Digital Photos as tool for I take photos about sad things

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IPHAN Dig Preserv, 24/9/2018

Digital Photos as tool for�Cultural Heritage Preservation

Howard Besserhttp://besser.tsoa.nyu.edu/howard/

http://www.nyu.edu/tisch/preservation/

I take photos about sad things



But you all need to learn to take photos for work!


As part of your work at IPHAN, you might need to photograph a building


Maybe we should use an older building as an example


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And if Landscape is part of the building, you’d also need to

document that


And you’d want to document the building interiors and how they’re used


And maybe document some temporary alternative uses of the building’s interior


And if you’re working in the Conservation Lab, you’d want to document treatment of document


These photos are not for yourself; they’re for IPHAN

•  Someone else needs to be able to find them (so you need to label and organize them)

•  Someone else needs to be able to view them (so they need to be in a format that they can read)

•  And that person may need to look at them 100 years in the future


Students:�How do you organize your photos?

Activating the Archive 27/5/201812

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•  Someone else needs to be able to view them (so they need to be in a format that they can read in the future)



Students:�What format are your photos in?

•  What is the file format?•  What is the compression scheme?•  What medium are they stored on? Will they

always be stored on that medium?


Some still image file choices

File Formats•  Raw•  JFIF•  JPEG 2000•  GIF•  PNG•  Exif•  TIFF•  BMP•  Quicktime•  PPM, PGM, PBM, PNM

Compression Schemes•  LZW•  JPG•  MPEG•  DPCM•  …


Students:�What format are your photos in?

•  What is the file format?•  What is the compression scheme?•  What medium are they stored on? Will they

always be stored on that medium?




•  Someone else needs to be able to view them (so they need to be in a format that they can read)


IPHAN Dig Preserv, 24/9/2018 IPHAN Dig Preserv, 24/9/2018

How long we keep things•  Companies keep information for days, or even years•  Individuals keep things for years, or a lifetime•  Archives, Libraries, and museums keep things for

hundreds of years

Cultural Institutions have a much greater responsibility for preservation!

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Keeping documentation for IPHAN’s Future

•  requires Digital Preservation

•  Why is Digital Preservation a problem?


AnalogWorks•  Analog Photos, manuscripts, books, paintings, sculpture•  Objective is to make object itself endure (temperature/

humidity control, chemicals/pigments/fibers/adhesives, …)•  Goal is to keep object as close as possible to original state

(though occasionally controversy arises over whether to let aging show)


Electronic Works•  Video, audio, digital, new media•  Difficult to make the original object endure (magnetic particle

deterioration, warping, etc.)•  Even if we could make the original object endure, we wouldn’t have

the infrastructure to view it in the future•  Need to develop a paradigm shift from preserving the original object to

preserving info content•  Need to pay more attention to maintaining authenticity and replicating

user experience

With Analog Photos, we focus on the Original

•  We repair and try to make the original negative or original print continue to survive

•  Students: Where is the original of your digital photo?


Longevidade Digital


Paradigms Shifts neededOld New

Physical preservation

atmospheric cntrl ongoing mgmt

What to save? artifact idea + ancillary material & documentation

Cataloging Individual work in hand

FRBR

Later access Artifact & documentation

Restaging, ancillary material & documentation

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The Short Life of Digital Info: Digital Longevity Problems-

✿ Disappearing Information✿ The Viewing Problem✿ The Scrambling Problem✿ The Inter-relation Problem✿ The Custodial Problem✿ The Translation Problem


The Viewing Problem

✿ Digital Info requires a whole infrastructure to view it

✿ Each piece of that infrastructure is changing at an incredibly rapid rate (software versions, file formats, operating systems, storage devices)

✿ How can we ever hope to deal with all the permutations and combinations


Viewing Problem

•  Requires new file formats and new physical strata at regular intervals

•  Needs a serious Managed Environment•  Main InterPARES finding--the need for

complete lifecycle management–  archivist needs to be incolved when record is

created and throughout active life


Responding to serious Longevity Problems

✿ Previous formats required little ongoing intervention (remote storage facilities, Iron Mtn); digital formats require intense ongoing management

