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.

Versioning Charters: On the Multiple Identities of Historical Legal Documents and their Digital Representation

This chapter proposes a model for the concept of versions and how it can be applied in the scholarly discipline of diplomatics, the study of historical legal documents. It describes the various concepts and physical things the discipline of diplomatics connects with the term charter, as well as the practice of people working with them. The chapter also connects the history of preparing, engrossing and copying charters, with the archival and scholarly practices of describing, editing, or photographing, including transforming charters into digital representations. By drawing on the Functional Requirements for Bibliographical Records (FRBR), the Vocabulaire Internationale de la Diplomatique, and charter databases such as monasterium.net and The Making of Charlemagne’s Europe, the author argues that a model for versions of charters should not start with a definition of charter, but rather with the network of relationships which can be considered instantiations of versioning. W3C Resource Description Framework (RDF) representations of the data fragments used to represent a charter—for example images, descriptions, texts, legal actions, archival and other identifiers—allow a giant graph of charter versions to be created and help to use and approach the rich set of charter databases as integrated resource

Digital Diplomatics: What could the Computer Change in the Study of Medieval Documents?

The essay discusses the research possibilities created by the computer for diplomatic research. Following the steps of traditional scholarly work with medieval documentary heritage (heuristics, documentation, comparison, grouping, establishing rules, diplomatic critique, scholarly edition) it evaluates recent studies applying digital methods to charters. It argues that the easier accessibility of images online, the possibility to process large numbers of documents and a new conceptualisation of editing bring significant changes to diplomatics. It tries to identify the major changes in five fields: (1) verbal description is characterised by classification, rather than representation; (2) visual evaluation is enhanced by easy access to images and by the help of image analysis software; (3) full text search supported by natural language processing software makes it possible to connect a single charter to others hidden in large charter corpora characteristic of the Late Middle Ages; (4) statistical methods and visualization of large data sets helps to see the single charter in its full contemporary context; (5) digital editing can aggregate work done separately in one common representation and makes the editors’ knowledge on the documents explicit. Raising the question if this “digital diplomatics” is fundamentally different from pre-digital diplomatics, it comes to the conclusion that digital diplomatics helps to relieve the research of medieval documents from epistemological constraints determined by the conceptualisation of its results as to be represented in the form of a printed book

Versioning Cultural Objects : Digital Approaches

This volume approaches an understanding of the term versioning in the broadest sense, discussing ideas about how versions differ across forms of media, including text, image, and sound. Versions of cultural objects are identified, defined, articulated, and analysed through diverse mechanisms in different fields of research. The study of versions allows for the investigation of the creative processes behind the conception of works, a closer inspection of their socio-political contexts, and promotes investigation of their provenance and circulation. Chapters in this volume include discussion of what a “version” means in different fields, case studies implementing digital versioning techniques, conceptual models for representing versions digitally, and computational and management issues for digital projects

A framework to authenticate records in a government accounting system in Botswana to support the auditing process

An audit of financial statements relies heavily on authentic records to yield informed audit opinions. Without proper records of transactions, the objective of auditing financial statements becomes difficult. In the digital environment, determining the authenticity of digital documents for purposes of auditing is even more problematic because of a lack of criteria used by auditors for the declaration of such authenticity. This study sought to develop a framework for the authentication of records in a government accounting system in Botswana with a view to supporting the audit process in the public sector. This qualitative study framed within the interpretivism epistemological research paradigm, used archival diplomatics as a theoretical lens. Data were collected through system analysis, analysis of documents such as legislation, as well as interviews with auditors, ICT professionals and records management practitioners purposively selected from the Botswana National Archives and Records Services, Office of the Auditor General, Department of Information Technology, Accountant-General’s Department, Department of Internal Audit and Department of Corporate Services of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development. The study established that the legislative framework for managing digital records does exist in Botswana. A lack of skills by records management professionals and auditors to authenticate digital records was also noted. The absence of some criteria to authenticate digital records means that auditors use their own discretion with regard to their authenticity. In addition, as a business system, the Government Accounting and Budgeting System (GABS) does produce and store digital records, but their authenticity and availability over time are not guaranteed. This weakness can be addressed by integrating GABS with an Enterprise Content Management (ECM). Currently, records authenticity in GABS is ensured through reliance on social and technical indicators (information technology and system application controls). The study suggests a framework for the authentication of digital accounting records in a government accounting system with the hope that its implementation would support the audit process. It is concluded that because of the failure to establish guidelines and checklists for auditors to authenticate digital records, there will be continued reliance on information technology and system application controls. Therefore, it is recommended that the Auditor General should develop a checklist for authentication. A further study of the integration of Government Accounting and Budgeting System with an Enterprise Content Management to properly manage digital records produced and stored in the system is recommended.Information ScienceD. Phil. (Information Science

