ANDRE viewed this discussion as an allusion to the issue of standards.
She recommended that the AAP standard and the TEI, which has already been
somewhat harmonized internationally and which also shares several
compatibilities with the AAP, be harmonized to ensure sufficient
compatibility in the software. She drew the line at saying LC ought to
be the locus or forum for such harmonization.
Taking the group in a slightly different direction, but one where at
least in the near term LC might play a helpful role, LYNCH remarked the
plans of a number of projects to carry out preservation by creating
digital images that will end up in on-line or near-line storage at some
institution. Presumably, LC will link this material somehow to its
on-line catalog in most cases. Thus, it is in a digital form. LYNCH had
the impression that many of these institutions would be willing to make
those files accessible to other people outside the institution, provided
that there is no copyright problem. This desideratum will require
propagating the knowledge that those digitized files exist, so that they
can end up in other on-line catalogs. Although uncertain about the
mechanism for achieving this result, LYNCH said that it warranted
scrutiny because it seemed to be connected to some of the basic issues of
cataloging and distribution of records. It would be foolish, given the
amount of work that all of us have to do and our meager resources, to
discover multiple institutions digitizing the same work. Re microforms,
LYNCH said, we are in pretty good shape.
BATTIN called this a big problem and noted that the Cornell people (who
had already departed) were working on it. At issue from the beginning
was to learn how to catalog that information into RLIN and then into
OCLC, so that it would be accessible. That issue remains to be resolved.
LYNCH rejoined that putting it into OCLC or RLIN was helpful insofar as
somebody who is thinking of performing preservation activity on that work
could learn about it. It is not necessarily helpful for institutions to
make that available. BATTIN opined that the idea was that it not only be
for preservation purposes but for the convenience of people looking for
this material. She endorsed LYNCH's dictum that duplication of this
effort was to be avoided by every means.
HOCKEY informed the Workshop about one major current activity of CETH,
namely a catalogue of machine-readable texts in the humanities. Held on
RLIN at present, the catalogue has been concentrated on ASCII as opposed
to digitized images of text. She is exploring ways to improve the
catalogue and make it more widely available, and welcomed suggestions
about these concerns. CETH owns the records, which are not just
restricted to RLIN, and can distribute them however it wishes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account