The Digital Muse: Technology & The Class Andrea De Giorgi and Paul Iverson Andrea De Giorgi will discuss how Classical archaeology, as with most sciences that have an interest in the spreading of human phenomena over space, has developed a way to harness GIS (Geographic Information Systems). Theoretically and methodologically confined to the observation of single sites and their settlement history, archaeology through GIS lenses has begun to articulate more refined questions about regions and districts in antiquity and how these were experienced and shaped by human agencies. A landscape in southwestern Anatolia is the case-study that this presentation brings into focus. Paul Iversen will talk about recent technologies he has used in to study the inscriptions on the Antikythera Mechanism, a bronze geared device from the 2nd or 1st century BCE that is the world’s oldest known analogue computer and one of the most important artifacts ever discovered for understanding ancient astronomy and engineering. The inscriptions are studied via images created using a method called Polynomial Textured Mapping (PTMs), as well as CT-scans taken by means of a technology called Micro-Focus X-rays, the latter of which produces 2-D images that are then reconstructed into 3-D images with astounding clarity by a vector graphics program. Paul Iversen, Assistant Professor in the Department of Classics, regularly teaches upper level Greek and Latin, both lecture and SAGES courses dealing with Myth and Heroes, a course on Alexander the Great, and Greek and Latin palaeography and epgiraphy. His research interests and publications are in the areas of Greek and Latin Epigraphy, Hellenistic Culture & Society, and Greco-Roman New Comedy, especially Menander. He is the Director of Epigraphical finds for the Isparta Archaeological Survey. Andrea De Giorgi, Assistant Professor in the Department of Classics, is a Classical Archaeologist specializing in the Roman Empire. He teaches courses ranging from visual culture to the history of Republican and Imperial Rome. He has excavated or surveyed in Syria, UAE, and Cyprus, and his ongoing archaeological projects are based in Turkey and Italy. His scholarly interests include Roman urbanism in the East, Roman material culture, as well as museum studies. Date: March 1st, 2012 Time: 4:30 pm to 5:30 pm Location: Clark Hall, Room 206, Case Western Reserve University Registration: Free and open to the public, registration recommended

With the publication of its first hardcopy edition in 1987, The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History opened a new era in the presentation of urban history. When it moved to the World Wide Web in 1998, it pioneered the concept of an on-line, vetted, urban history resource. Today the on-line ECH stands as one of the university’s most visible digital humanities projects. However, in the midst of the growing number of on-line wikis, blogs, and social networks, it is changing again to remain competitive as a popular, attractive, scholarly historical source. Editor John J. Grabowski will discuss the past, present, and future of the ECH at this Baker-Nord digital humanities program. The ECH is also archived on Digital Case. Date: 02-09-2012 Time: 4:30 pm to 5:30 pm Location: Clark Hall, Room 206 - 11130 Bellflower Road Registration: Free and open to the public, registration recommended

Recently, the Plain Dealer used some clips from film reels from the Digital Case's collection of the 1936/1937 Great Lakes Exposition. Here are the links: Great Lakes Expo: An Introduction with John Vacha Great Lakes Expo: The Blimps Great Lakes Expo: Highlights Great Lakes Expo: The Parades Great Lakes Expo: Historical video Great Lakes Expo: The Streets of the World Be sure to check out the collection in Digital Case for more information as well as photographs, postcards and other printed material. Here is the link.

