digitization project, and what reviewers want to see in a grant
proposal, has improved. This knowledge is reflected in the increasing length
of our guidelines. Potential applicants may find them a bit daunting at first,
but the guidelines will provide even novices with the information resources
and guidance they need to plan and carry out successful digitization projects.
|
The new 2001 National Leadership Grant guidelines will be on the IMLS Web site after November 1. The deadlines for digitization projects are now established as: February 1 for libraries |
The key to writing a successful digitization proposal for IMLS is really the same as for writing any successful proposal. Applicants should always establish a clear vision of what they hope to accomplish, should read and follow the program guidelines, and consult with program staff along the way. National Leadership Grant proposals are evaluated by peer reviewers on a set of evaluation criteria described in the guidelines. Applicants should read all the evaluation criteria carefully and keep them in mind while preparing the application. Some important points to consider are:
National Impact: National Leadership Grants are awarded for innovative model projects with potential national impact on library service and information access. For digitization projects, national impact could result from the significance of the material to be digitized; tools or methodologies to be developed or tested during the project; or the way the material is presented or used. Often, successful projects combine two or more of these elements. It is not necessary to have the largest collection of Lewis and Clark holdings in existence to get a digitization grant, but it will help if the materials have recognizable historical interest. Examples of funded digitization projects, as well as copies of successful proposals, can be found on the IMLS Web site.
Applicants should start with a description of the material to be digitized,
explain its significance (even if it seems obvious), and provide as much evidence
as possible that there is a demand for this material in digital form (letters
of support from scholars or other potential users at a distance from the applicant
will be more convincing than letters from nearby institutions). Although IMLS
is looking for innovative projects and new models of operation, it is not
necessary for every proposal to break new ground technologically. Innovation
may be demonstrated by creative partnerships, for example, which may bring
together complementary holdings or institutions that are geographically dispersed,
or that promote use by new audiences. IMLS particularly encourages partnerships
that include smaller institutions, so that they may benefit from and contribute
to shared resources and expertise.
Adaptability: The overall usefulness of the approach to others, either in terms of processes or products. For example, a project with a well-described plan for developing a collaborative process to bring together related but geographically dispersed collections in a digital library would probably get high marks from reviewers as an adaptable model process. A project that proposed to develop a project tracking software program to share with others would be a good example of an adaptable model product.
Design: What are the production goals of the project, and how will they be met, e.g., how many items will be digitized, how will they be selected, and how will access be provided? Applicants should provide all the technical information requested in the guidelines, including information about the hardware and software to be used, copyright issues, file formats, conversion requirements, quality control, various metadata standards, preservation, and costs. Project staff will need to know these things if the proposal is funded, so it makes sense to plan up front. Beginning in 2001, IMLS will provide a form, "Specifications for Projects Involving Digitization," for applicants to complete and submit with their proposal (1).
Management Plan: Are there sufficient resources in terms of staffing and equipment at every stage in the process to ensure that the proposed schedule of completion can be met? Is the quality control plan adequate? IMLS encourages applicants to develop a digitization plan before beginning to write a grant proposal. This plan should document what the institution hopes to accomplish with a digitization program, what collections it proposes to digitize and their priority, and how it plans to ensure the preservation and continued use of the digital resources. Reviewers will expect the digitization plan to include a commitment to preservation, and will be more convinced of this commitment if the institution makes a significant investment in the project through cost sharing.
Budget: Is the budget reasonable (neither too high nor too low to accomplish the project)? Applicants who are unsure of how to develop a budget for a digitization project should seek help from a consultant or professional colleagues with expertise in digitization. Reviewing the budgets of successful proposals that are posted on the IMLS Web site will also be useful.
Personnel: Are the key personnel (project director and other regular staff who will work on the project) qualified to contribute to the project as proposed; are new temporary positions well-described and appropriate? Reviewers generally look for technical expertise in digitization, whether hired for the project or on staff, as well as other appropriate skills, such as cataloging and project management.
