[Dspace-general] questions for music library association article

[Carli, Alice]

Hello,

I'm the Conservator at Sibley Music Library, Eastman School, University of
Rochester, and am also the chair of the Music Library Association
Preservation Committee. At the MLA annual meeting in February, the
Preservation and Legislative committees did a joint presentation on
Preservation and Copyright Issues, during which I did a short, incoherent
promo for Dspace as a potential library preservation tool. I'm certainly
intrigued by the possibilities! 

Now I'm writing up the presentation for the Association newsletter, and
would like to do a better job than I did in February! I have some specific
questions not found on the FAQ whose answers I would like to include in my
little article that I'll ask now, in hopes someone can answer over the
weekend. 

When I get done writing (probably this Monday afternoon, 4/26) I'd also like
to run the article by the list members, in case anyone has a chance to look
it over and catches any glaring errors. 

Thanks for any help!

Question 1) I assume that the bit preservation includes some means of
preventing, or at least making obvious as a new file, any sort of alteration
of files previously preserved. Can someone tell me a little bit about that?

Question 2) I am assuming, for the purposes of my article, that the central
mission of Dspace is archiving new research material, especially
born-digital, and that preservation of digital files made from materials in
library collections is a lucky spin-off, where administrations are willing
to devote space to such collateral material. Certainly my own university is
currently happy to get material to practice on from any source, if we can
just get our act together to provide it. Is this correct?

Question 3) Can anyone provide anecdotes from experience having to do with
preserving sound or video files, or multimedia files, from actual
collections? I've only seen "tests."

Question 4) Can anyone speak about experiences (good or bad) of being a
collection curator entering into the process of developing their role in a
"community?" My own experience so far is limited by the fact that I'm
library technical support staff, not a collection curator, and therefore not
personally in control of a collection I want to have preserved on D-space. I
get the impression there are a lot of people like me out there; excited by
the prospect but a little overwhelmed by administrative "starting friction,"
particularly including costs associated with data capture, despite all of
the support offered up front for uploading the captured data.