News Archive

  • New SHAMAN reports just published

    Six new just published SHAMAN reports can be found and freely downloaded from our SHAMAN/Downloads section.

    • The SHAMAN Reference Architecture (Final Version - Update Year 4) which is the final version of the SHAMAN Reference Architecture, updated with findings from the 4th year of the project. The SHAMAN Reference Architecture is an Enterprise Architecture-based approach that enables the accommodation of digital preservation concerns in the overall architecture of an organisation.

    • The Semantic Annotations and Collaborative Modelling (D7.3). It addresses methodologies in support of Semantic Annotations and Collaborative Modelling.

    • The Report on Demonstration and Evaluation Activity in the Domain of “Industrial Design and Engineering” (D14.3) which presents the results of the demonstration and evaluation of the further work on the development of digital preservation applications for industrial design and engineering.

    • Three Reports on SHAMAN training courses (D15.3, D15.4 & D15.5) which report on the training activities within the ISP1, ISP2 & ISP3 trainning session event and results.

    • Digital Preservation in Scientific & Academic Communities with SHAMAN (D16.3). This report is aimed at the scientific stakeholders who are likely to be interested in the DP future uptake and related market information, which has been created within SHAMAN Project context.

    • The Plan for using and disseminating knowledge beyond the scientific/academic communities (D17.2 -IV). It is the 4th annual update of the Exploitation and Dissemination Plans aimed at those these groups of stakeholders who are likely to be interested in the future usage of SHAMAN enabled products and services to fulfill their requirements for long term management of digital assets

    • The Industrial Digital Preservation Technologies with SHAMAN (D17.3). This report is aimed at the industrial stakeholders who are likely to be interested in the DP future uptake and related market information, which has been created within SHAMAN Project context.

    Link: http://shaman-ip.eu/shaman/document

  • The Smithsonian Museum recovered sound from disks made in the 1800`s

    The Smithsonian Museum has recovered sound from six experimental Volta disks made between 1881 and 1885, which included recordings from Alexander Graham Bell. This is the first step of an on-going project to preserve and catalogue the museum's early recording collection.

    Source: http://www.speechtechmag.com/Articles/News/News-Feature/New-Technology-R...

  • ITFC implements a readily scalable archive solution specifically designed for archiving and long-term data retention

    As the value and quantity of digital content continues to increase, it becomes a mission-critical asset for the Broadcasting Industry, and high growth of digital content becomes an important challenge to face. Thus we start to see new commercial solutions specifically approaching long-preservation and new comers adopting this kind of solution

    As the value and quantity of digital content continues to increase, it becomes a mission-critical asset for the Broadcasting Industry, and high growth of digital content becomes an important challenge to face. Thus we start to see new commercial solutions specifically approaching long-preservation and new comers adopting this kind of solution.

    ITFC is an example, as it prepares for the future and anticipates future expansions by implementing a long-term data retention archive solution enabling ITFC to add flexible, cost-effective storage to their existing system. This solution includes the Quantum iScalar 6000 robotic system, an enterprise-class tape library launched in April 2010, designed specifically for archive and long-term data retention.
    ITFC, is, a London based company pioneer of broadcast audio description which has provided post production and media access services to many major broadcast, film and corporate companies for three decades.

    Sources:
    - http://www.itfc.com/itfc_press_releases_2010/TMD_release_26_August_FINAL...

    - http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:vVv-Evz_suYJ:www.ww...

  • DataTresorDisc undertakes the optical storage market as a permanent storage and archiving solution

    DataTresorDisc (DTD) from Northern Star spol, s.r.o., (Czech Republic), undertakes the optical storage market as a permanent storage and archiving solution, by launching a new standard 12cm 4.7GB DVD+R with an innovative recording technology. Its recording layer is based on metal-ceramic and semi-metal, as standard DVD+R are based on an organic light-sensitive dye mixture.

    Northern Star states in its website that by having integrated this this metal based composite into the optical media, DTD is a unique permanent storage and archiving solution; which has showed to have a data life expectancy of 160 years in its accelerated age test in simulations of extreme environmental conditions; thus no environmental impacts such as heat, humidity or light have shown to have influence on the longevity of DTD.

    According to Northern Star DTD is:
    • Backwards compatible with all common burners and readers including Blu-ray writers. Therefore no fear in the future of technology obsolence.
    • Not only safely storing data, but as well archiving without the need to rotate or migrate data every two years. No special storage requirements.
    • Once data burned onto „DATA TRESOR DISC”, no alteration or overwriting possible, therefore safe from manipulation.
    • Low cost archiving solution with reduced storage costs.

    Source:
    Northern Star website

  • Fresh baked SHAMAN reports

    New just published SHAMAN reports can be found and freely downloaded from our SHAMAN/Downloads section.

