Online Assignment - Digital Resources
- 1. SUBMITTED TO: SHYMIJA.M.Z 1 Submitted by: SUBHA.G
- 2. 2 PHYSICAL SCIENCE KUCTE KUMARAPURAM Date of submission: 06/06/2014
- 3. 3 INTRODUCTION A major difficulty in any newly emerging discipline, such as digital preservation, is the lack of a precise and definitive taxonomy of terms. Different communities use the same terms in different ways which can make effective communication problematic.The following working set of definitions are those used throughout the handbook and are intended to assist in its use as a practical tool.These definitions will not necessarily achieve widespread consensus among the wide ranging communities the handbook is aiming at, they are offered here as a mechanism to avoid potential ambiguities in the body of the handbook rather than as a definitive gloss. Where they have been taken from existing glossaries, this has been acknowledged. Access As defined in the handbook, access is assumed to mean continued, ongoing usability of a digital resource, retaining all qualities of authenticity, accuracy and
- 4. functionality deemed to be essential for the purposes the digital material was created and/or acquired for. Authentication A mechanism which attempts to establish the authenticity of digital materials at a particular point in time. For example, digital signatures. Authenticity 4 The digital material is what it purports to be. In the case of electronic records, it refers to the trustworthiness of the electronic record as a record. In the case of "born digital" and digitised materials, it refers to the fact that whatever is being cited is the same as it was when it was first created unless the accompanying metadata indicates any changes. Confidence in the authenticity of digital materials over time is particularly crucial owing to the ease with which alterations can be made. "Born Digital" Digital materials which are not intended to have an analogue equivalent, either as the originating source or as a result of conversion to analogue form.This term has been used in the handbook to differentiate them from 1) digital materials which have been created as a result of converting analogue originals; and 2) digital materials, which may have originated from a digital source but have been printed to paper, e.g. some electronic records. Digital Archiving This term is used very differently within sectors.The library and archiving communities often use it interchangeably with digital preservation. Computing professionals tend to use digital archiving to mean the process of backup and ongoing maintenance as opposed to strategies for long-term digital preservation. It is this latter richer definition, as defined under digital preservation which has been used throughout this handbook. Digital materials
- 5. 5 A broad term encompassing digital surrogates created as a result of converting analogue materials to digital form (digitization), and "born digital" for which there has never been and is never intended to be an analogue equivalent, and digital records. Digital Preservation Refers to the series of managed activities necessary to ensure continued access to digital materials for as long as necessary. Digital preservation is defined very broadly for the purposes of this study and refers to all of the actions required to maintain access to digital materials beyond the limits of media failure or technological change.Those materials may be records created during the day-to-day business of an organisation;"born-digital" materials created for a specific purpose (e.g. teaching resources); or the products of digitisation projects.This handbook specifically excludes the potential use of digital technology to preserve the original artefacts through digitisation. See also Digitisation definition below. Long-term preservation - Continued access to digital materials, or at least to the information contained in them, indefinitely. Medium-term preservation - Continued access to digital materials beyond changes in technology for a defined period of time but not indefinitely. Short-term preservation - Access to digital materials either for a defined period of time while use is predicted but which does not extend beyond the foreseeable future and/or until it becomes inaccessible because of changes in technology. Digital Publications "Born digital" objects which have been released for public access and either made available or distributed free of charge or for a fee. They may consist of networked publications, available over a communications network or physical format publications which are distributed on formats such as floppy or optical disks.They may also be either static or dynamic. Digitisation
