Mutually Assured Preservation: Fostering Active Preservation Practice through Fire Drills

Sound preservation practice is a series of active engagements with the content one hopes to preserve. In many cases, this has not always been the case. Both institutions and services—while not actively encouraging passive preservation—neglect the key components in the stewardship of our historical record. In other words, there is much more to preservation than simply choosing a storage solution and placing one’s content there. The materials need to be verified, checked, and tested against expectations within the service. This is accepted practice for many. However, very few services provide the necessary assurance to test both its own user expectations as well as the depositors’ themselves. Creating a methodology for both depositor and service to be assured that preservation meets expectations is critical. This is happening in very select ways. This paper discusses one such dialogue and its function. &nbsp

Developing Practical Approaches to Active Preservation

The National Archives is developing a range of practical solutions to the active preservation of electronic records, using an extensible service-oriented architecture and a central technical registry (PRONOM). This paper describes TNA’s methodologies for characterisation, preservation planning, and preservation action, the technologies being adopted to implement them, and the role of PRONOM in supporting these services. It describes how this approach fits with international research programmes, and the types of preservation service which TNA may be able to provide externally in the future

BIOFOODPACK: Biocomposite packaging for active preservation of food: the project and the progresses

CICECO-Aveiro Institute of Materials POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007679 (FCT UID /CTM /50011/2019) and QOPNA (FCT UID/QUI/00062/2019) are financed by national funds through the FCT/MEC and when applicable co-financed by FEDER under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement. CN and PF thank FCT for the grants (SFRH/BPD/100627/2014 and IF/00300/2015, respectively). The project M-ERA-NET2/0021/2016 – BIOFOODPACK - Biocomposite Packaging for Active Preservation of Food is acknowledged for funding. This work was also funded by national funds (OE), through FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., in the scope of the framework contract foreseen in the numbers 4, 5 and 6 of the article 23, of the Decree-Law 57/2016, of August 29, changed by Law 57/2017, of July 19.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Archaeology and virtual acoustics. A pan flute from ancient Egypt

This paper presents the early developments of a recently started research project, aimed at studying from a multidisciplinary perspective an exceptionally well preserved ancient pan flute. A brief discussion of the history and iconography of pan flutes is provided, with a focus on Classical Greece. Then a set of non-invasive analyses are presented, which are based on 3D scanning andmaterials chemistry, and are the starting point to inspect the geometry, construction, age and geographical origin of the instrument. Based on the available measurements, a preliminary analysis of the instrument tuning is provided, which is also informed with elements of theory of ancient Greek music. Finally, the paper presents current work aimed at realizing an interactive museum installation that recreates a virtual flute and allows intuitive access to all these research facets

First Steps Towards an Organology Of Virtual Instruments In Computer Music

International audienceIn this paper, we will first take assess of 25 years of interactive real-time music, and introduce the problem of preservation of this music for the future generations, that is to say its ability to be re-performed, and not only to preserve the recordings. We present the state of the art in the field of active preservation of real-time works. We then give an overview of the solutions developed by IRCAM and its partners Grame, Armines ParisTech and CIEREC, in the framework of the ASTREE project, and explain the possibilities envisioned in a case study that is En Echo by Philippe Manoury

Natural Forests of the Edmund Niles Huyck Preserve, New York

The Edmund Niles Huyck Preserve is an area of approximately 470 acres, set aside for scientific study and recreational purposes in 1931, in commemoration of the interests and ideals of Edmund Niles Huyck, a prominent New York industrialist. Since that time the plant life of the Preserve has been kept free from disturbance, other than the clearing of a few paths through the woodlands. Active preservation of this area actually began in 1899 with the acquisition by Mr. Huyck of most of the land immediately surrounding Lake Myosotis. Since the founding of the Preserve, it has been the custom to have one or more resident naturalists present during each growing season. More than fifty papers have resulted from the research done here

A perfect storm: An archaeological management crisis in the Mississippi River Delta

Engineered projects resulting in unintended consequences, coastal erosion, subsidence, and sea-level rise are rapidly destroying archaeological sites in the Mississippi River Delta (MRD). The processes of site obliteration are intensifying and accelerating due to anthropogenic transformation of the environment, including cumulative engineered alterations of the landscape and climate change. Combined with increased inundation and erosion from storm surges, hundreds of terrestrial sites formerly located on natural levees, barrier islands, and other coastal landforms are progressively eroded, redeposited, deeply buried, and submerged. These include thousand-year-old earthen mounds and shell middens constructed by Native Americans, as well as centuries-old fishing communities along the coast. These irreplaceable cultural properties can provide crucial information on the unique history and ecology of the MRD. Ongoing studies include consulting with interested parties and implementing data sharing agreements. Re- searchers have formed a consortium of universities and state and federal agencies, and are partnering with culturally affiliated Native American tribes, descendant groups, and coastal communities. The consortium is developing a robust GIS-enabled risk matrix for analyzing threats and effects to endangered sites. It is using the risk matrix to select 30 sites for monitoring, assessment, aerial photogrammetry, and recording environmental data on water table fluctuations. Analysis of action-based scientific data on these imperiled and rapidly disappearing places is urgently needed and will provide the impetus and baseline for future studies. Otherwise, ongoing site destruction will erase any remaining opportunities for learning about Louisiana’s deep history and diverse cultural heritage

A Step Toward AI Tools for Quality Control and Musicological Analysis of Digitized Analogue Recordings: Recognition of Audio Tape Equalizations

Historical analogue audio documents are indissolubly linked to their physical carriers on which they are recorded. Because of their short life expectancy these documents have to be digitized. During this process, the document may be altered with the result that the digital copy is not reliable from the authenticity point of view. This happens because digitization process is not completely automatized and sometimes it is influenced by human subjective choices. Artificial intelligence can help operators to avoid errors, enhancing reliability and accuracy, and becoming the base for quality control tools. Furthermore, this kind of algorithms could be part of new instruments aiming to ease and to enrich musicological studies. This work focuses the attention on the equalization recognition problem in the audio tape recording field. The results presented in this paper, highlight that, using machine learning algorithms, is possible to recognize the pre-emphasis equalization used to record an audio tape