Date: Tue, 16 Sep 1997 12:00:45 -0700 Message-Id: <v02130502b0442302cc15@[128.32.252.42]> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: mc...@world.std.com From: rineh...@uclink2.berkeley.edu (Richard Rinehart) Subject: Re: Electronic media references
>Hi all, > >I'm sending out a request on behalf of some others around SFMOMA in >Conservation, Registration & Curatorial who are looking at issues of >preservation & maintenance of our Media Arts collection, generally >electronic artwork. Which references or journals do you recommend for >assistance/ideas in dealing with media arts materials? Any leads would be >appreciated. Thanks. > > >Marla Misunas >Collections Database Administrator >San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Hi Marla, I had to give a talk on my campus once about electronic data longevity and integrity - I've included the short annotated bibliography below. If you get any other responses please post them to the list; they would be very useful I'm sure. Thanks, Richard Rinehart Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive @ University of California ---------------------------- Data Longevity & Portability Bearman, David & John Perkins. Standards Framework for the Computer Interchange of Museum Information CIMI (Computer Interchange of Museum Information Committee) publication on standards for computer data. http://www.cni.org/pub/CIMI/framework.html. Rothenberg, Jeff. "Ensuring the Longevity of Digital Documents" Scientific American 272(1) (January 1995):42-47. -- Of interest to anyone involved in information technology, this article addresses the obstacles to archiving information in any current digital form. There are two major obstacles: obsolescence of physical medium and software format. In regard to physical media, we must rely upon admittedly fragile formats such as magnetic tape, to media with unknown real-life longevity such as CD-ROM. On the software side, content is interwoven with format in the bitstream. The author maintains that without a "bootstrap" of paper telling someone in the future what software format was used, some digital documents will be unreadable. He even addresses the question of "hardware and software independent" formats by breaking down a relational database. However, he did not answer such questions as whether or not simpler standards such as ASCII will remain an independent standard, or for that matter logical structure formats based in ASCII such as SGML. Data Integrity & Authenticity Graham, Peter S. "Long-Term Intellectual Preservation" [http://aultnis.rutgers.edu/texts/dps.html] -- This article was presented at the RLG Symposium on Digital Imaging Technology for Preservation at Cornell University March 17 & 18, 1995. Graham tackles the problems of long term authentication of any type of digital information, as well as preservation of that data. Any digital document, if it is to convey authority, must be an exact duplicate of the original or contain a record of all deviations from the original. One proposed solution for authentication is Digital Time Stamping, whereby a one-way algorithm is used to generate a key that can be produced only by the original document. These keys would be made public, thus ensuring the validity of the documents. This article is a useful, non-technical starting point in puzzling out these critical issues of the longevity and authenticity of any type of digital information. Lunin, Lois F. and Robin P. Peek, eds. "Perspectives on Electronic Publishing" Journal of the American Society for Information Science 45(10)(December 1994):727-799.--Lynch, Clifford A. "The Integrity of Digital Information: Mechanics and Definitional Issues" -- Lynch examines some of the issues encompassing the integrity of digital objects in the networked environment. He defines the use of the word "integrity" in relationship to the information distribution system, illustrates the basic mechanics of digital information integrity and addresses issues concerning digital integrity regarding electronic publishing and intellectual content. Richard Rinehart | Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive Systems Manager & Education | University of California Technology Specialist | 2625 Durant, Berkeley, CA 94720-2250 rineh...@uclink2.berkeley.edu | http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/ & Board of Directors, Museum Computer Network, http://www.mcn.edu/