- 6. 6 The process of creating digital files by scanning or otherwise converting analogue materials.The resulting digital copy, or digital surrogate, would then be classed as digital material and then subject to the same broad challenges involved in preserving access to it, as "born digital" materials. Documentation The information provided by a creator and the repository which provides enough information to establish provenance, history and context and to enable its use by others. See also Metadata. "At a minimum, documentation should provide information about a data collection's contents, provenance and structure, and the terms and conditions that apply to its use. It needs to be sufficiently detailed to allow the data creator to use the material in the future, when the data creation process has started to fade from memory. It also needs to be comprehensive enough to enable others to explore the resource fully, and detailed enough to allow someone who has not been involved in the data creation process to understand the data collection and the process by which it was created." (History Data Service) Electronic Records Records created digitally in the day-to-day business of the organisation and assigned formal status by the organisation.They may include for example, word processing documents, emails, databases, or intranet web pages. Emulation A means of overcoming technological obsolescence of hardware and software by developing techniques for imitating obsolete systems on future generations of computers. Life-cycle Management Records management practices have established life-cycle management for many years, for both paper and electronic records. The major implications for life-cycle management of digital resources, whatever their form or function, is the need actively to manage the resource at each stage of its life-cycle and to recognise the inter-dependencies between each stage and commence preservation activities as early as practicable.This represents a major difference with most traditional
- 7. preservation, where management is largely passive until detailed conservation work is required, typically, many years after creation and rarely, if ever, involving the creator. There is an active and inter-linked life-cycle to digital resources which has prompted many to promote the term "continuum" to distinguish it from the more traditional and linear flow of the life-cycle for traditional analogue materials.We have used the term life-cycle to apply to this pro-active concept of preservation management for digital materials.The rationale for this approach is summed up in the following quotations:"...the prospects for and the costs involved in preserving digital resources over the longer term rest heavily upon decisions taken about those resources at different stages of their life cycle. Decisions taken in the design and creation of a digital resource, and those taken when a digital resource is accessioned into a collection, are particularly influential."(Beagrie and Greenstein 1998)"At each phase of the cycle, electronic records need to be actively managed, according to established procedures, to ensure that they retain qualities of integrity, authenticity and reliability."(PRO 1999) Metadata 7 Information which describes significant aspects of a resource. Most discussion to date has tended to emphasise metadata for the purposes of resource discovery.The emphasis in this handbook is on what metadata are required successfully to manage and preserve digital materials over time and which will assist in ensuring essential contextual, historical, and technical information are preserved along with the digital object. Migration A means of overcoming technological obsolescence by transferring digital resources from one hardware/software generation to the next.The purpose of migration is to preserve the intellectual content of digital objects and to retain the ability for clients to retrieve, display, and otherwise use them in the face of constantly changing technology. Migration differs from the refreshing of storage media in that it is not always possible to make an exact digital copy or replicate
- 8. original features and appearance and still maintain the compatibility of the resource with the new generation of technology. Reformatting 8 Copying information content from one storage medium to a different storage medium (media reformatting) or converting from one file format to a different file format (file re-formatting). Refreshing Copying information content from one storage media to the same storage media. Digital library AAA A digital library is a collection of documents in organized electronic form, available on the Internet or on CD-ROM (compact-disk read-only memory) disks. Depending on the specific library, a user may be able to access magazine articles, books, papers, images, sound files, and videos. On the Internet, the use of a digital library is enhanced by a broadband connection such as cable modem or DSL. Dial-up connections can be used to access plain-text documents and some documents containing images, but for complex files and those with animated video content, a downstream data speed of at least several hundred kilobits per second ( Kbps ) can make the user's experience less tedious, as well as more informative. Internet-based digital libraries