In February 2009, the State Library of Ohio, in partnership with the Ohio Historical Society, was awarded an Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) Connecting to Collections Planning Grant. Entitled “Ohio Heritage Partnership: A Statewide Initiativeâ€, this project will begin to address the lack of care and preservation of Ohio’s cultural heritage which has reached a crisis point and must be addressed if our heritage is to be saved. IMLS launched a call to action entitled “Connecting to Collectionsâ€. One component was the initiation of planning grants. Each state was eligible to receive one of the $40,000 awards. Grants allow for collaborative planning partnerships among libraries, museums, archives and other statewide organizations to address the Heritage Heath Index recommendations. Ohio submitted an application in October 2008, receiving the award notification in February 2009. The needs assessment survey will be sent to all Ohio cultural heritage organizations in early January 2010. Ohio will develop a directory of contact and institutional information, conduct a needs assessment of Ohio cultural heritage institutions and host a summit entitled “The State of the Historical Record in Ohio†in summer 2010. All of these activities will culminate in the writing of an Ohio Cultural Strategic Plan. The July regional meeting provided background information, survey results, educational resources and digital preservation needs on the project to interested parties in the area. The theme of the meeting seemed to be the need for defined, long-range preservation planning, both for physical materials and digital. Many of the institutions surveyed had an emergency plan in place, but few assigned role and tasks to individual staff members. Part of the educational resources component was to highlight many of the regional and national grant resources. The survey found that most institutions lacked funds for basic components of any preservation project (supplies, staff, storage, etc.). Only a third of those surveyed indicated that they had applied for any type of external preservation funding sources. 'Untapped' grant sources highlighted in the meeting included: -IMLS/Bank of America "American Heritage Preservation Grants" -National Endowment for the Humanities Preservation Assistance Grants for Smaller Institutions -NEH- Larger Program Grants (Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections; Grants to Preserve and Create Access to Humanities Collections; Preservation and Access Research and Development Project Grants; Challenge Grants) -National Endowment for the Arts -Save America's Treasures -National Historical Publications and Records Commission The survey also found that many people performing preservation duties had no/little background or training. Small staffs would sometimes rely on volunteers or part-time staff to provide preservation services. Nicole Hayes from ICA provided links to many inexpensive or free resources for preservation information, reference and training. Here are a few of the resources highlighted: Northeast Document Conservation Center preservation pamphlets The Digital Print. Identification and Preservation Published by the Getty Conserv-o-grams from the National Park Service Ohio Preservation Council publications Canadian Heritage 'How to Care for...' American Institute for Conservation Conservation Online Northeast Document Conservation Center (Preservation leaflets) Northeast Document Conservation Center Preservation 101 Conservation Center for Art and the Historic Artifacts "A Race Against Time" Gerald R. Ford Conservation Center "Saving Your Treasures Heritage Preservation Alliance for Response D-Plan Classes ICA [free] OAHSM Regional Meetings OPC Bi-annual Symposium Morgan Art of Papermaking Conservatory Kent State University, Ohio State University, Campbell Center (IL) and Rare Book School (VA)

(notes from Day 2) Computational Work with Very Large Text Collections: Google Books, HathiTrust, the Open Content Alliance, and the Future of TEI [slides] (Gallery, Hatcher Graduate Library North) Speaker: John M. Unsworth MorphAdorner Unsworth spoke on integrating research tools/other databases into a single interface, offering faceted browsing. Also differentiated between high level research and "non-consumptive research" (ex. image analysis, textual analysis, citation extraction, indexing) Unsworth poses the question: does there exist a marriage of convenience between computer science and the humanties? (a doctored image of christopher columbus and Pocahontas- have the two worlds collided?) Micropapers - (5 min mini presentations) DeReKo goes P5: Customizing TEI P5 for the Mannheim German Reference Corpus- Andreas Witt- Database of written contemporary language, ca. 3 3/4 billion words (+300 million words added every year) XCES was used initially; internal usage only in the beginning using P5 now The Chicago Foreign Language Press Survey in TEI- Douglas Knox Transribed foreign language press; a number of languages surveyed- basic encoding. Using XSLT to expand on basic encoding. Project also points to a taxonomy created specifically by terms in survey (serves as a way to correct some of the issues, such as misspellings, authority name records, etc) Evolving TEI standards and the burdens of digital project maintenance -Andrew Jewell Beginning to think about the transition from P4 to P5 with the Willa Cather archive (which is almost completely in TEI. When/how to migrate- how to make the decision for conversion, particularly with other migrations likely to occur in the future? Jewell states that in the digital realm, 'stability is an illusion'- something will always be changing down the road. How to make these long-term decisions about content? The role of TEI in large text-analysis projects -Brian Pytlik Zillig Uses Abbot software for the project. Refers to the 'gated communities' of larger digital libraries (halitrust, etc.) TEI documentation and the need to be responsive and accessible to a varied user community -Brett Barney The difficultly of figuring out some of the more complex tags (restore) How can the researcher turned digital project decifer the P5 guidelines- where does the computer science take over? is this tangible for researchers/humantists to use as well making TEI more tangible and legible for consumption by a larger audience? TEI in the classroom, with emphasis on the need for mark up that engages student interpretive interests -Amanda Gailey From the perspective of an english prof making applications in a classroom setting- How to merge 2 worlds- mass digitization w/ literature How to create meaningful projects How to make this more approachable to non-techies? Are there more learning environments and workshops to address this? Also posed some larger issues on the TEI subject from discussion: Can we study how TEI projects are used/researched (to what level of encoding, for example- basic?) How to logistically keep up with levels/coding - how much time to spend on conversion, every level- every time you upgrade? or not? where is your text going? do you want it to be conformant with other projects/digital repositories How to sustain small TEI projects- where should they go? who will store these? curate? track?

The Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music (or DIAMM) is a database of medieval polyphonic music hosted by the University of Oxford, including all the currently known fragmentary sources of polyphony (mainly vocal) from around 800 to 1550 in the UK. Registration is required (but is completely free), though donations are welcome for the resources. The archive is a collection of catalog information for all known sources of polyphonic music (mainly vocal), with segments of the database include high resolution scans when available. There are approximately 14,000 high quality scans currently available, mainly from the UK and Western European collections. Specialized digitization equipment for the project allow for extremely high quality scans. For materials that may be brittle or incomplete, the scans may allow for further research and even digital restoration in some cases. The DIAMM has also created its own metadata schema, specific to sheet music. Detailed information about the particular item such as the style of notation and the number of staves and vocal parts will be included on the database during the current phase of the project. Digitization efforts in this facet of music is important in facilitating a level of access to researchers and music enthusiasts all around the world, since these materials were previously difficult to access. The materials that have not yet been digitized, whether due to rights issues or other reason, are listed in the catalog to at least provide contact information for the researcher about the holding institution and some essential catalog information. With enhancements to the metadata and search features of this database coming in the present phase of the project (to be completed by the end of 2009), this project will one to keep an eye on.

The Metropolitan Opera Digital Archives contain sound clips of original recordings, images (photos, set designs, etc.) and text from all performances from the early 1880's to the beginning season in 2005 in the Metopera Database spanning the history of the Metropolitan Opera as well as coverage in the 'Opera News'. An interesting aspect of this database, is that as the digital collection grows, the individual careers of the performers, conductors, dancers and other players are developed chronologically with specific performances and productions. In some cases, reviews and images are included in performance information that would be useful to many types of research. In some cases, the image quality is low, but usually legible. A timeline gives some samples of the collection in a visual layout. New additions of reviews and photographs are found in one of the tabs of the database. And, in case you are at a loss for names of performers or performance for a search, there are guides to performances (sorted by number of times the Opera has been performed-- La Bohème is at the top, with 1200 performances to date!) and names (also ordered by frequency of performance-- leader in this category is Charles Anthony with over 2900 performances in his 54 year career). This database will surely become richer with additional content, full-text capabilities and longer (or complete) clips. (Currently, the majority of the clips are under two minutes in length.)