Evaluation: Applicants frequently neglect this criterion, yet evaluation is critical to a leadership proposal. IMLS encourages the use of outcome-based evaluation wherever appropriate and provides information about it on the IMLS Web site (located under Publications & Resources). Proposals should address the following questions: "Whose lives will be improved by having access to these resources in digital form, and how will you know whether or not the desired impact is achieved?" IMLS now provides a two-day training course in outcome-based evaluation for new grantees, but a proposal will be stronger if the applicants have already developed a good evaluation plan. Is it possible to identify a target audience to use the new digital information, and to test improved knowledge, skills, or abilities? The target population could also help to provide feedback to improve the Web site. The evaluation component of a project provides an opportunity for the applicant to think creatively about enhancing and measuring the benefits of library services. What about a partnership with a state penitentiary to use the digital resources in distance education classes, or to develop and evaluate applications for children with learning disabilities? Remember that the best proposals reflect a continuum of planning, from needs assessments through evaluation, and that the best evaluation plans tie evaluation directly to specific project goals.
Contributions: Institutional commitment is best demonstrated by the amount of investment the institution itself is making in the project through its own contributions, as well as through any third-party funding or partners' contributions. For this reason, IMLS generally expects grantees to pay at least half the cost of any equipment purchased for the project and to contribute a substantial share of personnel costs. In addition, cost sharing of one-to-one is required for digitization projects when the applicant requests more than $250,000 from IMLS.
Sustainability: Is the institution making a commitment to maintain
the digital resources and continue making them available, either through
its own Web site or through another source? Does it have the financial stability
to carry through on a commitment?
In addition to addressing all of these criteria, successful proposal writers
will inspire readers with a sense of excitement and even urgency about the
project. They convey the message "This is important work, and it should
be done as soon as possible!" A good way to find out if a proposal is clear,
convincing, and exciting is to ask a colleague, who understands the professional
issues involved but who knows nothing about the project itself, to read
the proposal. If important information is omitted or details are not clear,
it is better to hear it from a colleague while there is still time for revision.
The more planning that has gone into a proposal, the better reviewers will
respond to it. There are many opportunities for applicants to get help in
crafting a digitization project plan and grant proposal. IMLS provides a
list of resources in its National Leadership Grant guidelines (under "All
About Grants and Awards" on the Web site). A variety of training courses
and conferences are available nationwide, and experienced institutions are
frequently willing to help others in their region as advisers or project
partners. We are unfortunately unable to read drafts of proposals (we have
a full-time staff of less than 40), but our small size does enable us to
respond to constituents with a minimum amount of bureaucratic red tape.
We urge prospective applicants to contact the appropriate program officer
early in the process to discuss ideas and questions.
(1) Located with the National Leadership Grant Application and Deadlines, under "All About Grants and Awards" on the IMLS Web site at http://www.imls.gov
|
Highlighted Web Site Moving
Theory into Practice: Cornell's Digital Imaging Tutorial Produced with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the tutorial is currently available in English, with a Spanish language version to follow in December 2000 (from the same Web address). The tutorial consists of sections encompassing all the major aspects of digital imaging: Selection, Conversion, Quality Control, Metadata, Technical Infrastructure, Presentation, Digital Preservation, and Management. Designed to be self-guided and self-paced, the tutorial includes frequent "reality checks" for evaluating the understanding of the presented material. Most sections are heavily illustrated, and provide suggestions for further reading. The tutorial also includes several tables, providing reference data on topics such as graphic file formats, compression techniques, scanner characteristics, and institutional guidelines for conversion and presentation. |
FAQ
What is "zip" compression? Can it be used for storing digital image files?
Let's first clear up one potential source of confusion. Zip has two common uses in current computer parlance. Zip drive or Zip disk (always capitalized) refers to a proprietary removable storage device and its media, patented by Iomega Corporation. At present Zip drives are popular storage peripherals on both Windows and Macintosh computers, using magnetic media that store either 100 Mb or 250 Mb per disk. Zip disks can hold any kind of file, including zip compressed files, but there is no connection between the two.
The zip we're referring to is not really a compression technique per se, though it is often thought of that way. It is more accurately described as an "archive" format, rather than a compression technique. Archive in this usage refers to any set of computer files that are bundled together into a single file (called a zip file) in a manner that preserves their individual identities and hierarchical directory arrangement. A main usage for archive formats has been to ensure that all the files needed for a software application (especially shareware) stay together. There are a number of other archive formats, including arc, sit (used on Macintoshes), and tar (used on Unix machines), but zip is the most commonly seen.