- 9. can be updated on a daily basis. This is one of the greatest assets of this emerging technology. On CD-ROM, the amount of data is limited to several hundred megabytes ( MB ) per disk, but access is generally much faster than on an Internet connection. Several CD-ROMs can be combined in a set, and because the disks are small, a large library can be accommodated in a reasonable physical space. The main limitation of CD-ROM is the fact that updating cannot be done as frequently as on the Internet. In addition, producing and distributing CD-ROMs involves overhead costs that are largely nonexistent in Internet-based libraries. Some institutions have begun the task of converting classic books to electronic format for distribution on the Internet. Some files can be viewed directly in HTML format; others can be downloaded in PDF format and printed. Some publishers keep electronic files of books and produce them one unit at a time in printed and bound form on demand. Electronic distribution of intellectual and artistic property has authors, agents, and publishers concerned about the possibility of copyright infringement. It is much easier to copy a CD-ROM, or to download an electronic book and make unauthorized copies of it, than it is to reproduce bound volumes and distribute them illegitimately. Fundamental changes in copyright law - and/or changes in the way in which the laws are enforced - are likely to occur as digital libraries expand and their use becomes more widespread. 9 TYPES OF DIGITAL RESOURCES E-JOURNALS
- 10. As with print journals, e-journals require a long-term commitment from the Library in terms of financial and human resources to acquire and maintain. As more and more scholarly journals become available in digital as well as print versions, the Library must decide whether to maintain both versions or cancel the print when the online version becomes available. The Library subscribes to an e-journal only if it is full text, not if it has just abstracts or tables of contents. In addition to the Digital Resources Committee, the Journal Review Committee may also review e-journal 10 requests in conjunction with a print journal request. FREE WITH EXISTING PRINT SUBSCRIPTION The Library provides access to the free web version of a print journal to which it subscribes if the following criteria are met Access is provided by IP address and /or proxy server (no passwords) Licensing terms are acceptable Access is not for a limited time or trial basis, except for purposes of evaluation ADDITIONAL COST TO EXISTING SUBSCRIPTION E-journals that are not included in the cost of a print subscription are reviewed by the Digital Resources Committee on a case-by-case basis. The Committee uses criteria similar to those used for print journals in addition to the Selection Criteria. ONLINE-ONLY This category includes those e-journals that are available only online, as well as those which are published in both print and online, but to which the Library is considering only online access. These are reviewed by the Digital Resources Committee on a case-by-case basis. The Committee uses criteria similar to those used for print journals in addition to the Selection Criteria listed below. E-BOOKS
- 11. The Library selectively acquires e-books if free, if included in a digital resource package, or if the e-book fills a unique user need. AGGREGATED RESOURCES These products typically combine more than one type of digital resource into one package. For example, MDConsult includes both e-journals and e-books.The contents of aggregated products that include both relevant and out-of-scope resources are reviewed on a title-by-title basis by Library information specialists. Only those resources that are relevant are included in the Library's catalogue and on the Library's web page. CD-ROMS/DISKETTES/OTHER MEDIA In general, CD-ROMs, diskettes, and other digital media are not collected unless they can be networked and are for reference use. These formats are acquired only occasionally if the content is unique, not available in any other format, and present no technical support difficulties. CD-ROMs that accompany print material are retained only if the content is supplemental to the text and only at the discretion of the subject specialist. DATABASES General information and bibliographic databases are selectively acquired. Of particular importance to consider for this category are the cost per anticipated use and the interface. These are generally identified and selected by the Library subject specialists according to their relevance to the Library's collection using the Library's Checklist for Evaluating Databases WEB SITES These are generally identified and selected by the Library subject specialists according to their relevance to the Library's collection using the LibrarysChecklist for Evaluating Websites 11
- 12. 12 CHEMICAL CALCULATOR Chemical Calculator is a simple software that was designed to help you make chemical calculation much easier This software can be used for making calculations like concentrations conversions, finding pH , calculating buffer composition or solving a complicated stoichiometric problem. K-Tech lab K-Tech lab was first developed by David Saxton, who worked on it until 2007. The design ideas and a lot of the current code have been developed by him. He released various versions, up to version 0.3.6. When David Saxton stated that he wouldn’t be able to continue developing the software, Ktechlab stalled for a while before Julian Bäume, Jason Lucas, Zoltan padrah, Alan Grimes and several others continued his work, releasing version 0.3.7, with more components and bug fixes.