    • The SHAMAN Implementation of Templates to Manage the Ingest Workflow (D6.3) which primarily relates to the software based on the Xeproc© Domain-Specific Language

    • The Demonstration of Distributed Ingestion for Memory Institutions (D 11.2) which reports on prototypical archiving systems which demonstrate distributed ingest systems within selected application scenarios

    • The Report on Demonstration and Evaluation activity in the domain of "Memory Institutions" (D 14.2) which reports on the potential of the SHAMAN framework for digital preservation in the context of Memory Institutions.

    • The SHAMAN Training Plan (D 15.2) detailing on the activities, methodologies and the schedule of the main operational aspects of training activities to be performed within the project lifecycle

    • The Plan for Using and Disseminating Knowledge beyond the Scientific Communities (D.17.2 - Year 3) which targets at those groups of stakeholders who are likely to be interested in the future usage of SHAMAN enabled products and services to fulfil their requirements for long term management of digital assets

  • Introduction to new approaches in digital preservation, SHAMAN and nestor event, German National Library in Frankfurt, Germany, 01/02/2011

    SHAMAN Project and Nestor event
    Introduction to new approaches in digital preservation

    1 February 2011
    German National Library
    Frankfurt, Germany

    The European project SHAMAN (Sustaining Heritage Access through Multivalent ArchiviNg),and Nestor (German competence network for digital preservation) are delighted to announce the training event ‘Introduction to new approaches in digital preservation’, which will take place at the National German Library in Frankfurt (DE), on 1 February 2011.

    Speakers and Program
    Speakers include scientists and researchers from Georg-August-Universitaet Goettingen, University of Liverpool, FernUniversität Hagen, XEROX Research Center Europe and University of Glasgow.

    The focus of the event will be on:

    - Digital Preservation Policies
    - Ontologies and Context Modelling in Digital Preservation
    - Data Grids
    - Digital Preservation Workflows
    - the newly released SHAMAN demonstrator, aimed at supporting digital preservation in libraries and archives

    The program is available at
    SHAMAN Project and Nestor event Agenda

    Audience
    This event is designed to raise awareness of digital preservation issues and present new approaches available to help preserving digital assets. Practitioners, researchers and managers engaged with digital preservation and digital infrastructures in libraries and archives are welcome.

    Registration
    Participation is free, but spaces are limited.
    Please register by emailing perla.innocenti at glasgow.ac.uk by Monday 24 January.

  • 2010 showed divided market strategies on Permanent Data Storage

    Controversially, today storage market players see the completely different strategies for Managing Permanent Data Storage. IBM and LTO (Linear Tape-Open format) Consortium are renewing the interest in the tape media, while companies such EMC see this market to decline.

    While EMC claims that tape is in “collapse”, IBM launched in mid 2010 the public availability (at no cost) of the IBM Long Term File System software. This software product uses the Long Term File System (FTFS) to allow users and applications direct access to files and directories stored on the tape, as well as to create and access files as they would be allocated in a USB stick or external hard disk. LTFS is currently available for Linux and Mac Oss, and was announced to be available for supporting Windows by the end of 2010.

    IBM together with HP and Quantum run The LTO (Linear Tape-Open format) Consortium and have released the Linear Tape-Open format (LTO-5). The LTO-5 allows capacity (1.5 TB of uncompressed capacity) and files to be written directly to a tape and read by another computer, independent of OS or application.

    Currently large enterprises usually use a combination of disk and tape for their backup and storage needs for leveraging costs and access of data. Tapes mainly used to support archives in Financial, Telecommunications and Medical enterprises or organisations that have large volumes of transactions, images or data that need to be recorded, stored or archived. However, as tapes are generally slower than disk, in both access time and transfer rate, enterprises also evaluate the usage of disk-based systems technology coupled with data reduction (deduplication), for back-ups, archiving, recovering and restoring systems.

    Sources:
    http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/storage/tape/ltfs/
    http://searchstoragechannel.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid98_gci1512927...
    EMC presentation: http://www.emc.com/collateral/about/news/emcworld/2010/fslootman_emc_wor...)

  • 1st SHAMAN TRAINING EVENT

    The SHAMAN team is delighted to announce the first SHAMAN training event (SHAMAN – Agenda 1st SHAMAN training event ).

    The event will be held jointly with the German competence network for digital preservation nestor (http://www.langzeitarchivierung.de/eng/) on 1 February 2011, Deutsche Nationalbibliothek, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

    This training event is targeting practitioners and researchers in digital preservation, with a particular focus on Policies, Ontologies and Context Modelling, Data Grids, Workflows and the newly released SHAMAN demonstrator.

    Spaces are limited, please register by emailing perla.innocenti at glasgow.ac.uk.

    The SHAMAN team is delighted to announce the first SHAMAN training event(SHAMAN – Agenda 1st SHAMAN training event ).

    The event will be held jointly with the German competence network for digital preservation nestor (http://www.langzeitarchivierung.de/eng/) on 1 February 2011, Deutsche Nationalbibliothek, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

    This training event is targeting practitioners and researchers in digital preservation, with a particular focus on Policies, Ontologies and Context Modelling, Data Grids, Workflows and the newly released SHAMAN demonstrator.

