NDSA:January 27, 2014 Standards and Practices Working Group Notes

Participants on the Call

Amy Kirchhoff

Andrea Goethals

Carl Fleischhauer

Carol Kussmann

Carolyn Campbell

Chris Lacinak

Dina Sokolova

Hannah Frost

Kate Zwaard

Kate Murray

Linda Tadic

Mariella Soprano

Mary Vardigan

Meg Phillips

Michelle Paolillo (Cornell)

Midge Coates (Auburn)

Paula De Stefano

Vika Zafrin

New Members/Attendees

Chris Lacinak (AVPreserve) Hannah Frost (Stanford Library) Dave Ackerman (Harvard Library)

Video Discussion/Update

Update on FADGI Working group activities. Blog post can be found here: http://blogs.loc.gov/digitalpreservation/2013/10/one-format-does-not-fit-all-fadgi-audio-visual-working-groups-diverse-approaches-to-format-guidance/

Main projects include: 1. Video - Application specification for video for the use of MXF Format with the purpose to encorporate archiving and preservation components. Specifically embedding metadata into the file itself. Hope to distribute for comments in the next few weeks. - The National Archives is working on a matrix to compare target wrappers and encodings against a set list of criteria that come into play when reformatting analog videotapes. Evaluation attributes include format sustainability, cost estimates, learning curve and other elements. This will be live soon and available on the FADGI website.

2. FADGI Born Digital Subgroup - Creating guiding principles around born digital video. - Collecting and sharing examples and case histories around born digital video projects. Variety of case histories show that there is not a one size fits all solution - but that is OK. (American Folklife Center, Voices of America, Smithsonian, and NOAA will create case histories.) - Work geared toward file creators and archivists.

3. Guiding Principles (in general) - Start with highest quality for creation, maintenance, and access. - higher bit rate and depths over lower - use wrappers with greater metadata capacity over lower - more audio channels than less - use formats that are supported by downstream applications - create project specific details (file naming, metadata) before project starts

• Not all case histories support guiding principles but have reasons why. Need to document cause and effect of the choices made.

Discussion on Video Update - Important to understand that you don’t always have control over born digital materials (some are given to you) - Guiding principles were not prioritized. - Hope that the case histories will reveal the true stories and show useful variations. - Goal is to recommend specifications and capture guidelines in the future for file creation - but now focused on surveying the landscape and lessons learned.

Update and Description of Video Project from Paula De Stefano NYU - Workflow process discussed: how materials are selected and converted to digital formats for access. (inhouse and outsourcing both supported) - Strong technical infrastructure (preservation repository, OAIS framework, redundant storage in distinct geographic locations, checksums, migrations); strong relationship with digital library technical department - Staffing: 3 full time staff; 4-6 students - Equipment: support for digitizing VHS, ¾ Umatic, Beta SP, Hi8, and others. Use FileCut Pro

Update and Description of Video Project from Hannah Frost Stanford - Support for all major cassette formats - take in archives, manuscript, and music library files - Staff of three - Digitize then run quality control checks and update metadata (descriptive) - Also working on more collaborative projects acting as a services repository, which seems to be a new trend. Update from Andrea Goethels at Harvard - Analysis for video support for preservation; academic community, online courses - Want to work on coordinating efforts / systems and be able to provide video preservation support using central university system. - We worked on Format analysis and looked at 30+ criteria, but prioritized this down to about 15. Created a list of preferred video formats. Update from Chris Lacinak AVPreserve - Momentum is in mass digitization projects. A project with the American Archives developed an archival management system platform - open source - for inventory, metadata capture, and managing digitzing workflows that has been reused. - Organizational aspects of digital preservation are pressing issues, it is not just a technological issue. - Interesting to see how the organizational aspects (staffing, financial) of digital preservation mix in with these case histories.

Other Business

- Put out a call to see who is interested in a video project of some kind. Another meeting will be set up accordingly. Update: Kate sent a Doodle poll to determine meeting date for video project

- The Standards Group is working with the Infrastructure Group on the Fixity Document. Please send comments to Kate Murray kmur@loc.gov or Trevor Owens trow@loc.gov.

- Possible discussion of Packaging Content for a preservation repository on the next call.

- Topic updates not covered in today’s meeting will be sent out via email.

Next Meeting

February 24, 2014. 1:00 PM (Eastern Daylight Time)