As an example, an archive of a shareware database manager might include the main program, related utility programs, various documentation files in a separate folder, and a form for sending payment to the program's designer. A zip utility would bundle all these files together into a single file, while an "unzip" utility would restore the files to their original form.
File compression is a commonly used, though optional, feature of zip archives. In most cases, the ability to bundle multiple files together is combined with compression of the files in order to create a smaller archive that uses less disk space and requires less time to send across a network. Zip utilities support several different lossless compression algorithms, and may analyze each file to try to determine which compression technique will be most effective.
Zip has the advantage of being widely supported across computing platforms, and could conceivably be used for digital image files. However, zip was not designed with image data in mind. It has no special functionality for image files, and the supported compression techniques are not optimized for image data. Better alternatives include TIFF, which supports multi-image files and several image-specific compression techniques, and PDF, which supports multi-image files, internal hierarchies, and image-specific compression.
--RE
Calendar of Events
Digital Strategies - 2000
November 16 - 17, 2000, College Park, MD
To be held at the National Archives and Records Administration, this conference
will focus on topics such as building the information infrastructure, NARA initiatives
that tap into the enabling technologies of the next generation to improve management,
preservation, and access to electronic records. For further information contact:
digitalstrat@arch2.nara.gov.
Information
Infrastructures for Digital Preservation
December 6, 2000, York, England
Preservation
2000: An International Conference on the Preservation and Long Term Accessibility
of Digital Materials
December 7-8, 2000, York, England
These meetings will focus on the long-term accessibility of digital materials,
and discuss the key issues linked to their preservation. The provisional program
is now available.
ADL2000: Third International Conference
on the Asian Digital Library
December 6-8, 2000, Seoul, Korea
The goal of this conference is to share and disseminate information and knowledge
about current issues regarding digital library research and technology. Special
emphasis will be on experiences and problems with available systems and technology
for digital libraries.
DELOS Network of Excellence Workshop
on Information Seeking, Searching, and Querying in Digital Libraries
December 11-12, 2000, Zurich, Switzerland
Jointly sponsored by the European Commission under the DELOS Network of
Excellence on Digital Libraries and the National Science Foundation (NSF), this
workshop will bring together researchers and practitioners interested in digital
libraries to present and discuss recent results as well as future research directions.
Announcements
Getty Trust Funds Survey and Guide to Good Practice
The J. Paul Getty Trust has announced the award of $140,000 to the National
Initiative for a Networked Cultural Heritage (NINCH)
to direct an innovative project to review and evaluate current practice in the
digital networking of cultural heritage resources. NINCH will publish in the
fall of 2001 a Guide to Good Practice in the Digital Representation and Management
of Cultural Heritage Materials in print and electronic form.
Visual Resources
Association's New Image Collection Guidelines
The Visual Resources Association recently announced the publication of a new
guide for visual resources professionals, The Image Collection Guidelines:
The Acquisition and Use of Images in Non-Profit Educational Visual Resource
Collections. The guide will provide practical principles for the acquisition,
attribution, and display of visual images for educational use.
Technical Advisory Service for
Images (TASI) Revamped Web Site
TASI, the JISC's Technical Advisory Service for Images, has launched a new-look
Web site, making it even easier to access the useful information offered by
the service. The TASI information is provided free of charge to organizations
contemplating or implementing a digitization project.
Thomas A. Edison Papers Now Online
Available on the Web, the documents are searchable in several ways—names,
dates, and document types; the text of the 4,000 introductory editorial targets
is searchable; and the edition can be browsed by record groups. The database
contains records for 100,000 documents, 80,000 of which are now available as
digital images, and some 15,000 names.
Preserving Australian
Physical Format Electronic Publications - Selection Guidelines
The National Library of Australia (NLA) has recently compiled some guidelines
for internal use on the selection for preservation of physical format digital
materials in the general collections.
Northeast Document Conservation Center Announces
Handbook for Digital Projects: A Management Tool for Preservation and Access
For the past five years, the Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC)
has explored the complex issues surrounding digital preservation through its
School for Scanning conferences. The Handbook for Digital Projects is
focused on meeting the information needs of libraries, museums, and archives.