- 13. 13 Stellarium Stellarium is a software project that allows people to use their home computer as a virtual planetarium. It calculates the positions of the Sun and Moon, planets and stars, and draws how the sky would look to an observer depending on their location and the time. It can also draw the constellations and simulate astronomical phenomena such as meteor showers, and solar or lunar eclipses. Stellarium may be used as an educational tool for teaching about the night sky, as an observational aid for amateur astronomers wishing to plan a night’s observing, or simply as a curiosity (it’s fun!). Because of the high quality of the graphics that Stellarium produces, it is used in some real planetarium projector products. Some amateur astronomy groups use it to create sky maps for describing regions of the sky in articles for newsletters and magazines. The development of a powerful scripting system has been continuing for a number of years now and can now be called operational. The use of a script was recognised as a perfect way of arranging a display of a sequence of astronomical events from the earliest versions of Stellarium and a simple system called the Stratoscript was implemented. The scipting facility is Stellarium’s version of a “Presentation”, a feature that may be used to run an astronomical or other presentation for instruction or entertainment from within the Stellarium program. The original Stratoscript was quite limited in what it could do so a new Stellarium Scripting System has been developed. Stellarium is under fairly rapid development, and by the time you read this guide, a newer version may have been released with even more features that those documented here. Check for updates to Stellarium at the Stellarium website. Molecular viewer
- 14. When we consider the structure of organic molecules, most of us realize that three-dimensional structure is both supremely important and sometimes hard to visualize. Once upon a time, every organic chemistry student was encouraged to buy a small set of molecular models (wood,metal and plastic) to help learn the characteristic shapes of all those curious combinations of sp2 and sp3 hybridizations. Nowadays, molecular modelling softmare is available for the same purposes. Molecular viewing software should allow you to easily create molecules (or load them from a variety of file formats), optimize the geometry if needed, then dirplay the structure in a variety of formats: “ball and stick” and “wire frame” mimic some of the older wooden and metal models, while semi-transparent electron density formats provide information not available from physical model kits. Most packages also allow the color coding or labelling of atoms (or residues) and automatic rotation of images to fool the eye into seeing 3 dimension on a flat display screen. Life Cycle Assessment of the Digital Resources As indicated by the National Library of Australia (NLA) report (1999), to manage digital collections or individual items one needs to have a clear understanding of one's digital collection. Documentation has always played a key role in preservation practice and there are many instances where documentation provided the only information about processes and changes that had been applied and might need to be corrected. 14
- 15. In this regard, all available digital resources creation manuals, guidelines, and reports at the Government Documents Department were reviewed and modified accordingly.. Those documents provide detailed information about the creation history and complete life cycle of the digital resources. The preliminary resource assessment and evaluations assisted us in identifying the specific characteristics and requirements of the available digital resources. Based on the thorough assessment of the available digital resources, attempts have been made to review current best practices and standards to represent a range of relevant fields. The review pays particular attention to the preservation and management metadata sets, which are needed to support various preservation approaches including migration and emulation. The work at NLA developed a practical model for dealing with the immediate threat of disappearing digital objects, and established a workable distributed archive. Similarly, a number of projects and researches - such as OAIS (Open Archival Information System), CEDARS (CURL Exemplars in Digital Archives), NEDLIB (Networked European Deposit Library), and others - have investigated options for dealing with long-term preservation challenges. Based on the preliminary survey of the existing digital collection and a detailed review of current best practices, we chose to base our recommendation of preservation metadata on a synthesis of various preservation metadata until the OCLC/RLG (2001) completes a national standard. 15 Conclusion Like many others, UNT Libraries realize that being digital does not mean being accessible. Access to digital resources through descriptive metadata is only short-term. Preservation metadata plays a significant role in facilitating preservation decisions, detects preservation threats and provides measures for
- 16. minimizing risks to long-term access. We anticipate that the management, storage and serving of large datasets will be greatly improved by the use of preservation metadata management tools. Finally, we will evaluate and assess the practical application of the whole process of metadata creation workflow and user guide documents. We expect a tremendous amount of discussion from all stakeholders regarding the types of metadata elements most useful to a specific requirement. Based on the feedback and input from the field, the preliminary versions will be reviewed and modified. Of course, the real test will be in the efficiency of our first migration. 16 References 1. "Digital Resources". Oxford Dictionaries. 2. Encyclopedia 3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital Resources