    Spaces are limited, please register by emailing perla.innocenti at glasgow.ac.uk.

  • ITFC implements a readily scalable archive solution specifically designed for archiving and long-term data retention

    As the value and quantity of digital content continues to increase, it becomes a mission-critical asset for the Broadcasting Industry, and high growth of digital content becomes an important challenge to face. Thus we start to see in the market new commercial solutions specifically approaching long-preservation for business environments, such as the Quantum iScalar 6000, and new comers adopting this kind of solution, such as ITFC.

    In this regard, companies such as ITFC seems to be preparing for the future and anticipating future expansions by implementing a long-term data retention archive solution enabling ITFC to add flexible, cost-effective storage to their existing system. This solution includes the Quantum iScalar 6000 robotic system, an enterprise-class tape library launched in April 2010, designed specifically for archive and long-term data retention.

    ITFC, is, a London based company pioneer of broadcast audio description which has provided post production and media access services to many major broadcast, film and corporate companies for three decades. ITFC is being set for a global expansion after Deluxe’s Entertainment Services Group acquired assets of ITFC.

    Sources:
    - http://www.itfc.com/itfc_press_releases_2010/TMD_release_26_August_FINAL...
    - http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:vVv-Evz_suYJ:www.ww...

  • SHAMAN and Protage projects hosted together the “How to secure digital preservation resources, solutions, services, infrastructures in the information society? at the ICT 2010 forum

    In the wake of the ICT2010 event, the SHAMAN and Protage projects hosted together the “How to secure digital preservation resources, solutions, services, infrastructures in the information society? Future of Digital Preservation (DP) Research & Impact” networking session, in which both projects shared the latest achievements and debated the challenges of preserving information assets in a “Digital Europe”.

    Discussions during the networking session emphasised that players aiming at providing solutions for ensuring future accessibility and usability of knowledge, information, and data will have to tackle in a broader, multidisciplinary context in order to go mainstream.

    The ICT 2010 forum, under the slogan Digitally Driven Europe focused on the policy priorities such as Europe’s Digital Agenda and the 2011-2012 financial programme (€2.8 billion) of the European Union for funding research and innovation in ICT. The event gathered over 5,000 professionals in the ICT segment, representing academia, public administration, politicians and industry from around the World.

    Presentations from the networking session can be downloaded from the following link: http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/events/cf/ict2010/item-display.c...

  • SHAMAN organizes at the Future of Digital Preservation (DP) Research & Impact Networking Session at the ICT 2010 event

    SHAMAN organizes the Networking Session: "How to secure digital preservation resources, solutions, services, infrastructures in the information society? Future of Digital Preservation (DP) Research & Impact Networking Session."

    It will be held on September 28th, 2010 from 9h to 10:30h, and will present how the prosperity of future generations is linked to ensuring that today’s digital assets will be accessible tomorrow.

    SHAMAN organizes the Networking Session: "How to secure digital preservation resources, solutions, services, infrastructures in the information society? Future of Digital Preservation (DP) Research & Impact Networking Session."

    It will be held on September 28th, 2010 from 9h to 10:30h, and will present how the prosperity of future generations is linked to ensuring that today’s digital assets will be accessible tomorrow.

    The ICT event is a biennial forum for research and innovation organised by the EC. Under the theme "Digitally Driven" the forum the ICT 2010 will be held in Brussels between 27 and 29 of September 2010 and will present latest research trends in information and communication technologies, and will gather potential research and business partners.

    If you are at the ICT 2010 event, bear to come and share during the Networking Session.

    Networking Session & Agenda:
    http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/events/cf/ict2010/item-display.c...

  • Storage suppliers have opposite strategies on tape media for Permanent Data Storage

    Controversially, today storage market players see the completely different strategies for Managing Permanent Data Storage.

    IBM and LTO Consortium(Linear Tape-Open format) are renewing the interest in the tape media, but companies such EMC see the tape media storage market to decline.

    While EMC claims that tape is in “collapse”, IBM announced on April 2010 the public availability (at no cost) of the IBM Long Term File System software. This software product uses the Linear Tape File System (LTFS) to allow users and applications direct access to files and directories stored on the tape, as well as to create and access files as they would be allocated in a USB stick or external hard disk. LTFS is currently available for Linux and Mac Oss, and will be available for Windows support at the end of 2010.

    IBM together with HP and Quantum run The LTO Consortium(Linear Tape-Open format consortium), and have released the latest generation of the Linear Tape-Open format (LTO-5). The LTO-5 allows files to be written directly to a tape and to be read by another computer, independently of OS or application.

    Today, large enterprises usually use a combination of disk and tape for their backup and storage needs for leveraging costs and access of data. Tapes are mainly used to support archives in Financial, Telecommunications and Medical enterprises/organisations that have large volumes of transactions, images or data that need to be recorded, stored or archived. However, as tapes are generally slower than disk, in both access time and transfer rate, enterprises also evaluate the usage of disk-based systems technology coupled with data reduction (deduplication), for back-ups, archiving, recovering and restoring systems.