The start of this year's Digital Library lecture series begins this Friday, October 31st at 12:30-2:00 p.m. on the 2nd floor of Kelvin Smith Library in the Dampeer Room. Dr. Melvyn Goldstein. 'From Basic Research to Digital Archive: The Tibet Oral History Project.' Specializing in Tibetan society, history & contemporary politics, Dr. Goldstein's remarks on history as well as the modern Tibetan socio-economic change will be complemented with a presentation by Professor David Germano, University of Virginia. Dr. Germano takes the discussion of the digital transformation forward through the next decade and beyond. Dr. Melvyn Goldstein, John Reynold Harkness Professor of Anthropology (Case), Co-Director of the Center for Research on Tibet. Professor David Germano, Director of the Tibetan and Himalayan Library, Director of the Center for Emerging Research, Scholarship and the Arts, Co-Director of the Tibet Center (University of Virginia) Free to the Case community, and to Ohio academic & library communities Seating is open and on a first-come basis. Upcoming Lectures - Friday, Nov. 21, 2008: "New Directions in Digital History," Dr. Dan Cohen, Director of the Center for History and New Media (George Mason University) - Friday, March 20, 2009: "The Intellectual Wealth of Digital Networks," Professor Kathleen Woodward, Director of the Simpson Center for the Humanities, (University of Washington) The 2008-09 Digital Lecture Series is generously funded by the Mario M. Marino Fund for the Innovation and Application of Advanced Information Technologies, the David R. Bender Endowment Fund for Library Staff Development, and the Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities.

The Open Archival Information System exists as a functional model, as a more holistic view of systems. The OAIS organization model outlines the system, processes and administrative aspects of creating a more sustainable digital repository. What is interesting to me, is that no one institution is completely complaint to the whole OAIS model, but somewhere on their way to becoming complaint. In an ideal world, this would be set up before digital information is ingested. We have a situation where many research institutions, museums, etc. have some sort of digital projects existent in various stages for quite some time, with no overarching order or system. In the digital to digitize everything, digital files were often created without the consideration of storage or digital longevity issues (refreshing, migration, emulation). Online exhibitions are one example of this. In an effort for an institution to create an online display, digital files were perhaps created and stored on the server, and often in low quality formats. While this is good for increasing Web traffic and Web presence with online exhibitions for an institution, these are often short-term projects. The five identified stages that are part of the OAIS compliancy include administration (organizational/technological means), ingest (specified methods to systematically take content into the digital library), archival storage (a comprehensive, secure AND auditable management for stored content with methods to validate content: checksum, digital signature, hashing), data management (accumulation, generation, updates, and the access by users to the corresponding metadata), preservation planning (development, implementation, and refinement of preservation strategy), access (identification, location and full rendering of stored objects at recall), and common service (enabling an operating system {permissions}, network connections and security services). While each stages act more as outlines than specific, tangible goals, they do represent a sort of game plan for digital repositories to work towards. Stage definitions: 1. An institution would have little in place that constitutes a digital archive or is OAIS complaint, e.g., storage might consist of backups rather than true 'archival storage'. 2. An institution may have some pieces in place, but, especially working across projects, developments are likely to be spotty and difficult to systematic progress 3. An institution will be moving towards a digital archive and OAIS complaince; Ingest and Access are often the easiest and highest priority functional areas to develop 4. An institution will have a digital archive that is fully OAIS-complaint; achieving that across the institution 5. A collaborative digital archive which achieves OAIS-compliance through the sum of its efforts; reaching this level of development may require some backtracking to be interoperable What I also found interesting in the literature for OAIS compliancy, is the consideration of the 'Designated Community', or the users. This can also be defined in the scope of the repository (temporal, subject based, etc.) It is also interesting to me to observe the compilation of digital materials that come into existence for online display, research projects, or other purposes, which often contribute to digital collections. I think there is a huge potential for survey on the user need (or, on the flip side, 'user use'- are we digitizing the "right stuff"?) Part of OAIS is the open and free access of the collection to this Designated Communtiy, which will resonate more in either nonprofit scenarios or research institutions. Part of the access requirement for the rendering aspect of digital information insists that the information is 'understandable to the Designated Community without the assistance of the information producers'. This is accomplished in part through complete metadata records, but also addressing the software and hardware specifications that are needed to access and view the digital file in its entirety. This adds another consideration for the information producers, particularly in regards to audiovisual file format requirements, and also another requirement on the access and display level. Attaining total compliance to OAIS is a cumbersome road which no one has yet completed, but also seems to have the most complete view of digital longevity and storage. In the ideal world, this framework would have been in place before digital files are created. What comes next? Individual institutions can review existing structures and create a plan to move towards OAIS, though with an unknown cost at all levels of planning; storage, information producers, preservation planners, systems. References: Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System (OAIS). CCSDS 650.0-B-1, Blue Book, January 2002, http://public.ccsds.org/publications/archive/650x0b1.pdf Handouts from Digital Preservation, LIS 61095, Kent State University, Dr. Karen Gracy

