During the 2015 ALA Annual Conference, the Preservation Metadata Interest Group met on June 27, 2015 from 3:00–4:00 p.m. in Room 2008 (W) of the Moscone Convention Center. 40 people attended.
An election was held to determine who would serve as co-chair once Chelcie Rowell rolls off. The candidates were Daniel Johnson (Digital Preservation Librarian at University of Iowa Libraries) and Jenny Mullins (Digital Preservation Librarian at Dartmouth College Library). Jenny Mullins was elected to serve as co-chair from July 2015–June 2017.
The session focused on pragmatic implementations of preservation metadata for two tricky content types, web archives and digital media art objects.
Don't WARC Away: Preservation Metadata for Web Archives
Maria LaCalle, Web Archivist, Internet Archive
Jefferson Bailey, Director of Web Archiving Programs, Internet Archive
As more institutions include web archives in their digital collections, creating preservation metadata to support the long term stewardship of these files is a newly emerging challenge. Archive-It, a web archiving service of the Internet Archive, works with over 360 partner institutions across the globe, providing tools for harvesting, managing, and accessing archived web content. This talk will explore how Archive-It partners incorporate preservation metadata into their web archiving programs, the development of tools and workflows to support this work, and the unique challenges web archives present to digital preservation metadata.
In the Service of Art: Metadata for Preservation of Digital Artworks
Jason Kovari, Head of Metadata Services, Cornell University
In February 2013, the Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art, part of Cornell University Library’s Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, received a $300,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to develop PAFDAO (Preservation and Access Frameworks for Complex Digital Media Art Objects). PAFDAO’s test collection includes more than 300 interactive born-digital artworks created for CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, and web distribution, many of which date back to the early 1990s. Though vitally important to understanding the development of media art and aesthetics over the past two decades, these materials are at serious risk of degradation and are unreadable without obsolete computers and software. This talk will reference the larger workflow of the project and how metadata decisions were made in order to ensure long-term preservation and use of these complex digital media art objects, most of which contain many elaborate interdependencies.
Slides are available below.