    Sources:
    http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/storage/tape/ltfs/
    http://searchstoragechannel.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid98_gci1512927...
    EMC presentation: http://www.emc.com/collateral/about/news/emcworld/2010/fslootman_emc_wor...),

  • Atempo targets the growing challenge of storage management and long-term data preservation

    Atempo targets the growing challenge of storage management and long-term data preservation

    Atempo with headquarters in Europe and USA, targets the enterprises` need of storage growth and preservation of digital information over long periods of time through its enterprise-level Atempo Digital Archive (ADA) solution; in the Media and Entertainment, Scientific Research, Healthcare, Government and Education industries.

    Atempo with headquarters in Europe and USA, targets the enterprises` need of storage growth and preservation of digital information over long periods of time through its enterprise-level Atempo Digital Archive (ADA) solution; in the Media and Entertainment, Scientific Research, Healthcare, Government and Education industries.

    Atempo launched ADA 3.1 this year, for media and entertainment environments where large data files are frequently moved across multiple storage devices. This application offers the archival of complex file formats such as MXF, DPX and MOV with full metadata ingestion, partial and full restoration of creative content. It also integrates digital archiving into the creative workflow by directly archiving from Final Cut Pro (Apple`s editor).

    Additionally, Attempo has enhanced interoperability between its Digital Archive, and EMC Data Domain deduplication storage systems in order to offer storage efficiency and cost savings.

    Source: http://www.atempo.com/

  • Gordon Brown announced Open Government Data as part of the 2020 UK transformation

    Open Government Data will underpin UK transformation by 2020. Notwithstanding, the role of Digital Preservation processes and mechanisms will be leveraged as this initiatives become part of Governments and Business competitiveness strategies.

    Last Monday March 22nd, the UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown gave a major speech devoted to “Building Britain’s Digital Future”, not only to present a internet based “radical set of proposals” to transform Britain as the world leader in the digital economy by 2020, but also the funding to be allocated to reach this transformation.

    He announced opening up government datasets to “all” with no restricted re-use and digital “domesday book”, which will be managed by the National Archives.

    Godon Brown said:

    "….. Public transport timetables and real-time running information is currently owned by the operating companies….."

    "…..But we will work to free it up - and from today we will make it a condition of future franchises that this data will be made freely available……"
    "….. I can confirm that from 1 April, we will be making a substantial package of information held by ordnance survey freely available to the public, without restrictions on re-use.... “

    “….in the autumn the Government will publish online an inventory of all non-personal datasets held by departments and arms-length bodies - a “domesday book” for the 21st century.

    The programme will be managed by the National Archives and it will be overseen by a new open data board which will report on the first edition of the new domesday book by April next year. The Government will then produce its detailed proposals including how this work can be extended to the wider public sector.”

    Information and knowledge will flows more freely, “….Any business or individual will be free to embed this public data in their own websites, and to use it in creative ways within their own applications…”, he said.

    He also announced the creation and funding for the new Institute of Web Science:

    “Today I can announce the first funding for the next stage of this research - £30m to support the creation of a new institute, the institute of web science - based here in Britain and working with government and British business to realise the social and economic benefits of advances in the web.”

    Source: http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page22896

  • An IT and consulting services company headqartered UK has been included as a member of a $20 million research data preservation project team in USA

    Tessella, a global IT and consulting services company, born and headquartered in UK with revenues exceeding £17 million in 2009, has been selected to be included in the Data Conservancy team, led by Johns Hopkins University (JHU) Sheridan Libraries.

    Tessella, a global IT and consulting services company, born and headquartered in UK with revenues exceeding £17 million in 2009, has been selected to be included in the Data Conservancy team, led by Johns Hopkins University (JHU) Sheridan Libraries.

    This company is joining the Data Conservancy team to work in a research data preservation project that has been awarded with a 5 year grant ($20 million) by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

    The scope of the project is to build a data research infrastructure for managing the increasing amounts of digital information created for teaching and research, and it is part of the $100 million DataNet program, which aims at establishing a national cyber-infrastructure to support the long term preservation and curation of scientific data.

    Source: http://www.tessella.com/2010/01/press-release-20-million-us-archiving-pr...

  • SHAMAN related news in ERCIM Magazine

    ERCIM (the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics) Magazine has dedicated its special theme section to Digital Preservation, in the Jan. 2010 issue.

    ERCIM (the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics) Magazine has dedicated its special theme section to Digital Preservation, in the Jan. 2010 issue.

    The following articles, produced within the framework of the SHAMAN project, have been published in this magazine issue:

  • XEPROC document process modelling technology available under Eclipse Public License

    Created within Shaman, XEPROC is cutting edge technology that helps design robust, flexible document processes fast, while producing an abstract representation independent of the implementation.

    Created within Shaman, XEPROC is cutting edge technology that helps design robust, flexible document processes fast, while producing an abstract representation independent of the implementation.