An interesting blog on the newer applications taken on recently by the National Library of Scotland. The National Library currently has a presence on Facebook, and collections on YouTube and Flickr. The library is using these newer modes of social media to promote the library and provide a means to reach new users, while also striving to create human interaction within these medias. An article discussing some of the metadata issues from the YouTube project at the National Library by Eilidh MacGlone from the Scottish Screen Archive can be found here. MacGlone addresses some of the shortcomings of the descriptive metadata incorporated into the videos hosted on YouTube, while also highlighting the potential of effective tagging. While some of the control of the regular library catalog may be lost through these avenues, other methods of access and inter-relation emerge. One of the newer features on YouTube is the 'warp speed', which relates videos in a more visual manner, or Flickr's geotagging which can correlate a certain geographical location to an image. While this is also prone to error and inaccuracy, I think these methods are also evidence of other ways of searching, particularly with strictly Web reliant users. Many web users search the web using natural language, giving more credibility to tagging in Web contexts. In any regard, there is a way of keeping track of usage on both Flickr and YouTube, so in the least an institution can get a sense of how many hits a single image or video receives. Whether these users will venture on to the institution's website or even use the collection in another method remains to be seen, but make for an interesting study.

Digital preservation; a paradox in and of itself? The topic of preserving digital files is a complex subject, particularly in large-scale digital projects, where project management and the sheer logistics of the storage of massive amounts of digital information is a daunting reality to most content and IT managers. When concrete terms of longevity are unknown in any certainty for digital formats, the reality of preserving digital files is a difficult topic to assess. Project managers for digital projects can put enormous amounts of time into planning for the storage of digital files to ensure the longevity of digital information, and incorporate methods of migration, duplication and even emulation of obsolete applications, operating systems, or hardware platforms in the efforts of preserving digital information. Avoiding technological quicksand, a report from Council on Library and Information Resources from 1999 hits on many of the key issues of digital preservation that are still applicable to issues of digital preservation, even almost ten years later. The author is the first to point out that the paradox in the term, digital preservation: "...given the fact that digital documents can be copied perfectly, which is often naively taken to mean that they are eternal." Rothenberg adds that the problem is not solely in the actual digital file, but also in the "administrative, procedural, organizational, and policy issues". Media decay and hardware obsolescence (and, in some cases, software) are facts of life in the existence of almost every digital format, though careful planning in the overall incorporation into a database or digital library is key to successful 'survival rates' of digital information. An interesting aspect to Rothenberg's report, was the idea of three distinct definitions and relation to time that is apparent in digital projects. Many projects are approached in relatively short term efforts, in that digitization is used as a method of reformatting material or transferring to a digital format in an effort to salvage information from the original format or container. The medium term effort considers issues of digital longevity, but retains formats that are contemporary with the time the digital file was created (oftentimes, software based, such as Microsoft Office formats for example). These formats are usually considered as being more commonplace at the point of digitization, yet are still defined by a propitiatory software or assume a level of compatibility to systems down the road, and thus, are not as sustainable in the larger picture. Rothenberg defines the long term as digital formats which are not software dependent, and "must handle current and future records of unknown type in a uniform way, while being capable of evolving as necessary." Interestingly, the author calls for minimal human interaction in the long term effort, with method of data refreshment and migration to take place in a uniform, automatic and synchronous manner. Rothenberg also considers the access, fidelity, and the ease of the entire document management system to be tradeoffs between each other in terms of priority in the retention of digital files. The theory is that increased accessibility will lead to lower quality digital formats, as with the ease of the system, etc. With all that said, the evolution of archival digital files (or, dare I say, a singular file format as suggested by Rothenberg?) will be an interesting development to watch transpire. More recent report on Digital Preservation: Mind the Gap: Assessing Digital Preservation Needs in the UK, 2008

