Economics and Engineering for Preserving Digital Content

Progress towards practical long-term preservation seems to be stalled. Preservationists cannot afford specially developed technology, but must exploit what is created for the marketplace. Economic and technical facts suggest that most preservation ork should be shifted from repository institutions to information producers and consumers. Prior publications describe solutions for all known conceptual challenges of preserving a single digital object, but do not deal with software development or scaling to large collections. Much of the document handling software needed is available. It has, however, not yet been selected, adapted, integrated, or deployed for digital preservation. The daily tools of both information producers and information consumers can be extended to embed preservation packaging without much burdening these users. We describe a practical strategy for detailed design and implementation. Document handling is intrinsically complicated because of human sensitivity to communication nuances. Our engineering section therefore starts by discussing how project managers can master the many pertinent details.

Communication Standards for Online Interchange of Library Information

published or submitted for publicatio

SICS MarketSpace: an agent-based market infrastructure

We present a simple and uniform communication framework for an agent-based market infrastructure, the goal of which is to enable automation of markets with self-interested participants distributed over the Internet

Index and Acronyms Used in Networking and other forms of cooperation : papers presented at the 1973 Clinic on Library Applications of Data Processing, April 29-May 2, 1973

published or submitted for publicatio

Survey of partitioning techniques in silicon compilation

In the silicon compilation design process, partitioning is usually the first problem to be investigated because partitioning algorithms form the backbone of many algorithms including: system synthesis, processor synthesis, floorplanning, and placement. In this survey, several partitioning techniques will be examined. In addition, this paper will review the partitioning algorithms used by synthesis systems at different design levels

Shuttle Ground Operations Efficiencies/Technologies (SGOE/T) study. Volume 1: Executive summary

Methods and technolgoy were defined to reduce the overall operations cost of a major space program. Space Shuttle processing at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) was designed as the working model that would be the source of the operational information. Methods of improving efficiency of ground operations were assessed and technology elements that could reduce cost identified. Emphasis is on: (1) specific technology items and (2) management approaches required to develop and support efficient ground operations. Prime study results are to be recommendations on how to achieve more efficient operations and identification of existing or new technology that would make vehicle processing in both the current program and future programs more efficient and, therefore, less costly

Auto-coding UML statecharts for flight software

Statecharts have been used as a means to communicate behaviors in a precise manner between system engineers and software engineers. Handtranslating a statechart to code, as done on some previous space missions, introduces the possibility of errors in the transformation from chart to code. To improve auto-coding, we have developed a process that generates flight code from UML statecharts. Our process is being used for the flight software on the Space Interferometer Mission (SIM)

Durable Digital Objects Rather Than Digital Preservation

Long-term digital preservation is not the best available objective. Instead, what information producers and consumers almost surely want is a universe of durable digital objects—documents and programs that will be as accessible and useful a century from now as they are today. Given the will, we could implement and deploy a practical and pleasing durability infrastructure within two years. Tools for daily work can embed packaging for durability without much burdening their users. Moving responsibility for durability from archival employees to information producers would also avoid burdening repositories with keeping up with Internet scale. An engineering prescription is available. Research libraries’ and archives’ slow advance towards practical preservation of digital content is remarkable to outsiders. Why does their progress seem stalled? Ineffective collaboration across disciplinary boundaries has surely been a major impediment. We speculate about cultural reasons for this situation and warn about possible marginalization of research librarianship as a profession.