[Dspace-general] Dspace-general Digest, Vol 55, Issue 8

Tue Feb 12 09:52:58 EST 2008

Hi Beth, Shane and John,

I think your discussion is a very interesting repository policy one.

My view on this is to regard PDF(A) as a production container format. 
E.g.use it as a consumable just like flash, wmf, MP3 etc. Don't use it as 
your standard archive format unless it's (by policy) defined as the archive 
format. This is happening with pdf for some public governments here in the 
Netherlands. It is fine if your retention policy is 5 years and you don't 
need to re-use the content in another context.

If you however need to preserve data for a long time/forever best is to 
store them in the original (uncompressed) single bitstream formats (which 
are preferably captured at the source they were created). These are your 
master bistreams that can always be used to recreate containers anyway you 
like in the future. Depending on the importance of the presentation format 
you need to add (XML) metadata. If the image quality is important you need 
to think about resolution, raw vs. processed and standards like TIFF. For 
video it gets even more complex. Most important for this is being able to 
use converters for future presentation, without big quality losses. I would 
definitely advice to work together with broadcast experts on this. Let them 
help you with the preservation and migration/conversions.

The actual storage and management of bitstreams (E.g. asset store design) is 
very important for DSpace. There is a general storage 
abstraction/virtualization in the IT industry taking place at this moment. 
As a result we don't need to worry about file or directory structures 
anymore. We assign Unique Identifiers to objects and describe their 
metadata. The question is whether this object should be a single bitstream 
or a container Archival Information Package.(Based on which standard?) I 
suspect that the AIP discussion might end up with the same problems 
described by Shane about PDF/A's. My feeling is that the most important 
thing is to not carve things in stone and be very flexible and open to 
changes. This probably means managing relations and metadata like DSpace 
does at a higher collection and item levels and make sure that the 
persistence at the more technical bitstream level is guaranteed by storage 
management systems. These systems need to be regularly checked for 
integrity!

I wonder if these more policy related issues are something to put into a 
DSpace Wiki part?

Thanks,

Peter

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Murtagh" <John.Murtagh at brunel.ac.uk>
To: <ssadler at ucalgary.ca>; <dspace-general at mit.edu>
Sent: Monday, February 11, 2008 10:25 AM
Subject: Re: [Dspace-general] Dspace-general Digest, Vol 55, Issue 8

> Hi Beth
>
> Here at Brunel University we get our submitters to use Open Office, an
> open source application that converts Word to PDF.
>
> Due to expensive licencing Adobe Professional is only used by myself for
> Word conversion, but I've not seen much difference in the quality of the
> PDF produced. In fact I have only ever seen the Adobe converter get
> bogged down with large files.
>
> John Murtagh (on behalf of) BURA-manager at brunel.ac.uk
>
> _________________________________________________
>
> Brunel University Research Archive (BURA)
> Brunel Library
> Kingston Road
> Uxbridge
> UB8 3PH
>
> Tel: 0189 526 5417
> Fax: 01895269741
> E-mail: BURA-manager at brunel.ac.uk
> Website: http://bura.brunel.ac.uk
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ssadler at ucalgary.ca [mailto:ssadler at ucalgary.ca]
> Sent: 09 February 2008 15:32
> To: dspace-general at mit.edu
> Subject: Re: [Dspace-general] Dspace-general Digest, Vol 55, Issue 8
>
> Hi Beth,
> We are using PDF/A and these features for our theses and other PDF work
> in our repository.
> http://digitization.ucalgary.ca/index.php/PDF_Standards
>
> Hope this helps, feel free to e-mail follow-up questions.
> Shawna
>
> Shawna Sadler
> Coordinator, Digital Initiaves
> University of Calgary
> (403) 229-2477
> ssadler at ucalgary.ca
>
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>> Today's Topics:
>>
>>    1. PDF/A (Beth Black)
>>    2. Re: PDF/A (Shane Beers)
>>
>>
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 1
>> Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 06:47:56 -0500
>> From: Beth Black <black.367 at osu.edu>
>> Subject: [Dspace-general] PDF/A
>> To: "dspace-general at mit.edu" <dspace-general at mit.edu>
>> Message-ID: <59c3956eaf.56eaf59c39 at osu.edu>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>>
>> Hello!
>>
>> We are investigating using PDF/A in our repository and wonder what
>> others are doing. Do you recommend or require  PDF/A?  If you require,
>
>> do you convert for submitters in some way?
>> Any other thoughts on PDF/A?
>>
>> Thanks!
>> Beth
>>
>> Beth Black
>> Systems Librarian and Assistant Professor University  Libraries 610
>> Ackerman Road, Room 5855 Columbus, Ohio 43202
>> 614-688-5428 phone
>> 614-292-7859 fax
>> black.367 at osu.edu
>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 2
>> Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 09:27:59 -0500
>> From: Shane Beers <sbeers at gmu.edu>
>> Subject: Re: [Dspace-general] PDF/A
>> To: Beth Black <black.367 at osu.edu>
>> Cc: "dspace-general at mit.edu" <dspace-general at mit.edu>
>> Message-ID: <BBA92DA4-9B39-47C3-A3F6-937D04F626F7 at gmu.edu>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes
>>
>> Beth:
>>
>> When I first arrived here, I was interested in attempting to
>> standardize the use of PDF/A, especially for our ETD collections where
>
>> the submissions were far more controllable.
>>
>> The major hurdle is that all content of the PDF/A must be embedded
>> into the document itself - this can become an impossibility if the
>> person creating the PDF is someone who does not know how to correctly
>> embed everything. You would be surprised (or maybe you wouldn't...)
>> how fairly simple technology can confuse even PhD students.
>>
>> That also creates a limitation of the content of the PDF/A's - as of
>> now they can not contain things like multimedia objects. This may not
>> be a real concern of yours, but it's of note.
>>
>> Additionally, the conversion from regular PDFs to PDF/A is often
>> impossible, as the information in the PDF was not embedded in the
>> first place, and you no longer have things like the original font and
>> so on.
>>
>> Know that this is only my cursory findings, and not gleaned from a
>> deep investigation on my part. You may wish to investigate it
>> yourself. Essentially what I'm saying is - it will probably work quite
>
>> well in an extremely structured workflow. Outside of that, you may
>> have many issues to overcome!
>>
>> Shane Beers
>> Digital Repository Services Librarian
>> George Mason University
>> sbeers at gmu.edu
>> http://mars.gmu.edu
>> 703-993-3742
>>
>>
>>
>> On Feb 8, 2008, at 6:47 AM, Beth Black wrote:
>>
>>> Hello!
>>>
>>> We are investigating using PDF/A in our repository and wonder what
>>> others are doing. Do you recommend or require  PDF/A?  If you
>>> require, do you convert for submitters in some way?
>>> Any other thoughts on PDF/A?
>>>
>>> Thanks!
>>> Beth
>>>
>>> Beth Black
>>> Systems Librarian and Assistant Professor University  Libraries 610
>>> Ackerman Road, Room 5855 Columbus, Ohio 43202
>>> 614-688-5428 phone
>>> 614-292-7859 fax
>>> black.367 at osu.edu
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Dspace-general mailing list
>>> Dspace-general at mit.edu
>>> http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/dspace-general
>>
>>
>>
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