    These representations capture the intent behind the workflow and can be preserved for reuse within future, unknown infrastructures contributing to the preservation of knowledge assets.

    In a SOA spirit, XEPROC embeds references to services and documents and provides loose coupling to services and also to data resources, with respect to both their location and format. Xeproc provides a new kind of orchestration designer, integrated in the full set of Eclipse tools.

    Available on Eclipse 3.5 under the Eclipse Public License, XEPROC combines a domain specific language (DSL), an associated graphic designer and extension APIs.

    'Read more' at - www.xrce.xerox.com/Xeproc

    XEPROC in ERCIM Special issue on Digital Preservation -XEPROC

  • The industry approaches Digital Preservation as a way of “Securing communication with the Future”

    SHAMAN Project have thought Digital Preservation as communication with the future, since prosperity for future generations is linked to keeping value of today’s digital assets by granting proper access to digital content in the future.

    We can see this approach for example in different MOUs (Memorandum of Understanding) that the BBC have signed with different partners during 2009.

    SHAMAN Project have thought Digital Preservation as communication with the future, since prosperity for future generations is linked to keeping value of today’s digital assets by granting proper access to digital content in the future.

    We can see this approach for example in different MOUs (Memorandum of Understanding) that the BBC have signed with different partners during 2009.

    In December 2009 the BBC signed a MOU with the BBC, in an innovative approach that foresees to integrate access to nearly a million hours of BBC TV and radio content and over 150 million British Library items; it will increase the access to research material across both national institutions for the benefit of researchers and the wider public.

    The MOU also takes in account collaboration in developing viable approaches for rights management, distribution of archive content, digitisation and storage.

    Mark Thompson, Director General of BBC said "Unlocking the wealth of content in the British Library and BBC archives is a great opportunity as well as an immense challenge. It is vital we partner, harnessing the power of digital technology to give the public the access they deserve."

    CEO of the British Library Dame Lynne said “Unparalleled access to joint information services and world-class digital archival content will truly enable the business, academic, scientific, research and creative communities to flourish."

    The BBC also has signed earlier this year MOUs with the British Film Institute and the BBC and The National Archives.

    Source: BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8408818.stm

  • The National Archives of Australia has developed an Open Source Digital Preservation Software

    The National Archives of Australia has developed XENA (Xml Electronic Normalising for Archives), a free open source software to aid in the long term preservation of digital records.

    The National Archives of Australia has developed XENA (Xml Electronic Normalising for Archives), a free open source software to aid in the long term preservation of digital records.

    Xena detects the file formats of digital objects and converts digital objects into open formats for preservation.

    Source: http://xena.sourceforge.net/

  • Failures in digital preservation have lead to a current political controversy in USA

    A failure in digital preservation have re-steamed a political controversy in USA during this week, after finding 22 million of White House e-mails, that were missing from the President George Bush administration. In USA two federal laws require the White House to preserve its records.

    A failure in digital preservation have re-steamed a political controversy in USA during this week, after finding 22 million of White House e-mails, that were missing from the President George Bush administration. In USA two federal laws require the White House to preserve its records.

    According to Anne Weismann, chief counsel for CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington) liberal group these emails have been found due to their lawsuits and pressure generated from Capitol Hill.

    As a consequence of this failure in the properly working electronic record keeping system, it is expected that it will be about 4 years at earliest before the public sees any of the recovered e-mails, as these emails will now go through the National Archives' process for releasing presidential and agency records. Additionally, new recovery costs and lawsuits will probably come and increase this controversy.

    Source: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2009/12/14/2009-12-14_found_22_...

  • SHAMAN PROJECT will be presented at the “Cultural Heritage On Line"

    Are you in Florence next Wednesday 16ht at the “Cultural Heritage On Line”? ....

    If so, bear to come and share during the Parallel sessions II: "Sustainable policies for digital culture preservation" (11:00- 13:30) at the Teatro della Pergola, where SHAMAN Project information will be presented by FernUniversität in Hagen (“Towards supporting context-oriented information retrieval in a scientific-archive based information lifecycle”)

    Read more at: http://rinascimento-digitale.it/conference2009-programme.phtml

    Are you in Florence next Wednesday 16ht at the “Cultural Heritage On Line”? ....

    If so, bear to come and share during the Parallel sessions II: "Sustainable policies for digital culture preservation" (11:00- 13:30) at the Teatro della Pergola, where SHAMAN Project information will be presented by FernUniversität in Hagen (“Towards supporting context-oriented information retrieval in a scientific-archive based information lifecycle”)

    Read more at: http://rinascimento-digitale.it/conference2009-programme.phtml

  • Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU) agreement signed by the BBC and British Library

    The BBC envisions a hybrid model of public service and commercial pay models for its digiarchive. This MOU agreement signed by the BBC and British Library seek at integrating access to nearly a million hours of BBC TV and radio content and over 150 million British Library items.

    The BBC envisions a hybrid model of public service and commercial pay models for its digiarchive. This MOU agreement signed by the BBC and British Library seek at integrating access to nearly a million hours of BBC TV and radio content and over 150 million British Library items.

