July 2005 Meeting
The network that is at the heart of the success of the Library’s digital preservation initiative was in evidence during the second meeting of the project partners for the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP).
On July 12-13, representatives from the eight project consortia that received awards totaling nearly $14 million in September 2004 convened at a conference center about 50 miles from Washington, D.C., to discuss the progress of their digital preservation projects, learn about related NDIIPP undertakings and discuss ways of moving forward.
The eight consortia comprise 36 institutions committed to working within the NDIIPP framework to collect specific types of important digital information that is at risk of being lost if it is not preserved. The institutions’ commitment includes their agreement to provide in-kind matching contributions to the $14 million they will receive from the Library over the course of these three-year projects.
According to William LeFurgy, digital initiatives project manager, who is overseeing the overall NDIIPP projects, "Some tremendously important work has been achieved since we last met." He was referring not only to the progress of the attendees but also to the formation of the Section 108 Study Group, the completion of the Archive Ingest and Handling Test, the recent awards for digital preservation research, the launch of a team to explore electronic deposit of materials for copyright registration and the testing of third-party digital storage services.
Section 108 Study Group
Mary Rasenberger, policy adviser for special programs in the U.S. Copyright Office, briefly discusses what the Section 108 Study Group has done so far. This independent panel, sponsored by NDIIPP and the U.S. Copyright Office, is reexamining the exceptions and limitations applicable to libraries and archives under the Copyright Act, specifically in light of the changes wrought by digital media. The group will study how section 108 of the Copyright Act may need to be amended to address the relevant issues and concerns of libraries and archives, as well as creators and other copyright holders.
The group was established by Laura Campbell, associate librarian for Strategic Initiatives, who is directing NDIIPP for the Library, and Marybeth Peters, the Register of Copyrights, but the group is independent of the Library and the Copyright Office.
Rasenberger explained that during its initial meeting, in April, the group "determined how to approach its work." The most recent meeting, in June, focused on how copyright law affects the preservation of digital materials. "Why is NDIIPP sponsoring this?" she asked.
"It is clear to all of you in your activities that you are coming up against copyright law because section 108 doesn’t address digital preservation."
The group is planning on making its recommendations by the summer of 2006, though Rasenberger acknowledged that "there is a risk that the working group will not reach consensus on all issues. They are dealing with very contentious issues."
The group’s co-chairs, Laura Gasaway, director of the Law Library and professor of law at the University of North Carolina, and Richard Rudick, former vice president and general counsel of John Wiley and Sons, were also in attendance. They, along with fellow member June Besek, executive director of the Kernochan Center for Law, Media and the Arts at Columbia Law School, noted some of the potential pitfalls for both the group itself as well as for archival institutions working with digital media.
The Section 108 Study Group "is not a debating society. We have to produce a result," said Rudick, acknowledging that participation "requires a certain amount of courage."
Besek cautioned attendees that even the mere digitization of an analog work for preservation purposes "creates a copy" and a potential copyright infringement. "And fair use cannot be relied upon for the wholesale copying of works for digital preservation," she said. "One person’s obstacle is another person’s safeguard."
Gasaway said that the study group is "looking at more than just issues of preservation. We are also looking at issues surrounding access, for example." She stated that even the notion of what a library is under section 108 must be considered when working with easily copied and transferred digital materials. "Is it only the main library, or does it also include the branches," which could readily make copies of digital materials held at the main library?
"What input can we have" into the group’s work?, asked David Kirsch, who is the University of Maryland’s manager for its "Birth of the Dot Come Era" project.
"You can provide real evidence" of the challenges you are facing, said Campbell. "Your challenges will make for a very powerful case for change." Added Rasenberger: "Part of our findings will be, What were the problems you encountered? What were the costs?"
Archive Ingest and Handling Test
Later, the meeting participants heard about the successful completion of the Archive Ingest and Handling Test (AIHT), which will have major implications for NDIIPP and for any institution that needs to transfer large archives of diverse digital material to other institutions. When files are transferred for the purpose of digital preservation, it is essential that both the information that a user sees when accessing the information as well as the underlying information – the metadata – transfer intact and without corruption.
Martha Anderson, a project manager for NDIIPP who has overseen this test for the Library, led the discussion. She explained that AIHT is "the first project to test the preservation architecture for NDIIPP."
The Sept. 11 Digital Archive files were chosen for the test, which was conducted by Harvard University Library, Johns Hopkins University Sheridan Libraries, Old Dominion University Research Foundation and Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources. According to Anderson, the archive offered two advantages: It is large enough to present significant metadata management issues (57,000 files and 20 file types), yet small enough (12 gigabytes) to present few difficulties with its storage or transfer. (Metadata is a definition or description of data. On the Web, metadata is used to provide information about a digital item that does not necessarily need to be displayed on the screen. This information, for example, helps a search engine find relevant "hits." Examples of information commonly stored as metadata include authorship, publication date, modification date, copyright information, and subject keywords.)
The four institutions that were partners with the Library of Congress all agreed that the collaborative nature of the test yielded results that could not have been achieved alone. The Stanford team commented, "The practical nature of the AIHT by itself was valuable, but the successful partnership during the project greatly reinforced and magnified that value. … We would have accomplished far less without benefit of the discussions with, the shared experiences of, and the tools provided by our partners."
Affinity Groups
The final activity of the first day of the meeting was devoted to meetings of the four NDIIPP Affinity Groups. These so-called Affinity Groups have been formed based on issues that are paramount among the 36 project partner institutions. The four groups are focusing on intellectual property rights; collection and selection of digital materials; economic sustainability of the digital preservation projects; and the technical architecture.
In addition to discussing the work of the Section 108 Study Group, which is conducting a reexamination of the exceptions and limitations applicable to libraries and archives under the Copyright Act, the members of the Rights and Restrictions Group identified several issues affected by copyright law, such as Web harvesting and rights clearances.
The Collection and Selection Group looked at standards for determining which digital materials are at risk and worthy of preservation and whether to include new publishing tools such as Web logs (blogs).
There was no debate among members of the Economic Sustainability Group that digital preservation is expensive, but there is a great deal to talk about to ensure that digital preservation projects are sustained for the long term. It is sometimes difficult to determine, for example, the "value" of digital data -- whether it is economically feasible to preserve data now when its future value may be uncertain.
The Technical Architecture Group looked at the importance of retaining metadata within a repository and during archive transfers as well as opportunities for sharing data collections.
During day 2 of the meeting, representatives of the eight partners offered presentations about the technical infrastructures for their individual projects and made suggestions on how the partnerships could be strengthened and how future meetings could be more beneficial.
Throughout the meeting, the Library has stressed that its leadership role in NDIIPP is to act as a catalyst for digital preservation activities nationwide. NDIIPP will not mandate a single solution or "silver bullet" that will address the myriad concerns of myriad institutions. Rather, as LeFurgy said when he laid out the plan for the meeting the first day, "The most important thing for us is to share information and extend collaboration as we work to preserve the nation’s digital heritage."