Digital preservation is sometimes used as a means to transfer information from an obsolete (or on its way to being so) format into a digital version, with the intention of retaining the data before the information is completely lost. Ongoing hardware and software changes have lead to many obsolete formats, as with the original tape of the moon landing (related article, Wired ' One Giant Screwup for Mankind'). In the book Digital History (Cohen and Rosenzweig, 2006), the authors highlight the problems inherent to the multitude of digital formats used over the years, and recommend constant and continual assessment of the storage and retrieval systems involved in any digital project. While they authors agree that digitization should not be viewed as a means of preservation, there is a point where digitization processes step in to provide a way to extend the content and data further than the lifespan of the original container. The access and use of the original content can then be extended by digitization methods. For example, an early radio recording from 1944, on a fragile audio reel, of Orson Welles narrating a program on jazz was digitized from the Louisiana State Museum collection in the Louisiana Digital Library. Previously, this material was limited only to research or staff use, since the reel was in poor condition. The digital copy was made as the original reel was being duplicated onto an archival reel. Oftentimes, the material or digital copy are used in place of the original to further ensure the longevity of the original object. In Wharton, Texas, there is a museum of 20th century technology, which is interesting to see the progression of the technology in the relatively short time period of 100 years. Cohen and Rosenzwerg use the more recent examples of WordStar files from the 1980s and WordPerfect documents from the 1990s as being some of the problematic files to access even a decade or two later. The containers holding data may still be in fair condition, but if the reader necessary to access the information is not available, then the problem of finding a way to access the information arises. Emulations of long gone software programs are one solution to accessing files created with old programs, but this will also entail some loss of data. Cohen and Rosenzwerg recommend thorough research into better media formats and consistent migration to "avoid technological quicksand". Another related article: Lost magazine, 'Are We Losing Our Memory? or The Museum of Obsolete Technology'

“The information revolution not only supplies the technological horsepower that drive digital libraries, but fuels an unprecedented demand for storing, organizing, and accessing information—a demand which is, for better or worse, economically driven rather than curiosity driven…†pp10 Economy is indeed important. Many people I encounter who request material be put into Digital Case assume that the most important step (and most costly) is the scanning of the items. This, surely, is the bottleneck. True, depending on what needs doing, it can be a crucial and costly step; but the reality is that scanning is only one small part of the entire process. If the collection to be scanned is vast, there must be a selection process (time = money); there is the scanning process, as mentioned already (if the materials are 8.5x11 paper of good quality, a sheetfed scanner can be used—but if the materials are hand written, fragile, or not paper at all: slides, photographs, etc., they must be scanned individually (time = money); optical character recognition (ocr)? (time = money); then they must be saved with a file naming convention to be recognized; then metadata must be supplied for each item (time = money); then they are uploaded into a system—this can be batch processed or done one at a time; then there are the storage costs, the network costs, the interface design costs, the migration costs, and so on.

Digital Libraries “are about new ways of dealing with knowledge: preserving, collecting, organizing, propagating, and accessing it—-not about deconstructing existing institutions and putting them inside an electronic box.†Witten and Bainbridge, p6 Digital Case stores, disseminates, and preserves the intellectual output of Case faculty, departments and research centers in digital formats (both “born digital†items as well as materials of historical interest that have been digitized). Kelvin Smith Library manages Digital Case on behalf of the university. With Digital Case, KSL assumes an active role in the scholarly communication process, providing expertise in the form of a set of services (metadata creation, secure environment, preservation over time) for access and distribution of the university’s collective intellectual product.