Specifying a TEI-XML Based Format for Aligning Text to Image at Character Level

International audienceThis papers presents an experience of specifying and implementing an XML format for text to image alignment at word and character level within the TEI framework. The format in question is a supplementary markup layer applied to heterogeneous transcriptions of medieval Latin and French manuscripts encoded using different " flavors " of the TEI (normalized for critical editions, diplomatic or palaeographic transcriptions). One of the problems that had to be solved was identifying " non-alignable " spans in various kinds of transcriptions. Originally designed in the framework of a research project on the ontology of letter-forms in medieval Latin and vernacular (mostly French) manuscripts and inscriptions, this format can be of use for all kinds of projects that involve fine-grain alignment of transcriptions with zones on digital images

INSTRUMENTS OF POWER Developing and Applying Diplomatic Analysis to Enhance Archival Interpretation and Research Uses of Technical Drawings

This study presents a solution to the difficulties of making historical technical drawings available for research. In archives services, such hard-copy drawings are frequently found to be much less manageable than other forms of archival record. Technical drawings can be very complicated intellectually, while also being large and awkward to handle. Archival effort might thus be directed towards making less difficult forms of record available for research. These problems, which impede access to research resources, have not been attended to in the literature. A new way of understanding technical drawings has been created through an innovative development of diplomatic analysis. Traditionally used for historical text analysis, diplomatic has not been applied previously to graphical records such as technical drawings. With this theoretical lens, and statistical techniques, the research design followed the principles of mixed methods methodology. The core of the study comprised a detailed quantitative survey and analysis of a statistical sample of C20th technical drawings. Language was found to be the key to their better understanding. A model was developed to translate the language of technical drawing concepts and characteristics into archival terms. The survey’s statistically robust and replicable results identified concepts and characteristics that were generic, or nearly so. When interpreted and described, those ubiquitous elements will provide a means to enhance understanding of technical drawings held as archives. The research results therefore provide a sound basis for drafting practical guidance for interpreting and processing such technical drawings. That guidance will help to make technical drawings more accessible to researchers. Diplomatic theory has been extended by this research. The utility of diplomatic’s application to graphical records has been demonstrated. So, too, has diplomatic’s extension to records capable of being reprographically reproduced. Unexpectedly, questions have arisen for technical drawings’ certification and authorisation in their original contexts of use. The robust research design and methodology that has been developed is capable of generalisation in future research

Studies in Historical Documents from Nepal and India

study of religion|indology|anthropology|history|tibetolog

Advances in Distant Diplomatics: A Stylometric Approach to Medieval Charters

The quantitative analysis of writing style (stylometry) is becoming an increasingly common research instrument in philology. When it comes to medieval texts, such a methodology might be able to help us disentangle the multiple authorial strata that can often be discerned in them (issuer, dictator, scribe, etc.). To deliver a proof of concept in 'distant diplomatics,' we have turned to a corpus of twelfth-century Latin charters from the Cambrai episcopal chancery. We subjected this collection to an (unsupervised) stylometric modelling procedure, based on lexical frequency extraction and dimension reduction. In the absence of a sizable 'ground truth' for this material, we zoomed in on a specific case study, namely the oeuvre of the previously identified dictator-scribe known as 'RogF/JeanE.' Our results offer additional support for the attribution of a diplomatic oeuvre to this individual and even allow us to enlarge it with additional documents. Our analysis moreover yielded the serendipitous discovery of another, previously unnoticed, oeuvre, which we tentatively attribute to a scribe-dictator 'JeanB.' We conclude that the large-scale stylometric analysis is a promising methodology for digital diplomatics. More efforts, however, will have to be invested in establishing gold standards for this method to realize its full potential

ISAD(G): synthesis or innovation in archival description traditions?

Over the past years the International Council on Archives (ICA) has developed the "International Standards for Archival Description" ISAD(G). The last draft of the ISAD(G) was adopted by the ICA in 1993 and was revised at the 14 th International Congress on Archives held in Seville, in September 2000. However, at present the ISAD(G) is not yet well known and not often used in countries with strong national archival traditions. After giving an overview on traditional definitions of archival description, my research analyses the current implementation of the ISAD(G) in North America, in some European countries and in the institutions of the European Union. The application of ISAD(G) with its innovative key-elements represents a starting-point for future developments of archival description in the international debate among archivists. This research deals also with the difficult implementation of these standards in databases through the examination of several case studies. It also looks at the impact of electronic records on traditional archival theory and on archival description techniques. The thesis analyses the impact of the Internet on archival theory and practice, and looks at the Internet's challenge to access policies through the replacement of traditional finding aids. In the conclusions the thesis analyses the ICA's revision of the "International Standard Archival Authority Record (Corporate Bodies, Persons and Families)", ISAAR(CPF), in its relationship to the implementation of ISAD(G) in view of possible outcomes for future techniques of archival description, and makes proposals for future research