    On December 11th the BBC director general Mark Thompson and Dame Lynne Brindley, chief executive of the British Library, signed a Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU) agreement in which both organisations joined forces to explore ways to create a new digital archive for content and assets from both organisations.

    According to Brindley this MOU aims at creating “a model of best practice which will allow the Library to develop similar opportunities with other public institutions. Providing unparalleled access to joint information services and world-class digital archival content will truly enable the business, academic, scientific, research and creative communities to flourish."

    The committee will explore various issues around distribution of archive material, such as rights management, digitisation and storage. The BBC also recently signed separate MOUs with the British Film Institute and The National Archives. These agreements are part of BBC`s goal to get as much material as possible in the archive by its 100th anniversary in 2022, although this aim could prove elusive due to the complicated rights negotiations.

    The BBC intends to unlock its archives by the end of 2010, including some material from 1922. BBC Director Jana Bennett said that the archive would most likely incorporate a hybrid model of public service and commercial pay models.

  • SHAMAN members participated at the 13th European Conference on Digital Libraries (ECDL) 2009

    SHAMAN members participated at the 13th European Conference on Digital Libraries, which addressed the main issues that users and user communities confront within modern digital libraries.

    SHAMAN members participated at the 13th European Conference on Digital Libraries (ECDL - http://www.ecdl2009.eu/) held in CORFU (Greece)

    The conference addressed the main issues that users and user communities confront within modern digital libraries, such as the creation and enrichment of information artefacts, sharing and distribution of information objects, retrieval and filtering mechanisms, enhancement of user interfaces to increase productivity, and digital preservation.

  • SHAMAN PROJECT presented at SUN-PASIG Fall Meetings

    SHAMAN team members participated in the SUN-PASIG Summer Meeting in Malta (June 2009 - http://events-at-sun.com/pasig_malta09/agenda.php ) as well as in the Fall Meeting in San Francisco (October 2009 - https://meeting-reg.com/sunpasig/).

    As part of dissemination activities the SHAMAN Project was presented during the Fall meeting in San Francisco by Ruben Riestra (Inmark), Project coordinator, and Prof. Dr.-Ing Matthias Hemmje (Fern Universitat of Hagen).

    Fall meeting reached about 170 attendees and gathered academicians, technologists, librarians, and storage architects from around the world to discuss best practices and solve challenges in 21st Century archiving. The conclusion of this meeting was that “with the close collaboration of leading educational and library institutions, the world's valuable research, audio-visual content, and cultural heritage materials can be preserved and more widely and safely shared. But much remains to be done to address issues in this evolving field.”

    SUN-PASIG is the SUN Preservation and Archival Interest Group, led by Sun Microsystems, gather Sun market, product experts and PASIG members in a jointly manner, in order to set out baseline technology trends for the group. Fall meeting presentations comprised themes such as practical architectures for Digital Preservation, and discussed about needs and challenges in the areas of data curation, data management of eScience content, preservation, repositories, and storage technologies.

    More information at http://lib.stanford.edu/files/pasig2009sf/pasig2009sf_shaman_intro.pdf (Part I) and http://lib.stanford.edu/files/pasig2009sf/pasig2009sf_shaman_rtd.pdf (Part II)

  • SHAMAN at iPRES 2009 – The Sixth International Conference on Preservation of Digital Objects

    SHAMAN team members participated and performed presentations in the sixth annual international Conference on Preservation of Digital Objects (iPRES 2009) at Mission Bay Conference Center in San Francisco on October 5th and 6th, 2009.

    SHAMAN team members participated and performed presentations in the sixth annual international Conference on Preservation of Digital Objects (iPRES 2009) at Mission Bay Conference Center in San Francisco on October 5th and 6th, 2009.

    Under the theme "Moving into the mainstream, enabling our digital future," this conference brought together researchers and practitioners from around the world working to preserve the world's cultural and scholarly digital heritage, to present the latest trends, innovations, and practices in preserving our scientific and cultural digital heritage (Conference Program: http://www.cdlib.org/iPres/confsched.html ).

    The following were the main topics of the conference:

    - Re-positioning preservation awareness and services further upstream in the digital lifecycle

    - Re-emphasizing that digital preservation problems and solutions encompass legal, economic, and social as well as technological dimensions

    - Re-asserting the need for comprehensive integration of preservation analysis and activities into the organizational planning and operations of institutions that produce, manage, or exploit digital resources

    - Bringing preservation issues to the attention of the broader public in order to change minds, policies, and expectations

    - Stressing the importance of seeing digital preservation as an outcome resulting in usability

    Reinhard Altenhöner, as Head of the IT Department of Deutsche Nationalbibliothek (DNB), the national library of Germany, presented “E-infrastructure and Digital Preservation: Challenges and Outlook “ (http://www.cdlib.org/iPres/presentations/Altenhoener.pdf).