✿ Need for:✿ Preservation Repositories✿ Preservation Metadata


Conceptual Approaches to Digital Preservation

•  Refreshing always necessary due to volatility of physical strata–  Impact on evidential value

•  Migration -- advantages & disadvantages•  Emulation -- advantages & disadvantages

•  And will need a long-term managed environment


Migration

•  Wordstar to Word 1 to Word 3, …•  -Tables and complex features often get

corrupted•  -Need to repeat every 4-5 years (maybe

forever)•  +We know how to do this ourselves•  +If there’s a problem, we can catch it soon

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Emulation•  Keep the Wordstar file format, but write emulators to make

it work in newer environments•  +A better chance of carrying over complexity•  +Many more features can survive•  -Problems may not be caught until it’s too late•  -Specialists and a whole infrastructure of emulators

required•  -Serious © problems (reverse engineering?)


Possible endless need for reformatting implies

•  Possible loss with each generation•  Requires managed environment


Managed Environment

•  More than temperature & humidity control•  Periodic monitoring of the works•  Periodic monitoring of the technical

environment for viewing the works (software, systems, hardware)

•  Trusted repositories


OCLC/RLG �Digital Repository Attributes

•  Administrative responsibility•  Organizational viability•  Financial sustainability•  Technological suitability•  System security•  Procedural accountability•  Certification


Preservation Repositories:�too difficult for small institutions

•  Too complex for small institutions to manage•  Will be done through partnering (small museum or dance

company with University) or through consortia (museum association, state-wide organization, …) or through service bureaus (OCLC, Cloud)

•  Archive or museum will direct what is needed, but digital repository will carry out the actual work (as defined in SIP/DIP/AIP agreement)

•  And many will choose to just outsource the storage part of the repository because today there are many vendors offering this-

Cloud Storage Vendors

•  Amazon (Glacier, S3, …)•  Google•  Microsoft•  Many others


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Cloud Storage Business Models

•  Often based on frequency of access– Cheapest options are often “dark” or “dim”

storage (charge less for storage, but a lot for access)

– Think of them as “back-up”, not “access”


Examine costs Before you sign up


Cloud Storage concerns•  Is the storage reliable? Is it secure?•  Will the company continue to stay in business?•  Will the company continue to offer the service at a

reasonable price?•  If you decide to move to another company, how

much will the first company change you, and how long will it take?

•  And because Cloud Storage services don’t migrate the formats, you will always still have the problem of How will you read the old file formats in the future?


Key issues to remember

•  The file formats of today will become obsolete

•  The storage devices that you use today will be inaccessible 20 years in the future

•  So you need to have a plan to manage these changes



Paradigms Shifts neededOld New

Physical preservation

atmospheric cntrl ongoing mgmt

What to save? artifact idea + ancillary material & documentation

Cataloging Individual work in hand

FRBR

Later access Artifact & documentation

Restaging, ancillary material & documentation

Some last thoughts•  Follow-up to Joaquim

–  IIIF—International Image Interchange Format–  Ferrez example

•  Did you know that (depending on what parameters you set) your digital camera/phone can capture many different types of hidden metadata?–  Camera settings, date, time, location, …–  But that some or all of these can disappear when

you move the photo to another device


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Digital Photos as tool for�Cultural Heritage Preservation

Howard Besser, NYU Moving Image Archiving & Preservation Program

•  http://besser.tsoa.nyu.edu/howard/Talks•  http://www.nyu.edu/ tisch/preservation•  Longevidade Digital https://www.researchgate.net/publication/

260301901_Longevidade_Digital•  https://archive.org/details/personaldigitalarchiving•  http://blogs.loc.gov/digitalpreservation/2015/08/report-on-the-personal-digital-

archiving-2015-conference/


Documents

Digital Photos as tool for I take photos about sad things