In the Picture,
Preservation and Digitisation of European Photographic Collections
Within the framework of the EU project "Safeguarding European Photographic
Images for Access" the European Commission on Preservation and Access (ECPA)
published In the Picture, Preservation and Digitisation of European Photographic
Collections. This report describes the way in which European institutions
manage their photographic collections in terms of preservation and digitisation.
RLG News
Long-Term Retention
of Digital Information: Events in Early December
Preservation 2000: An International Conference on the Preservation and Long-Term Accessibility of Digital Materials is a two-day, international conference in York, England on Thursday and Friday, December 7 and 8, 2000. It is sponsored by the Consortium of University Libraries' Cedars Project (CURL exemplars in digital archiving), RLG, and OCLC, in association with the UK Office for Library Networking. The main goal for the conference is to share, disseminate, and discuss current key issues concerning the preservation of digital materials. These include models for digital archives, the economics of digital preservation, and content and selection issues surrounding digital preservation. RLG and the other sponsors are seeking to facilitate meaningful dialog among the wide array of organizations and individuals currently working with digital archives and preservation.
Immediately preceding Preservation 2000 is a related, one-day preconference on Wednesday, December 6: Information Infrastructures for Digital Preservation. Limited to the first 60 registrants, this intensive day includes presentations and papers on current work in digital preservation metadata and standards for description. Attendees will participate in discussions and debate on developments in this key area.
Both events feature expert speakers from North America, Australia, and Europe. The registration fees, depending on options chosen, range from #110 (approximately $160 US) to #250 ($362 US). November 13 is the last day to register for one or both of the events focusing on digital preservation. We encourage participation by libraries, archives, museums and other cultural and heritage organizations that are dealing with digital preservation and access issues. For programs and registration forms, see the event Web sites:
http://www.rlg.org/events/cedars-2000/
(access from outside of Europe)
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/events/cedars-2000/
(access from within Europe).
Hotlinks Included in This Issue
Feature Article 1
Refugee Studies Centre Digital Library
Project http://www.qeh.ox.ac.uk/rsc/
RSC Web catalogue http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/rsc/
Phare democracy programme
http://www.dlinnt.ee/phare/what.shtml
Phare's test set of digital documents
http://rsc.qeh.ox.ac.uk/rsccat
Higher Education Digitisation Service
http://heds.herts.ac.uk
Copyright Clearance
http://earlybird.qeh.ox.ac.uk/fm/copyright
Feature Article 2
The Institute of Museum and Library Services
http://www.imls.gov
Highlighted Web Site
Digital
Imaging Tutorial http://www.library.cornell.edu/preservation/tutorial/
Moving Theory into Practice
http://www.rlg.org/preserv/mtip2000.html
Calendar of Events
Information
Infrastructures for Digital Preservation http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/events/cedars-2000/programme.html
Preservation
2000 http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/events/cedars-2000/programme.html
ADL 2000 http://adl2000.kaist.ac.kr/
DELOS Network of Excellence Workshop
http://www.lib.uoa.gr/delos/
Announcements
National Initiative for a Networked Cultural
Heritage http://www.ninch.org/
Visual Resources
Association http://www.oberlin.edu/~art/vra/guidelines.html
Technical Advisory Service for Images http://www.tasi.ac.uk/
Thomas Edison Papers http://edison.rutgers.edu
National Library of Australia
http://www.nla.gov.au/policy/selectgl.html
Northeast Document Conservation Center http://
www.nedcc.org
In the Picture, Preservation
and Digitisation of European Photographic Collections http://www.knaw.nl/ecpa/publ/picture.pdf
RLG News
Access to CEDARS from
outside of Europe http://www.rlg.org/events/cedars-2000/
Access to CEDARS from within
Europe http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/events/cedars-2000/
Publishing Information
RLG DigiNews (ISSN 1093-5371) is a newsletter conceived by the members of the Research Libraries Group's PRESERV community. Funded in part by the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR), it is available internationally via the RLG PRESERV Web site (http://www.rlg.org/preserv/). It will be published six times in 2000. Materials contained in RLG DigiNews are subject to copyright and other proprietary rights. Permission is hereby given for the material in RLG DigiNews to be used for research purposes or private study. RLG asks that you observe the following conditions: Please cite the individual author and RLG DigiNews (please cite URL of the article) when using the material; please contact Jennifer Hartzell at jlh@notes.rlg.org, RLG Corporate Communications, when citing RLG DigiNews.
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