    He presented the reasons and strategic aspects which might illuminate the prohibiting factors for the unassertive progress of Digital Preservation, based on the the German situation and their practical experiences. DNB is a SHAMAN partner, and also participates in several National and European projects.

    Wolfgang Wilkes, representing Fern Universitat of Hagen and InConTec, partners of the Shaman project, presented “Towards Support for Long-Term Digital Preservation in Product Life Cycle Management “(http://www.cdlib.org/iPres/presentations/Wilkes.pdf). He presented a real-life engineering archive use case scenarios linking the Product Lifecycle Management systems and the Digital Preservation Systems.

    The presentation highlighted the importance of legal and economic motivations for the design and engineering domain to address and integrate digital long-term preservation into the product life cycle management (PLM). Different phases of a product’s life generate diverse and very complex, structured data, often in proprietary data format which is necessary during long-lasting products (i.e. airplanes) for contractual and economic requirements as well as for legal compliance.

    SHAMAN, CASPAR, KEEP and PLANETS projects represented the DigiCult projects; which are EU co-funded projects comprised under the ICT programme in FP7, that research on cultural heritage, digital libraries and digital preservation.

  • Public hearing and consultation on Post-i2010: priorities for a new strategy for a European information society (2010-2015)

    The upcoming challenges for Digital Europe were raised in the public consultation "Post-i2010: priorities for a new strategy for a European information society (2010-2015)" in Brussels. It will be opened until 9 October 2009 and available in English, German, French, Spanish, Italian and Polish.

    The consultation will contribute to the preparations of a new European ICT strategy which the Commission aims to present in 2010 as part of the next wave of the Lisbon Agenda.
    A public hearing on this topic is organised in Brussels on 23 September.

  • The US Library of Congress in Top 10 Federal IT Initiatives

    Government Computer News announced in September (2009) that the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program is among the best of Federal information technology initiatives of 2009.

    "The annual GCN Awards honor agencies for their outstanding achievements in the application of information technology to advance their work and the services they provide. The 2009 agency winners are now part of a tradition of innovation, excellence, and service.

  • SHAMAN presented papers at IFLA Congress

    Under the motto “Libraries create futures: Building on cultural heritage”, the World Library and Information Congress 2009, 75th IFLA General Conference and Assembly, took take place in Milan, Italy.

    SHAMAN partners presented a Paper in the session Statistics for the cultural heritage (Preservation and Conservation Section).

  • Digital economy can lift Europe out of crisis, according to the Digital Competitiveness EU Commission report

    The European Commission's Digital Competitiveness report published today (April 4ht, 2009) shows that Europe's digital sector has made strong progress since 2005: 56% of Europeans now regularly use the internet, 80% of them via a high-speed connection (compared to only one third in 2004), making Europe the world leader in broadband internet.

    Europe is the world's first truly mobile continent with more mobile subscribers than citizens (a take up rate of 119%). Europe can advance even further as a generation of "digitally savvy" young Europeans becomes a strong market driver for growth and innovation.

    Building on the potential of the digital economy is essential for Europe's sustainable recovery from the economic crisis. Today the Commission has asked in a public consultation, what future strategy the EU should adopt to make the digital economy run at full speed.

  • SHAMAN has been invited to talk at the 9th Industrial Conference on Data Mining ICDM’2009.

    Held in Leipzig, Germany, this conference aimed at educating people from industry and medicine on benefits of Data Mining.

  • SHAMAN Assessment Framework at ACM MEDES 2009

    SHAMAN Assessment Framework at ACM MEDES 2009

    A collaborative paper on "Assessing Digital Preservation Frameworks: the approach of the SHAMAN project" will be presented by Perla Innocenti at the International ACM Conference on Management of Emergent Digital EcoSystems (MEDES) 2009 in Lyon, France.

  • 23 July 2009 - Preservation in the Cloud

    National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP) of the Library of Congress, has launched a pilot program to test cloud technologies for preserving digital content. The pilot will focus on using a new service, DuraCloud, developed and hosted by the DuraSpace Foundation.
    Cloud technologies use remote computers to provide local services through the Internet. Duracloud will let an institution provide data storage and access without having to maintain its own dedicated technical infrastructure.

    Among the NDIIPP partners participating in the pilot program are the New York Public Library and the Biodiversity Heritage Library. The test will cover both storage and access services, including content replication and monitoring services that span multiple cloud-storage providers.

    DuraCloud is aimed at helping institutions and individuals take advantage of cloud technologies in providing access to their digital materials. DuraCloud is focused on providing trusted solutions for organizations such as universities, libraries, cultural heritage organizations, research centres and others who are concerned with ensuring perpetual access to their digital content.

  • OvGU:Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg organised the special session at the 16th International Conference on Digital Signal Processing (DSP 2009)

    Jana Dittmann and Claus Vielhauer from UNIMD held a special session at DSP 2009

    Jana Dittmann and Claus Vielhauer from UNIMD organised the special session at the "Securing Media for the Next Centuries: from Digital Watermarking, Fingerprinting and Hashing to Secure Archival Architectures" at the 16th International Conference on Digital Signal Processing (DSP 2009), held 5-7 July 2009 in Santorini, Greece.

