Migration on request, a practical technique for preservation

Maintaining a digital object in a usable state over time is a crucial aspect of digital preservation. Existing methods of preserving have many drawbacks. This paper describes advanced techniques of data migration which can be used to support preservation more accurately and cost effectively. To ensure that preserved works can be rendered on current computer systems over time, “traditional migration” has been used to convert data into current formats. As the new format becomes obsolete another conversion is performed, etcetera. Traditional migration has many inherent problems as errors during transformation propagate throughout future transformations. CAMiLEON’s software longevity principles can be applied to a migration strategy, offering improvements over traditional migration. This new approach is named “Migration on Request.” Migration on Request shifts the burden of preservation onto a single tool, which is maintained over time. Always returning to the original format enables potential errors to be significantly reduced

Idylls of socialism : the Sarajevo Documentary School and the problem of the Bosnian sub-proletariat

This historical overview of the Sarajevo Documentary School considers the films, in the light of their recent re-emergence, as indicative of both the legacy of socialist realism (even in the context of Yugoslav media) and attempted social engineering in the Bosnia of the 1960s and 1970s. The argument is made that the documentaries, despite their questionable aesthetic status (in respect of cinma-vrit and ethnography) and problematic ideological strategies and attempted interventions, document a history and offer insights that counter the prevailing revisionist trends in the presentation of Eastern and Central European history

Discovering the Unfindable: The Tension Between Findability and Discoverability in a Bookshop Designed for Serendipity

Serendipity is a key aspect of user experience, particularly in the context of information acquisition - where it is known as information encountering. Unexpectedly encountering interesting or useful information can spark new insights while surprising and delighting. However, digital environments have been designed primarily for goal-directed seeking over loosely-directed exploration, searching over discovering. In this paper we examine a novel physical environment - a bookshop designed primarily for serendipity - for cues as to how information encountering might be helped or hindered by digital design. Naturalistic observations and interviews revealed it was almost impossible for participants to find specific books or topics other than by accident. But all unexpectedly encoun-tered interesting books, highlighting a tension between findability and discoverability. While some of the bookshop’s design features enabled information en-countering, others inhibited it. However, encountering was resilient, as it occurred despite participants finding it hard to understand the purpose of even those features that did enable it. Findings suggest the need to consider how transparent or opaque the purpose of design features should be and to balance structure and lack of it when designing digital environments for findability and discoverability

Cupid Car Club concert set list, September 1993

A list of songs performed by the Washington, D.C. punk band Cupid Car Club in September 1993 at the Black Cat in Washington, D.C. The list was used by the band during the performance and retrieved from the stage after the concert by musician and fanzine editor John Davis. The other side of the paper includes a list of the band's friends and associates, labeled "Brethren.