    During this session the following SHAMAN partners presented:

    - Dennis Nicholson and Milena Dobreva from University of Strathclyde (U.K.)presented "Beyond OAIS: Towards a Reliable and Consistent Digital Preservation Implementation Framework" (http://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/12915/1/strathprints012915.pdf)

    - Martin Mois, Claus-Peter Klas, Univ.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. Matthias L. Hemmje from Fern Universität Hagen (Germany) presented "Digital Preservation as Communication with the Future" (http://www.lgmmia.fernuni-hagen.de/bib/docs/Mois_etal_09.html.en)

  • First SHAMAN Public Deliverable fresh baked

    SHAMAN Requirements Analysis Report and Specification of the SHAMAN Assessment Framework and Protocol is the very first Public Deliverable that will be available in brief at EU/Cordis webpage

    30 June 2009

    SHAMAN Requirements Analysis Report and Specification of the SHAMAN Assessment Framework and Protocol is the very first Public Deliverable that will be available in brief at EU/Cordis webpage. Document comprises an identification of SHAMAN Usage Scenarios and related use cases to determine the Conceptual Requirements of the Infrastructure and conducts a needs analysis study in three representative domains.

    This analysis on preservation policy in real-life and the usage scenarios for the representative domains will result in the design of the functional and non-functional parameters to be implemented by the SHAMAN environment as well as in the design of an Assessment Framework detailing the SHAMAN Assessment Protocol (SAP) for validating the project’s progress towards objectives and impact of its results.

    The needs and expectations of end users and service providers are surveyed to inform the development of the proposed system. The analysis focuses on organisational contexts as well as on the different document and object types and their meta-data, with an emphasis on how the results can be executed on sample content and its evaluation in terms of real library, archival and preservation services in the public as well as in the industrial and scientific context.

  • Ex Libris Group Announces the General Release of its Digital Preservation System

    Previously known as the Digital Preservation System (DPS), the newly named Ex Libris Rosetta enables institutions to preserve and provide access to the valuable digital collections in their care, now and in the future.

    Ex Libris™ Group announced the release of Ex Libris Rosetta for digital libraries, which will provide national and academic libraries and archives around the world with a solution to support their task of collecting and preserving cumulative knowledge in digital format for the enjoyment and use of generations to come.

    Just as the Rosetta Stone held the key to enabling early 19th century scholars to understand Egyptian hieroglyphic script, Ex Libris Rosetta provides today’s libraries with the infrastructure and technology needed to preserve and facilitate access to and understanding of the digital collections under their guardianship--in perpetuity.

    Ex Libris Rosetta supports the acquisition, validation, ingest, storage, management, preservation and dissemination of different types of digital objects while enforcing the relevant policies that can vary from one institution to another.

  • SHAMAN was launched

    12 March 2008

    The SHAMAN Project is a Large Integrated Project co-financed by the European Union within the Seventh Framework Programme. The kick off meeting was held at the Tate Gallery in Liverpool, UK.
    This project will develop and test a next generation digital preservation framework including tools for analysing, ingesting, managing, accessing and reusing information objects and data across libraries and archives.

    Starting from 01 December 2007, project will last 48 months.

    An outstanding Consortium of top 16 partners has been put on place (Inmark; the universities of Liverpool, FernUniversität in Hagen, Strathclyde, Otto-von-Guericke Universität Magdeburg, Georg-August-Universität Goettingen State and University Library, Glasgow, Illinois, Swedish School of Library and Information Science (SSLIS) at Göteborg University and University College of Boras; InConTec; Xerox Research Centre Europe; Philips Innovation Lab; Deutsche Nationalbibliothek; Industrious Media; Globale Informationstechnik GmbH; Inescid) and 2 collaborators (Vlaams Parlement and SDSC)

    Total funding of project is € 8 398 300.

    12 March 2008

    The SHAMAN Project is a Large Integrated Project co-financed by the European Union within the Seventh Framework Programme. The kick off meeting was held at the Tate Gallery in Liverpool, UK.
    This project will develop and test a next generation digital preservation framework including tools for analysing, ingesting, managing, accessing and reusing information objects and data across libraries and archives.

    Starting from 01 December 2007, project will last 48 months.

    An outstanding Consortium of top 16 partners has been put on place (Inmark; the universities of Liverpool, FernUniversität in Hagen, Strathclyde, Otto-von-Guericke Universität Magdeburg, Georg-August-Universität Goettingen State and University Library, Glasgow, Illinois, Swedish School of Library and Information Science (SSLIS) at Göteborg University and University College of Boras; InConTec; Xerox Research Centre Europe; Philips Innovation Lab; Deutsche Nationalbibliothek; Industrious Media; Globale Informationstechnik GmbH; Inescid) and 2 collaborators (Vlaams Parlement and SDSC)

    Total funding of project is € 8 398 300.